Couch Coach

Mike Green suspended for 3 games, for elbowing.  No injury, 2 minute penalty.  I call it Mike Greengate.  It has prompted discussions on media bias, counter replies, and generally been pretty silly.  For one thing, Green was kneed later in the game and sent off with some sort of injury.  Three games off is just what the doctor ordered anyway.  But in the end, it’s nothing but a distraction.  Does Mike Green have a history of dirty, borderline plays that deserve big suspensions?  Nope.  But his physical play is remarkable for one thing – he only hits when he gets pissed, and then just a few hits.

I believe the Caps would be better off if Green stepped into a hitting role a little more often.  Every game?  No way.  But by adding a random element to his hitting game, he could make some more space for himself.  Pothier does this very well, for instance.  And Erskine too, tho in a reverse way.

As it is, teams know that if they leave Green alone, he won’t be doing big hits.  Clearly, some teams can’t resist and do it anyway.  And in the end, why not?  You might get him off the ice in a retaliation penalty.

For a contrast, look at Chris Pronger.  He does not hit that much overall, in the course of a game.  But he definitely will do it at some point in a game, so everyone keeps one eye on him out of fear.  And this makes him that much more in control of the flow of the game. And no one thinks that he “only hits when he is mad” and so they don’t assign 3 game suspensions to him when he knocks he crap out of some unlucky forward.

This brings me to part two – Mike Green should not have gotten injured, because he should not, ever, be carrying the puck across the blue line in the lead.  I have seen this time and again this season, although lately he has been doing it less.

And before anyone thinks I am down on Green, far from it.  He is indeed able of making a one man offensive rush happen, allowing everyone else to line change, or get into great jumping off positions.  He can punch down at just the right time, he can hold a puck in the zone, and he can hold a solid defensive zone game together as well.   He was doing all wrist shots at the beginning of the season, and now is mixing that up, sometimes firing slapshots for goals or for deflections, and even the “bounce it off the rink into the crease” type.  Good stuff.

But.  He does not fare well when he carries the puck over the blueline on his stick.  Dump it, yes.  Lob it, sure.  Pass to a forward who is sitting there hovering on the blue line like a vulture waiting to feed yes.

But carrying it in is not his strength.  Usually it gets taken from him.  Other times he gets hit.  Or in this case he got his clock cleaned.

But you can only figure a guy that young with his skill level is just going to get better as he gets more experience.  And if he stalls in his development at some future point, he is some serious trade bait.

-Bobomite

I was watching Calgary last night decimate the lousy Oilers. Phaneuf and Bouwmeester on the same team seemed like a tough young core for D-men. But today Phaneuf traded to Toronto was a big surprise.

One of the players involved in the trade for him was Matt Stajan. I was thinking this week if the Caps did a trade, maybe Stajan would be who they would go after. The Caps need some depth down the middle and I was wondering with the Leafs sinking, their roster would be free game.

Watched the Canucks last night and the Sedin twins with Burrows line work like poetry in motion. They look like a very dominate team and that line looks to be maybe the strongest in the league. The passing was unreal. They know where the other is before they are there. That is one team come playoffs that may dominant the Western Conference.

And by best ever I mean for all time, not just this season.

With the exception of a few soft games at the end of the southwest division swing, they have been playing at an almost flawless level for the last dozen or so.  Their offense has been dominating team after team.  Defense has been tightening down their play and really improving.  The lines are stabilized, and each line is playing very well for its role.  In fact, the second line combo has been so strong that the Caps just about have 2 first lines, night after night.  Enviable.

Let’s just look at the first line.  We will say that the rest of the team playing with this same sort of balance and skill, in their roles.

Here, Knuble makes a perfect complement to Ovechkin and Backstrom.  He is like the deadly one-inch punch, able to score off any contact with the puck no matter how random or close to the goal.  Sometimes he cleans up on an Ovechkin shot and sometimes Ovechkin cleans up his rebounds.  The goalies must be putting on Depends undergarments when they have these two circling them.

And then Backstrom is there the whole time, quarterbacking it.  Oh and he has no problem putting in himself, either.  You know a team is in deep trouble when they are triple-covering Backstrom…  It is usually a matter of seconds before they are down a goal at that point.  Ask Anaheim, it happened to them just the other evening.

And seriously, the other lines and the defensive pairs are doing great jobs too.  Let’s take number 28 for example, who is playing so well right now that he is making highlight-reel quality goals faster than Hostess makes hoecakes.

Even goaltending has been good enough, even though there is a strange triangle with the injured Varlamov, the fragile Theo, and the green Neuvirth.  But with any luck that will sort itself out.   And the Caps are just not letting teams get second and third shots very often, keeping the goalies warm and snug most games these days.

And I would have to agree with Daggone here…  There is no reason to be talking trades or even wasting time thinking about them.  Sure, defense could be tinkered with.  But the current setup has some solid vets and room for Carlson and Alzner to step in slowly.

-Bobomite

Few quick notes..

Meant to say a few games ago about how far Flash has come. He has really turned the corner this season and more so as of late.

Ovie was a beast. He knows how to get up for great games. I am sure many pens posters will call him selfish and cherry picker for how he was gunning the last minute for the empty net but come on if that was Crysby they would be all for it.

I enjoyed the 5th goal by Backstrom. Why? Because that lined ruled pittsburgh in their own zone. What was best was Gonchar just stood there like his feet were in mud and just watched. Ahh, that brings me back to the good ole Gonchar days. He was always good for giving up a timely goal.

As for the crowd, it was nice to see so many Caps fans speckled throughout.
As for the Pens fans, come on, people write on how great Pittsburgh is for hockey, (I can write so many things to dispute that but I digress) and this team is the reigning champs with superstar Malkin but with a 1:30 left down by two the fans filed out. You can’t stay for another minute and a half??

BTW-
I am tired of some people saying the Caps need a veteran presence. Not sure what they consider Morrison and Knuble and to a lesser extent Chimera, Poti and Bradley.
I am not sure the roster has room for any more forwards. You can pick up a veteran forward like the Pens did with Guerin and only fit him in if he likes to play the 4th line. With that said I could see Gordon or Fehr being moved if it was the right piece.
The place they could use an upgrade is on defense but there again, who do you sit? You would have to move someone out to bring that guy in. I could see either Erskine and/or Pothier moved for a more stay at home physical guy.
I would keep Sloan. He is like an old Ken Klee. He can play forward or D which can be valuable in the playoffs with players getting banged up.

-Daggone

The Caps took it to their division foe. They dug in early with good goaltending and then just stuck to their game.

I think they have some serious considerations at the net position come playoffs. I think Jose is on his way out.

The Caps did get a little too cute in their passing late in the game. But who can blame them. Up by a bushel, why not get fancy.

They seem to be able to handle the East pretty well. The problem is they struggle with west teams. Maybe because the west teams are more like the Caps than any east teams. They need to learn how to play against speed and skill. Although, Atlanta has a lot of that, they just don’t seem complete like a San Jose.

-Daggone

The last two Caps games have been a real pleasure to watch.  The Caps are showing a much more healthy style of play these days.  A little more gritty, no aversion to mixing dump-n-chase with pretty passes, and much more defensive structure.  Also of note is that there have been more shots from the point and shots off the glass to get rebounds in front of the net, another good trend.  The Peerlees Prognosticator damned this trend with faint praise calling it “workmanlike play.”  But I think he misses the point – by mixing it up the Caps are less predictable.  The opposing defense has been backing off because they can’t trust that every single play will be of the stickhandle-n-pass variety, and it is working.

The Laich-Fleischmann-Semin line seems to be a very nice combo when The Jizz is present and accounted for.  (And he was at 200% against Montreal!) I think the Caps are much better off spreading out from the traditional Ovie-Backstrom-Semin line and rotating others into the first line.  Knuble is doing good in that regard, he is a net crashing missile as always.  I daresay his finger cannot possibly be 100% - he looks a little ham handed.  But he needed screws and plates in that finger so frankly I am surprised he didn’t take a lot more time on IR.  But sore finger or not he can clearly bang the puck in paddle-style as well.  And the chaos he brings to the crease is invaluable.

Accolades would be too numerous to hand out all around.  Of special note: Backstrom – on fire.  Fleischmann doing great at center.  Gordon with a sweet goal.  (I kind of forgot he even played for the team in fact.)  Laich just never stops working, I love the way that guy plays.  Steckel and Sloan with contract extensions, good moves.  Sloan there has been grumbling about, but I think everyone forgets how quickly injuries can pile up like they did in September and October.

And a special note on Mike Green – he has been playing great these last few.  I noticed that people are still pinging him (by default I suppose) for any turnover.  I myself have been critical of the guy at times.  But from watching what he is doing, he actually is playing a very tight game.  He has been blasting from the point and only pinching when appropriate.  He is hitting a bit more as well.  And he is not just trying to stickhandle into the zone against 3 guys all by himself.  He will score many more goals if he keeps this up, and strengthen the defense to boot.  Your loss, Team Canada.

As for the trade and all, I think it was a great move.  Ovie as captain is a great move.  He clearly takes it very seriously.  Chimera is not a game changer but he contributes more than Clark did in a pure on-ice assessment.  Jurnica I liked but I don’t think his absence will hurt the Caps in any way.  In fact, getting Alzner and Carlson rotating into the mix more will be a very good thing in my book.  Alzner may be rotated back the AHL right now, but he plays with a certain confidence and leadership that is nice to see.  And Carlson clearly will be a scoring threat, based on goals he already scored for the Caps and his World Juniors OT goal.

The only sad part is that I watched a few Columbus games after the trade and Clark and Jurnica were clearly very upset by it all.  The first few interviews were hard to watch, I thought they might start crying.  But all the best to them, the clearly loved playing for the Caps.  I don’t think it was a good trade because those guys sucked, or were a negative drain on the team.  I think it was a good trade for other reasons and the benefits that are clearly starting to show already.

Well here’s looking forward to a 3-game divisional road trip.  Should be some tough and interesting games for those reasons, despite the Caps much better overall record than Atlanta, Tampa and Florida.

The Caps got beat down like a litter of puggles that wandered into Michael Vick’s basement.

They came out flat and disorganized and left the ice in pretty much the same state.  The Caps just didn’t play as a team. Individually they were not that hot either.

And a side note - the Sharks do have some odd traditions.  These include a smoking shark head that the players skate through at the beginning, which looks like a giant bong.  I mean it fills the rink and most of the arena with smoke at the start.  I read some quote from Ovie about “not being able to breathe in the first” and I know exactly what he meant.  It then hangs way up in the rafters the rest of the game and emits clouds of smoke when the Sharks score.  Oh and they have a dude in a stuffed-animal shark suit who rappels from the ceiling at the beginning and make hip thrusts at the crowd to techno music.  Not cool.  Well, on to the game.

Neuvirth seemed ok in goal, for a while.  The game would have absolutely, positively been 4-0 or 5-0 in the first if he had not been standing tall out of the gate.  But the pressure never let up on him, and it came at random times.  There was one point (about halfway through the 2nd)  when he’d been hit with about the 10th barrage of shots, just getting hammered to pieces.  The puck came to a stop right in front of him and he just stared at it, dazed and confused. S. Morrison had to tip it into his glove so he could freeze it.  I was thinking, “Uh oh, he’s lost it.”  He also got an unbelievable 2 penalty shots awarded against him, and a frisky shot (right in his face) that left him bowing to mecca for a minute or two.  Rough night for the rookie.

The Jizz blew his load in the first minute, attempting 2 shots and a pass.  Failing at all 3 efforts he seemed to doze off for most of the rest of the game.  Well, until he blew a goal-mouth pass from Ovie during a 2-on-nothing breakaway by shooting it right into Nabokov.  He was truly off the radar from then on.

But it wasn’t number 28 alone - the Caps just looked lost in the sauce.  Mike Knuble was as surprised as anyone else when he dribbled one in while standing in the crease.  Chimera did good (assisting on that goal) but definitely had that look of, “damn, what’s my place in all this chaos?”  Which I get 100%.

Overall team defense was ok except when it really mattered.  Mike Green made a haphazard dash into 3 Shark defenders and got off a wobbly wrist shot at one point.  He then raced back the other way chasing a few Sharks that were taking the biscuit home all by themselves.  On the bright side, he only tried that once.

Backstrom was not on the ball for this one either.  Whenever Backstrom gets pissed off, he should repeat to himself himself: “I will not weakly cross-check an opposing player, get a penalty, and look like a silly Swedish dandy.”

Overall, the Caps played too fancy until the 3rd, and then tried more dump and chase.  (Including Knuble’s goal.)  I will say that Nabokov makes it hard for the dump and chase to work, because he moves pucks like hot cakes.  In the end the Caps started lobbing the puck into the zone to get the hang-time up so that Nabby couldn’t take the chance of getting caught out.  That was a damn good idea, but needed to be done from the beginning.

Ovie was not too sharp until the 3rd.  He kept trying to stickhandle in but the Sharks were on him like glue.  He did, however get doused in vodka and set on fire in the last 5 minutes of the game.  He was running around like a madman.  Hitting everything, and I mean that literally - he took out a linesman by accident at one point.  He scored right off a faceoff, so fast that no one even knew what happened.  He was later hitting one guy while the puck was right next to him, unnoticed.  Then he grabbed it and hammered a shot.  And kept doing it.  Open ice hits, crunches on the boards, and the hip check on the linesman…  it was a box of chocolates.  Good Lord Above, if he could play like that all the time the rest of the NHL would just call it quits and move to the KHL.  It was three of the most amazing shifts of hockey I have ever seen.  I was muttering “don’t get injured” to myself, though - he just can’t do that all the time.

Alas, the Sharks did not fold under all that pressure, and the game was over long before this sweet rampage even started.  As Japer’s Rink put it, this game will fade from memory over time, and the season is not even at the halfway point.

Let’s see what happens next in LA on Saturday.

-Bobomite

I just watched HNIC, (tho I don’t know why I bother) and I saw Don Cherry’s take on Koci’s hit on Mike Green.  So evidently it was Green’s fault for facing the boards.  The other guy, the ass-hat that sits next to him, was like “I thought Koci should have got a suspension for the hit, but when you explain it that way, it was Green’s fault.”

I was looking around; he is evidently listed as one of Canada’s greatest 10 people.

Pitiful.

-Bobomite

Well the game was not horrible, I’ll say that much.  However, it was not particularly impressive either.  Vancouver outworked the Caps overall, and seemed to want it a lot more.  And Vancouver also played the night before, the Caps have had a few days off - so no excuses about the plane was broken or my poocat hurt.

Powerplay situations were not helping the Caps.  On their own powerplays (4 I think) they got basically no shots which is notable considering the firepower the team packs.  I only saw one minute of one of the powerplays as having that “killer instinct.”  And then the refs made some strange calls.  They called a very questionable holding on Erskine in the first.  Then Poti got high sticking for no reason I could see, and then game him 2 more for “slamming the door to the penalty box.”  I mean come on is this a hockey game or an elementary school?

They must have felt bad about that because they gave Semin a penalty shot that normally would have been a penalty (and in hindsight would have been a lot better.)  Unfortunately though, he blew his load early and low, right into Luongo’s pad.

And one of the goals was a very direct result of GreenLife52 pinching down way too far to take a wrist shot - he got picked clean and only SMo was back to defend the 2-1 that resulted.  And they scored.  So on the one hand I guess you’d say this is what can happen if you have an offensive defenseman…  On the other hand, it was not good, at all.  He came in pinching on a non-screened shot, Luongo had 20 clear feet of ice to see it all, and in fact directed the rebound perfectly to the breakout guys.  Green really must not want to play on the Olympic team because I am quite sure that clip will be splashed around up north.  It was just not a good play.

But whatever, let’s see how the Caps do with Edmonton.

-Bobomite

The past few days have included a number of hockey news stories about the quality of teams in the Easy vs. teams in the West. Consensus has been that the West has the better teams. Everyone from the ESPN power rankings dude to commenters at Japer’s Rink were going along with that logic.

Well so much for that argument. Ok so one game against the Avs (who just had a hard-fought battle the night before) may not prove or disprove much, but it was a nice game to watch. Even if the Avs were tired, the Caps executed almost perfectly. Solid team effort, with good defensive efforts and solid goaltending by Mr. Theodore. The support crew was firing on all cylinders and the first line was not playing too fancy at all.

More like this, please! And man, where were they hiding Wilson? I want to see more of that number 57 out there. Perreault I like but Wilson is going to be hard to take that center job away from. And Alzner is still fitting right in - he looks confident and collected out there most of the time.

On a Hockey Night in Canada broadcast liberally peppered with shots and long editorial comments about the Capitals over-curved sticks, Toronto punished the Caps harshly. The first period looked great and a 2-0 lead made the game look like a slam dunk.

Nothing could be further from the result. The last 40 minutes were a crumbling collapse of epic proportions.

Neuvith might be as brilliant as they say, but he made the most amazing impression of a giant block of swiss cheese that I have seen in a long time. He made Theo’s play last night look like superstar quality.

Perreault is sliding by the game. The support crew is not getting any momentum. The defense is getting run over like small orange road cones on the side of the freeway. Fancy first line play is eating all the ice time and the Caps have returned to the crazy manic-depressive play (or is that high-risk, high-reward?) and to be honest I liked it better when they played some regular hockey too.

Hanging in by fingernails with Carolina and then getting slapped silly by Toronto… It’s going to be a long month at this rate.

-Bobomite