Couch Coach

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

What is not to like. Semin warms up, Perreault sets up the lead and Mike Green finishes it off after laying down many good hits.

It was great to see Knuble back in action, tho clearly his finger is still hurt. Theo had a terrible, terrible start but came back into the game with some awesome saves in the last half. I’ll take it. Let’s work out Neuvith on this road trip.

Man this was some clean hockey, as well. Carolina was playing well and Ward was tight for most of it. They had a 2-0 lead and it looked like another shutout against the Caps in the first. But Semin caught on fire, just killed it with some sick moves.

Looking forward to the coming road trip!

-Bobomite

Generally you’d think there would be no merit to a 3-0 loss. But in this case, I’d actually say the Caps did most things right. Ovie, Backstrom and a few others had half a dozen seemingly wide open chances. Some went wide, some were amazing saves. Luck was definitely with the Sabers.

The Sabres also hustled a lot and were ready to come back from their double-last shutout, both from the last game with the Caps and their last actual game. They were only flat for any length of time early in the second. The Caps however started slow and took 2 periods to warm up. Better go to the morning skate more often, guys!

That goalie Miller played an awesome game. He was so good I caught myself smiling on a few of those saves and then I felt guilty for 2 minutes. But overall the game was some good, clean hockey. No gooning around and a good effort from both sides.

Encouraging signs:

-The defensive effort was pretty consistent; Buffalo was hot tonight.
-Offensive play was also strong, especially for the first line.
-Theo let in only one bad goal, the other two were awesome shots - he did ok overall and that is fine.
-Giroux showed one thing more clearly - he can skate fast. He didn’t do much but he can move like a jet.
-Backstrom is starting to hit people a bit. Who would have guessed?
-S. Morrison back and hitting, I liked it.

Discouraging signs:

-It did kind of seem like everyone was trying to set up Ovie with cherry-picking passes too much…
-The same Gr8 dived like a thespian and got caught red-handed… not impressive man. You gotta know Don Cherry will pick up that video and all the refs and the NHL suspension team will watch the replays. Come on.
-Mike Green gets stripped when stick-handling into the zone 90% of the time and tonight it was more like 99%
-Fehr, Stekel, the blue collar contingent in general were ghosts. Laich hung in overall but he and Brendan Morrison can’t do it all. Man is Knuble back yet??
-Seems like there are 2 teams, one with Ovie and one without… If those 2 Caps team can play together then they are unstoppable.
-Semin is cold again. (Trade him for a stack of 1st round picks please. Fehr needs some center stage time and Backstrom needs all the money Semin was collecting.)
-Varley has a groin injury, but then again it’s starting in March that he needs to be ready. He has been playing very, very well. Put Neuvith in some more and see what happens.

-Bobomite

As I figured, the Pens would become tired of him and place him on waivers and the Caps would pick him right back up. I don’t know what Caps fans fascination with him is. Maybe because he is Ray’s son or he is small and quick thinking he can be another St Louis. Maybe as he gets older he could be but I don’t see it. Then again, maybe is he got playing time with the Caps roster and not the Pens, he may do better. The style the Caps play is more to his ability. I doubt he will see any time this season unless there is an extended injury to a starter. GM likes to pull up guys who he can send back down without having to clear waivers.

Ovie of course played well as I figured after sitting and watching everyone on the team score. Varly looked solid again. I wonder how long until Boudreau just takes him for a ride and plays him like 10 straight. He is playing much better than Jose. I think the Caps play better D when he is in.

I have been occupied with the holidays, birthdays and everything in between so here is a short on the long that has happened.

The Ovi knee/suppension, I am kind of torn. On one hand I think he needed to be suspended because he was booted from 2 game in a matter of days. On the other hand I am not that sure the hit on the knee warranted being booted. Ovi does need to tone it down since he isn’t the inforcer. He will just shorten his career and hurt the team by him being out. On the other hand it’s nice to have a player that plays all out all the time. The thing that gets me on some of his hits or near hits is it takes him out of the play and sometimes it is well after the puck as gone. He needs to be in the play. With that said, 2 wins with him out and he gets some rest for both his knee and for that upper body injury he had earlier so it isn’t all bad.

So far it appears that with the suspension and the fact the Caps have been winning without him, I think him getting MVP again is all but gone.

Now to the Philly game. There are 3 things that bring joy in sports. Redskins beating the Cowboys, Caps beating the Pens and Caps beating the Flyers. It is so nice to see the Caps school the Flyers in their own building. What was really nice is to hear that the place was filled with Caps fans! Where are the Flyer fans?? I thought the place was a sellout all games??? This was a Saturday game not Tuesday game! The Flyer fans continue to show why Philly fans are the worst. Down many, many goals and a slapper from across the ice catches the ref in the head. He drops like a rock. What do the majority of Flyer fans do?! Cheer. Brilliant. And they wonder why they get a bad rap?? And don’t even say that Ovi is a cheap shot when their own player cheap shot Bradley and got booted. That is a suspension!

Tampa is next. Critical division game. Tampa is looking better than thought this year. Caps need to put more space between them so wins here are critical. Ovi is back and I am sure he will be fired up.

Seriously, the Caps schedule sucks. It’s a bunch of road games every other day and then a west coast road swing. All for the Olympics…..

-Daggone

Now this was a good game. Not perfect, but so much better than the last 3 that I am inclined to be pretty impressed.

The AHL contingent looked good. Alzner seemed to play just fine, making him and Carlson look like they are worth the hype. So maybe the Caps don’t need to be in a rush trade up the defense. Carlson is especially green, but he clearly has some big potential.

I did look into Finnish defensemen that might be good for the caps. Unfortunately there are not many at all. Timmonen from the Flyers would be the only real choice I see. And he has a phat multi-year contract and even if he didn’t I doubt the Flyers are in any hurry to trade him. Certainly not for “Circles,” there’s no way he’d fit into their style of play either. So then there are like 2 Finns that are defenders that might be available but they bounce back and forth to the AHL on their own clubs… I don’t even remember their names because watching Carlson and Alzner made me think it would not even be worth the time to bother.

And Pothier was looking sharp and has been doing pretty well for himself… S. Morrison is ok on the balance. Mike Green makes a load of giveaways every game but unlike Semin in a rut, he generally seems to make more things happen then he messes up. Maybe in a year or two he’ll settle down into more focused stye, who knows.

Erskine is probably one of my favorite defensemen but he has not been playing to well overall. I like that he always steps up to the scrum though. Poti, I have not seen much I liked from him. Sloan, who knows, it’s cool that he plays both ways but I’m not sure he’s the strongest defender.

Jurnica has been doing better and he’s pretty cheap. Schultz must have some skills I guess, I see him out there in penalty kills and stuff.

Well enough ramblings, I bet things will keep changing as the season goes on anyways. This kind of speculation brings me back to nhlnumbers.com and looking at salaries and contracts and then I start wishing the Nylander thing was resolved to that the Caps could at least keep a consistent AHL group together… Then I get mad. Enough of that, time for some turkey.

I see a lot of comments that the Caps are not consistent. This could not be further from the truth.

They have gotten very consistent at blowing leads, taking penalties in the third period, and generally not finishing games off with any vigor. Even with 7 regular player out they are able to stick to this gameplan.

Tonight was a perfect example of this. Wow they had the Senators down and out at the end of the 2nd. But it turns out no one showed up to play for the third period. Ovechkin and Clark joined all the others in getting ridiculous 3rd period penalties. Green had more giveaways than Costco serves food samples. Including the one at the end which led to the goal.

Wow, I thought the Montreal game was bad but the Toronto game was even worse. I don’t think I’ve seen the Caps play worse anytime recently then in this game. Why even bother to list what went wrong. Seven injuries, but still.

Varley was ok, at least there was that. He got skooled in the shootout, but still a solid game for him at least.

Carlson has looked good, but he does seem green. (No pun intended.) Neuvith didn’t look so hot against Montreal but the guys him front of him were not too impressive either, so I don’t care so much about it.

Watching a bit of the Detroit vs Dallas game with Dallas up 2-1 in the 3rd. Detroit CLEARLY had a goal and the whistle CLEARLY blew about 2 seconds after it was in the goal yet it was a no goal. Even after replay. With the explanation that the whistle killed the play. What the heck is replay there for if in the replay everyone can hear the whistle and see the puck yet it still doesn’t count?!
Then again, it wasn’t the Caps so what do I care!

Quote from Inside Hockey:

http://www.insidehockey.com/columns/4962

“Unlike previous reports throughout the media world stated on Wednesday night, Capitals have confirmed that Michael Nylander (Washington Capitals) will not be going to Russia this season. Nylander has a no-trade clause and the Capitals will retain Nylander for the remainder of the season. Nylander was a scratch on Saturday and he will remain on the roster, according to the Capitals.”

The Rangers tried all kinds of tricks, but were unable to get Gaborik the hat trick he was shooting for. Sean Avery punched Varlimov in the face, but managed to not be seen, drawing a penalty on Erskine for shoving him afterward. It was an interesting game, and in the end the Caps managed to hold things together and even score an empty netter for some icing on the cake.

It was definitely not welcome news that Laing broke his jaw blocking a shot however. The Caps may need to open shuttle bus service to Hershey soon. That is going to take a while to heal obviously.

And so will Bradley’s face - he took a pounding in a fight early on. But clearly he bottled up that rage to then streak at lightning speed up the ice, split the defense and score a NHL On The Fly highlight reel goal. Wow, that was impressive.

Green and the rest of the D looked ok as a group. The Caps got closed in a box in 5-on-5 play a number of times, but played it pretty calmly and then came back with a series of lightning attacks. They had a hard time stopping Gaborik when he would roll in the zone hot - but who wouldn’t.

And Ovechkin, he is back. He scored an amazing one-time slapshot from way out. He skated all periods and even seemed to hit his stride more in the third period. That’s great news.

Laich and B Morrison were plugging away all game. Flash was not as hot as recently but he was definitely putting the effort in. Clark missed about 3 short range shots as he took over the goal crashing role from Knuble. He put some effort in it, but man that Knuble is a hard act to follow.

Perreault didn’t score but made a handful of great setup passes, got a shot on goal, and won 5 of 7 faceoffs in 8:50 of play. One of his passes was a saucer pass between the goalie and the d-man that landed on the other side of the crease almost on Ovechkin’s stick.

So overall a solid effort, and it was impressive that they stayed calm and recovered from a 1-0 deficit early on. Well done all around.