Archive for January, 2010

Since Alex Ovechkin took over as Captain, the Capitals are 5 and 1, and scoring an average of 5.33 goals per game. That doesn’t come as much of a surprise, but what does is the recent rush of fights. When Alex took over as Captain on January 5th, the Caps were last in the league with just 9 fights for the season. In the past 3 games the Caps have added 5 more melees to that total. That is more than a third of their full season total in just a trio of recent contests. Let’s look at the fight [...]

When we first wrote about the Capitals Astronaut, he had no name, and it was his first game in the crazy costume. Since then he has attended nearly every game in costume, made a cameo in The Caps Rap, has been featured in a game-day video (below), was invited to the owner’s box, and has now been featured by the D.C. Sports Bog. I’d add some Space puns here, but I think Steinberg already has that angle covered: But the latter loyalty has entered some sort of gravitational free-fall in recent years. He’s gotten disgruntled with both the Redskins’ performance [...]

Don Cherry was his normal idiotic self on Coach’s Corner again this evening, as highlighted on Kukla’s Korner: Don Cherry on Coach’s Corner tonight basically called out Capitals coach Bruce Boudreau for playing Mike Green and Alexander Ovechkin on the power play last night when they had a big lead. I’m not exactly sure which power-play he is speaking of, but the score was never 5-0, nor did the Capitals have 5 goals in their first 15 shots against Toronto. Of course the Coach’s name isn’t Brodeur either, so maybe its time for Don to consider hanging up his suit. [...]

From HockeyFights.com : Jason Chimera vs. Jay Rosehill The video doesn’t show it, but Chimera had the upperhand early. This one is probably a draw, but its nice to see him throwing the fists for the second game in a row.

From HockeyFights.com : Shaone Morrisonn vs. Colton Orr Horribly cheap shot from Colton Orr on Mike Green, with a great response from Shaone Morrisonn. The fight was probably a draw, but again we love to see the Capitals standing up for each other.

Here’s something that looks worse on paper than it does in the context of the actual game. The Capitals got two instigator penalties in Friday’s win against Toronto to go along with Matt Bradley’s on Tuesday. Typically the instigator penalty, or three for that matter, is given to goons. The Capitals, who even Coach Boudreau says isn’t the toughest team, instead used it in the name of sticking up for other players. Shoane Morrison attacked Colton Orr for an illegal hit on Mike Green, and later Jason Chimera got 17 minutes in penalties for a chance to square off against [...]

…for sale at Capitals games for $20. That’s actually not a bad deal at all considering the retail price of the book is $24.95. You can buy Gabby: Confessions of a Hockey Lifer on Amazon for less but with shipping you might as well pick it up at the Verizon Center with Coach Boudreau’s lovely signature on it.

How about this for journalism? Sportsnet.ca writes in this article: A source told sportsnet.ca Washington’s Alexander Ovechkin is so upset about having to pay 18 per cent of his salary to escrow he is prepared to consider leaving the Capitals after this season. Tarik el-Bashir of the Washington Post wrote on his blog that Ovechkin laughed at this. “What?” he said. “Yeah, I’m leaving today. I have a private plane.” This smells like Jayson Blair-type journalism to me, folks. We’ll keep an eye on Mike Brophy of sportsnet.ca to see what else he reports.