Learning to win... ugly

The game against the Rangers on Sunday afternoon marked a turning point for this young Capitals team. It's one of the first times I can remember that the Caps have been thoroughly outplayed, outshot, taken too many penalties and still escaped with a victory. For a young team learning to win ugly, to get two points despite playing a less than stellar game, is one of the hardest things to do.

The Caps got off to a good start, with Alex Ovechkin pouncing on a loose rebound to put the Caps up 1-0 after a delay of game call on career minor league goaltender Steve Valiquette. But after that, the Caps would show only short spurts of offense, and spent most of the game mucking it up in the neutral zone or chasing the puck in their own.

Agitator and all around douchebag Steve Avery was able to take a freak bounce off the sideboard, cut inside Shoanne Morrison (who was unable to control the bouncing puck) and fire a quick wrist shot past Olie Kolzig to tie the game at one. The score seemed to lift the Rangers to life, as they spent the next period dominating puck possesion and the flow of play. They were rewarded with a Chris Drury putback of a Martin Straka shot from the hash marks that put the Rangers ahead.

That is where the Caps newfound confidence seemed to keep them in the game. Instead of panicking and having the players break out of the system and attempt to win the game singlehandedly, they stuck with their gameplan, kept firing pucks at the net, and caught a break when Alex Ovechkin fired an off balance one legged shot on goal, which Valiquette was unable to fully control. Boyd Gordon pounced on the rebound and slid it underneath the diving goaltender, and the Caps were back in business.

The Rangers still held control of the game for the rest of the game, but strong goaltending by Olie Kolzig combined with an effective penalty killing lead by Dave Steckel and Brooks Laich kept the Rangers off the board. And then, less than a minute before the third period was to expire, Ryan Hollwig blatantly tripped a Capitals player, setting up almost a minute and thirty seconds of 4 on 3 in overtime. It wouldn't take nearly that long, as Mike Green blasted a shot from the top of the circles past Marc Staal and a screened Valiquette for the win.

Other notes on the night:

It was good, no, it was GREAT to finally see the Caps win a game in front of a big home crowd against a team whose fans tend to be real jerks when the visit DC. Don't believe me? After a burrito giveaway between faceoffs, the Caps mascot pretended to dump an empty box of burritos on the head of a Rangers fan. The "fan" punched the box, and stood up as if he was going to strike the mascot (and generally for liability reasons the mascots are girls). Really classy. It's one thing to come support your team when they come to town. It's entirely another to be a drunk jackass when you do so.

Great job by the fans of stifling any attempts at a "let's go Rangers" chant in our building. Nice job, folks. Give yourselves a pat on the back. Especially Horn Guy. Way to cut 'em off at the knees.

Jaromir Jagr is past his prime. Waaaay past it.

Good to see Olie looking like the Olie of old (instead of old Olie), stopping 31 of 33 shots and being named the games first star.

Alex Ovechkin's goal was made possible by Eric Fehr's presence in front of the net. Fehr's got the tools, but it's still too early to pencil him in as a top line NHL power forward.

Jaw all you want, Colton Orr. It's become clear you're scared as hell of the Donald. And with good reason.

The Caps get a much needed rest until Wednesday, when they look to avenge one of their poorest performances of the year, a pathetic home loss to the Atlanta Thrashers in which the Caps allowed only 12 shots but lost 2-0.

Mullet night mayhem

Ladies and gentlemen, the Deuce:

Great game. Very entertaining. But the Caps should have won it in regulation. And if they are going to have ANY chance of making the playoffs, they can't give up a point to other Eastern Conference teams. They may end up battling for that eighth spot with the Rangers, and a point here and a point there add up.

Mike Green is playing unbelievable hockey right now. He was absolutely flying last night -- skating, making GREAT moves, scoring goal scorers goals. He played OVER THIRTY minutes in the game! Looks like he's found his confidence.

Donald Brashear was also a force last night. He beat the living tar out of Colton Orr. Again. Doesn't that guy ever get tired of being pounded by The Donald? Has he ever even come close to winning a fight between the two of them? Of course, the picture in the NY Post was of the beginning of the fight, before Brashear pounded Orr to the ice. And the caption, laughably, states "The Rangers' Colton Orr gets the upper hand on the Capitals' Donald Brashear during Washington's 5-4 overtime victory last night." Even my wife said, "Oh, my God. He really beat that poor guy up." Gotta love the New York media.

After getting out of the box, he made a nice hit followed instantly by a pretty centering feed which resulted in Motzko's first goal, and later made a beautiful pass to Motzko which resulted in the second goal. And of course, he hit everything that moved (and he could catch).

Probably most importantly, he took ZERO stupid penalties (I wish the same could be said for your favorite, Matt Bradley -- Hey Matt, when your team is up by a goal in the third period, and your job is to eat up the clock by cycling the puck in the offensive zone, don't take one hand off the stick (a sure signal to any referee that you're about to hold), wrap it around an opposing player's neck (another sure sign of a hold), and then pull on him, THEN raise your hand up like you didn't just hold (the final sign of an infraction just in case the ref was snoozing for the first three). ESPECIALLY NOT IN THE OFFENSIVE ZONE.

Of course, the Rangers scored to tie the game, even if it was one second after the penalty expired. You're killing me Matt.

Anyway, the best thing about last night is that the Caps fought back from a two-goal deficit, which I wouldn't have believed possible had I not seen it with my own eyes. So that was nice. That's about it. I won't be grumpy and mention that the Caps are now ice cold on the power play, even with an alleged PP Genius behind the bench. At least now they get the puck in the zone, set it up, control it, and actually get shots on net. So I think the PP goals will come.

By the way, I was THRILLED to see that Cap Killer Exraordiare Mark Recchi now gets to play the Caps like five more times this year, having been signed by Atlanta. Great. Put him down for a 20 goal year. We should have signed him just to bench him for the rest of the year.

Caps Continue to Forget About Offense: Rangers 2, Caps 0

Ladies and gentlemen, the Deuce:

Anyone who watched the game last night should have known we were in trouble halfway through the first period when we were outshooting the Rangers 8-0, and had 0 goals. You could see Lundqvist starting to find that "zone" that means nothing short of a screened shot or a rebound was getting by him. And you could also see it on the Caps' faces (see, Kozlov, Victor; Nylander, Michael). Of course, there is one thing that can put a puck past even the hottest of goalies: A great first line.

Now I know, I know, the Caps were severly depleted yesterday, missing Chris Clark and Ankle Semin and Groin Poti and blah blah blah and The Donald was double shifting last night and so on. You know when is a good time to just say, "screw it," and throw out your best players together? Um, when there are no other options.

I've said it before and I'll say it until Hanlon or somebody out there listens. A great 1st line in the NHL can get you 3 goals a night. At least. And last night, Ovechkin-Nylander-Kozlov/Backstrom would have been nearly unstoppable. It bears repeating: Nobody in the NHL can take the puck off Nylander's stick. They know it, and just back off him, giving him even more room to operate and look for a sweet pass. Now imagine that the other team has to worry about Ovechkin as well as Nylander (we don't know what this would look like because Hanlon hasn't put them on the ice together for a single even-strength shift this season). It would be awesome.

It's almost as if Hanlon knows this is what everyone wants to see, and is just resisting to be stubborn. Glen, we won't think any less of you as a coach if you recognize that Ovechkin-Kozlov was a mistake. In fact, it will mean you know how to make adjustments, which, I hear, is kind of important in an NHL coach. Let's look at the other teams that played last night:

OTT 6, ATL 4: Alfredsson had 2 G and 2 A, Heatley had 2 A, and Randy Robitaille, filling in for Spezza, had 2 G. On the other side, Kovalchuk had the hat trick and Hossa an assist.

DET 2, CGY 1: Shockingly, the Zetterberg/Datsyuk line combined for 4 points (2G, 2A) - on the other side, Tanguay had a goal, assist to Iginla.

STL 3, MIN 2: The big line of Tkachuk/Kariya/Boyes that killed the Caps came through with a goal for Tkachuk, assists to Kariya and Boyes, and on the other side, the big Gaborik/Demitra line got all the scoring for Min, with a goal and and assist each.

In Colorado, the big Crosby/Malkin line ended up with BOTH Pens goals, both by Crosby, assist to Malkin (now there's a coach who isn't afraid to put his best players together, EVEN THOUGH BOTH ARE CENTERS! Who cares??!! Put your superstars together, and nobody can stop them!). For COL, the Sakic/Smyth line (who by the way have been tearing up the league), finished with assists from both Sakic and Smyth.

In the Columbus/Anaheim game, everyone fell asleep. Columbus, which has no stars, finished with 20 shots and no goals in the shootout. Rob Neidermeyer scored with an assist from Pahlsson for ANA.

Nashville got two power play goals and points on all three goals came from four players: J.P. Dumont, Jason Arnott, David Legwand, and Martin Erat. Vancouver's big Sedin line was shut out.

MON: 5, PHI: 2: Koivu, Higgins, Kovalev, Latendresse get four of the five goals. For Philly, Upshall and Richards get the goals, with assists from Carter and Danielle Briere.

I think that's enough. As you can see, for almost all of these games, the star players scored most of the goals (no surprise there), but the great majority of those goals came from superstars playing TOGETHER - Heatley/Alfredsson/Robitaille; Zetterberg/Datsyuk/Holmstrom; Tkatchuk/Kariya/Boyes; Crosby/Malkin/Whoever, Sakic/Smyth/Whoever (ah, to be Whoever). So you're telling me that Ovechkin/Nylander/Whoever couldn't come up with two measley goals last night?! REALLY? Well, how about we test the hypothesis before we dismiss it Glen! I'm tired of this impotent offense. I'm tired of "spreading the (lack of) scoring around." I'm tired of "just wait until Semin gets back." I'm tired of playing Russians with Russians and Swedes with Swedes. STACK A FRIKKIN' LINE HANLON -- SEE WHAT HAPPENS. You just might like what you get. Especially when Semin and Clark are out, and you're playing Nylander with Brooks Frikkin Laich and/or The Donald. We are wasting Nylander's all-world talents. You don't think the Rangers would kill to have him back right now? Let's do something with him!

The Deuce breaks down the weekend we'd all rather forget

Ladies and gentlemen, the Deuce:

See, this is what happens when you start to believe your own hype. The Caps get featured in an article by espn.com's Suck Burnside, get picked by the so-called "experts" as the division winner and playoff contender, play two great games and get one lucky win they don't deserve, and suddenly the Caps think they're so good they don't even have to shoot to score anymore! Apparently, puck possession and pretty passing are supposed to make the other team's goalie simply move aside and let us skate the puck into the net.

The Caps put on what will hopefully be their worst showings of the season this weekend, getting outshot a combined 152-12. Brent Johnson and Olie have to look like Dennis Lemieux from Slap Shot right now, nervously twitching and trying to save phantom pucks they probably still see flying at them from all directions.

And don't try to tell me that Semin and Gordon would have made the difference in these games, because those guys aren't worth an additional 40 shots, which is how many more shots the Caps needed in those two games to make a difference.

The Caps played dumb hockey against the Rangers, led off by The Russian Machine's tripping penalty 5 seconds into the game. And it was all downhill from there.

Against the Sabres, the Caps were playing a dangerous game of trying to match skill against skill. The shot total through 3/4 of the 1st period should have been their clue that it wasn't working. Eventually, the floodgates opened and Buffalo was off to the races.

I'm too depressed by actually having watched these disasters to say much more. Thankfully, my soon-to-be two year old missed both games and didn't cry all night long as a result!

The (very few) positives from this weekend's games:

Glen Hanlon's calm demeanor after the horrendous efforts.

The fact that this will serve as a wakeup call to the team and they'll be forced to put the hard-hats back on.

Eventually, Alexander Semin's ankle will heal. He's good for 10 shots a game!

The resulting articles and polls in the media dropping the Caps back down to near last in the league will piss the team off and result in a great effort this week (I hope).

At least it didn't happen against Pittsburgh.