Everything old is new again

More specifically, the NHL schedule for next year will ditch the current format and return to its pre-lockout roots. The division games will be reduced from 8 per team to 6, which means every NHL team will play every other team at least once a year. Which is how it should be.

Two Wins Does Not a Day Off Make

Ladies and Gentlemen, The Deuce:

Well, that didn't take long, did it? After putting in two good efforts against two strong teams, New Caps bench boss Bruce Beaudreau gave the team the day off on Sunday. The result: The Caps apparently forgot how to try again.

Last night, the Caps put forth another stinker, a lackluster effort on national TV. Once again, The Russian Machine was the only one who appeared to care out there. Particularly stinky were Alex Semin, back from a 17-game absence (with a game or two in between), Michael Nylander, and Tomas Fleischman. Nylander and Fleischman should both be credited with assists on the Sabres second and third goals, since their horrible giveaways directly contributed to Buffalo scores. I like Nylander a lot, and he is a wizard in the offensive zone with the puck on his stick, but when he has an off game, he REALLY has an off game.

The rest of the Caps looked like they have all season, tentative, slow, and weak. The lack of a bruiser on defense who can actually move his feet (sorry, Erskine) is really starting to get old. In fact, I'm afraid our father, Original Six, is going to burst a blood vessel in his head if the D don't start hitting out there.

The Sabres forwards (and every other team's for that matter) fly around in the Caps' zone all game, trying spin-a-ramas and behind the back passes and all manner of things they would NEVER try against, say, the NJ defense. Somebody, at some point, has just got to tattoo someone out there. Also, could somebody tell Morrison and company that when somebody slashes Olie, you are allowed to shove them, push them, give them a face-wash, SOMETHING for crying out loud?! Anyway, on to the game analysis, depressing as that may be.

Going in to the game, I told Grumpy 3 that the speedy Sabres forwards would give our D fits, and that we would have a tough time beating Buffalo with all the speed they brought to bear. Well, they were faster, and we didn't hit them, but it was actually the Caps, not the Sabres, who killed the Caps last night. If not for the two egregious turnovers mentioned earlier, we might have been in this game until the end. Miller made a couple of great saves against the Russian Machine, and Nylander again missed a wide-open net. But what was most noteable last night was the lack of effort on the Capitals' part again.

I hope Bruce bag-skates them today until they puke. Somebody needs to motivate these guys. Before it kills our father.

Notes on the beggining of the Boudreau era

Not a bad way to start an NHL coaching career, eh? First, Coach Boudreau leads the Caps to an overtime victory in Philly (snapping a 5 game losing streak), then another win over Carolina at home. Since it's nearly impossible for a coach to drastically change a team's philosophy in only a couple days, let's look at the simple changes he's made to the Capitals gameplan that seem to have reinvigorated the team.

First, Boudreau has abandoned the concept of having two balanced power play lines and has instead stacked his first line with the best available talent. Playing Backstrom, Nylander, and Ovechkin at forward and Tom Poti and Mike Green on defense, the Caps power play unit has managed to pot 4 power play goals in two games. Even better, they've actually been goals created by the entire power play unit, not just individual brilliance from the Russian Machine as had been the case for the past couple seasons.

It's amazing to see how much more puck and player movement the Caps have had on the power play. With two outstanding setup men and the league's premier finisher down low, defenses have been forced to collapse on the forwards, and with Mike Green given the, ahem, green light to attack the weak side the Caps have looked actually looked like the talented offensive team they are. Two outstanding passes from our Swedish centers resulted in two goals by Green, and the Caps power play is back from the dead.

Second, Coach Boudreau has focused on maintaining an aggressive forecheck system instead of sitting back and allowing opposing teams to build up steam headed into the neutral zone. Not only has this made it more difficult for teams to start their attack, it's also resulted in many more opposition turnovers in the neutral zone and the Caps offensive zone, which has lead to the Caps having to cover much less ice in order to generate an attack.

While it's tough to say whether the Caps can sieze on this newfound momentum and claw their way back into the playoff picture, one thing is for sure. The Caps have become a much more fun team to watch, and a much less fun team to play against.

Hanlon let go

Per the Caps, Glen Hanlon has been relieved of his coaching duties and replaced on an interim basis by former Hershey Bears head coach Bruce Boudreau. The move was not unexpected considering the Capitals are off to their worst start in over 25 years. However, Hanlon's tenure in Washington should not be judged based solely on this year's merits.

Glen Hanlon lead a team with a pittance of NHL caliber talent for two seasons, and for the entirety of those two seasons we almost never saw a team that gave less than everything it had. I don't think it's overreaching to say that the Capitals overachieved for those two seasons, and their coach's optimism, patience and understanding were all major reasons for that.

Unfortunately, most coaches in the NHL are not measured on what they do for young teams or how they teach young players to grow into NHL regulars, but on their records. As the team matured and new talent was added, Coach Hanlon eventually had to be measured by the standards of other coaches: wins and losses. But let us not forget that Glen Hanlon was the right coach for the Washington Capitals for two seasons. He should be commended for the job he did with the organization during that time.

Now it's time to move in another direction. So thank you Coach Hanlon for the job that you did in the previous two years. Caps fans will not forget you for it.

Now a new era begins. While it's far too early to say whether the Boudreau experiment will last past this season, it's clear that it was time for a change. Welcome Coach Boudreau.

And lets go Caps.

More on the offensive production woes

Unfortunately, the offense isn't as bad as it looks on paper. It's worse. Lets break down the list of goaltenders the Caps have faced this year and the result:

Opponent - Result - Goals sc0red - goals against - goaltender - (b) = backup
atl - w 3-1 goaltender: Lehtonen
car - w 2-0 Grahame (b)
nyi - w 2-1 Dipietro
nyr - l 1-8 Lundqvist
buf - l 3-7 Miller
nyi - l 2-5 DiPietro
pit - l 1-2 Fleury
tam - w 5-3 Denis (b)
van - l 2-3 Luongo
stl - l 3-4 Legace
tor - w 7-1 Toskala/Raycroft
nyr - l 0-2 Lundqvist (SO)
phi - l 2-3 Nittymaki (b)
car - l 0-5 Ward (SO)
atl - otl 1-2 Pavelec (b)
ott - w 4-1 Emery (b)
tam - l 2-5 Holmqvist
fla - l 1-2 Vokoun
tam - l 2-5 Holmqvist
fla - l 3-4 Vokoun

Of the Caps 6 wins, a full half have come against goaltenders that are not currently considered starters for their respective teams. At this point, the "we ran into a hot goaltender" excuse is getting as played out as it was in the mid 80s. The Caps barely hold a winning percentage against the league's second tier goaltenders (3-2). It has to be said... it's not the goaltenders, it's the offensive system (or lack thereof).

Tonight, the Caps have a chance to start turning things around against the Thrashers. If the team can't claw out a win on home ice tonight, there may be some folks who get much longer than expected stays at home after the holiday.

So Long, Sudsy

Per the horse's mouth, the Capitals have traded Brian "Granite Chin" Sutherby to Anaheim for a second round pick in the 2009 entry draft.

Welcome to Lottery City

Ladies and gentlemen, the Deuce:

Early this morning, J.P. of Japers had his post-game offering. Just one mistake, he had the score 3-2. Wishful thinking, J.P. You're giving the Caps' offense WAY more credit than they deserve. TWO whole goals in one game?! Come on, that's expecting an awful lot. Last night, like this whole season, was atrocious. I wanted to throw up, in part because I knew I'd be reading the same ridiculous, "we're getting our chances, the puck's just not bouncing our way" quotes again today. Good teams make their own bounces. Of course, we are nowhere NEAR a good team right now. In fact, we're bad. Really bad. Has the Peerless Prognosticator upped the Playoff Threat Advisory to RED yet? If not, he should.

There are so many bad qualities about this team right now that it would take me all morning to focus on all of them. Bad line combinations, bad matchups, bad in-game adjustments, poor effort, bad giveaways, atrocious power play, bad penalty killing, bad offense -- just BAD. And of course, the most frustrating part of it all is that we as Caps fans just KNOW this team is better than this, much better (of course, we're the only ones who think this right now). Anyway, before I go through the litany of woes, I'll just look at one of the worst aspects of the Caps offense this year (there will be time to go through another after tonight's thrashing at the hands of the white-hot Lightning): The "Power" Play:

First, let's look at the personnel we could throw out there together (and no Glen Hanlon, I will not include Donald Brashear or Joe Motzko as possibilities):

Ovechkin, Clark, Nylander, Backstrom, Poti, Green. There are six guys to choose from who could legitimately play on the first power play for most teams. I won't include fringe PP-types like Pettinger and/or Flash, because they haven't proven themselves yet in that capacity. Now with those six players to choose from (and you can take out Clark if you want because of all the games he missed with injuries), shouldn't the Caps really be better on the PP than 15.0%? I think so. The Caps have scored 12 PPGs in 18 games so far -- pretty bad. It's even worse when you consider that five of those tallies have come from Ovechkin -- and at least 3 of them were individual efforts that in no way reflected a nicely set up passing play resulting in a PPG (if I remember correctly, two have come on rapid fire wristers off the faceoff, and one came where he dangled his way down the left side, cut into the middle around the defenseman, and scored on the rush). So that reduces the true PPGs from 12 to 9. So basically, without OV's great individual efforts, our PP would be second worst in the league, second only to the woeful Edmonton Oilers power play which has tallied only SEVEN times this season. But I can undertstand EDM's woes: Souray is injured, and the rest of their PP consists of Shawn Horcoff, Rafi Torres, Dustin Penner, Joni Pitkanen, and Dick Tarnstrom. Yikes. So as you can see, there is absolutely NO excuse for the Caps' players listed above to be producing at the level of EDM's PP, which is essentially what they are doing.

So what's the problem? Well, as I've detailed before, the first problem is that Hanlon got way too cute at the beginning of the season, and tried to have TWO good PP units when he really should have been focusing on just one. The exact same mistake he made last year. The result -- you had the evil Victor Kozlov playing with OV and Clark, and Poti and heaven-only-knows who else manning the point. The problem -- those guys couldn't maintain possession of the puck down low. The second unit was Backstrom, Nylander, and Pettinger playing with, gasp, Pothier and Green up top. Not surprisingly, Nylander, a puck possession and passing specialist, leads the team with 8 power play points (3 PPGs, 5 PPAs). In other words, if Nylander and OV ain't on the ice, don't even bother watching! After a few games of this two-headed monster, I was begging Hanlon to put OV and Nylander together. But he steadfastly refused until just three games ago -- against Carolina. Just before that game, I asked Mike Vogel why Hanlon wouldn't put OV and Nyls together. Here was his response:

"Deuce,
Well, they tried it last night. I am one who believes if it’s going to work and work well in the long run that 8 and 92 are going to need some practice time together. Anyone who has watched Nylander play has to know that he is not the easiest guy in the world to play with. As to why they hadn’t tried it before, two reasons. One, they truly believe that the best chemistry combos are with 8 and 25 and 92 and 28. And second, I think they believe the resulting line combos make the team a bit weaker defensively."

Fair enough. But when Semin went down, it should have been obvious to Hanlon that he needed to play his best players together. That has only just started to happen. And I, for one, don't think Nylander would be that hard to play with. Just go to the net and put your stick on the ice -- he'll get the puck to you in great scoring position.

Back to the PP. So the two PP idea didn't work out. The first line didn't work the puck well down low -- in part because of the Caps' D-men's total inability to put a puck anywhere in the vicinity of the net (Pothier). Because nobody feared a big blast nice and low and on net from the point, they cheated down on Ovechkin, knowing he was the only real threat on the "first" power play (I know, you're saying "What? They weren't afraid of Kozlov?) So, about eight games too late, Hanlon adjusted by putting OV on the point. Not a terrible decision -- now teams have to cheat out high, opening space for the other guys to work down low. He also moved Nylander to the first PP. The only problem -- now there's no finisher to bury Nylander's nice thread-the-needle passes.

The Deuces's solution -- Nylander, Clark, and Ovechkin down low -- this allows Clark and OV to win loose pucks, and Nylander to control the play and look for any opening to split the box and hit OV for a one-timer. Poti and Green up high. And Tom, for crying-out-loud, shoot the frikkin' puck every once in a while. Don't get cute -- just crush it. You're supposed to have a bomb from up there, make teams fear it. If not, we'll just call up Godfrey. At least three times last night I watched Poti pass up a good shot opportunity from the point because it wasn't perfect. Who cares? Put it on net, and Clark and OV will do the rest.

So there you have it, the solution to all our power play woes, and the ticket out of Lottery City. Maybe.

And, oh yeah, here are Original Six's words of wisdom on last night's game: "The season is not over however I think that it may be time to look at hiring a new coach that will light a fire under some player’s butts. I love Glen Hanlon but it is now obvious that he cannot motivate these players. Is Mike Keenan still alive?"

Ouch.