Coach Bruce Boudreau knows Alexander Semin, who had a goal and three assists in the Capitals' 4-2 win over Phoenix Saturday, has been playing well recently. Boudreau told reporters after Saturday's game that he attributed it to a solid power play (the Caps lead the league in power play percentage) and the lines being able to stick together. more ›

Alex Ovechkin was named captain of the Washington Capitals on Tuesday, and the team celebrated the occasion with a 4-2 win over the Montreal Canadiens. more ›

Cam Ward probably won't be sending Alexander Semin a Christmas card anytime soon. more ›

The Capitals-Panthers game was less than 10 minutes old Thursday night when one fan was already shouting, "come on, [Alex] Semin, make us happy to see you." By the end of the period, Semin -- playing in his first game since November 14 -- delivered, scoring his first of two goals, as the Caps beat the Panthers 6-2. more ›

Welcome back, Captain Clark – with a little help from his trusty sidekicks Alex and Semyon, of course. more ›

After last night's 6-4 victory over Toronto, the season the Caps are undefeated and scoring two goals for every one they give up. They have been defensively perfect from the start of any match until they have at least three goals of their own. Superstars Alexander Ovechkin and Alexander Semin have scored three points in each game. Both Caps starting goalies have won. The whole team is playing well. Everybody is doing their job to a tee and the fans are going crazy. more ›

Tomorrow night's Caps game at Verizon Center features the four most talented hockey players on earth competing in a winner take all, game seven, series final struggle for playoff survival. We'll have the last two winners of the NHL's Hart Trophy (player most valuable to his team) playing out a rivalry that has made hockey important even to non-fans. Alex Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby have been billed for years as the greatest talents of this generation, and this will be the first time one of them eliminates the other from the playoffs. more ›

For all the criticism out there about Caps left wing Alexander Semin's fighting style, we'd like to point out that New York Rangers defenseman Marc Staal is equally bad at curl and drag fakes, nifty stickhandling moves and goal scoring. While the big lumbering defenseman may fight in a more traditional hockey style, we like Semin's originality in the above video from this weekend's Caps victory. Yes, Semin might be the first NHL player to attempt a series of overhand slaps, but he comes out on top. The supposedly tougher Staal has to hug himself for safety on the ground after losing his balance and falling over. What good is being big and tough in ice hockey if you can't stand up on ice skates? more ›

When the NHL named Alexander Semin its First Star of the month for October, we chided our media colleagues for paying more attention to Alex Ovechkin's visit to his sick grandfather. Yes, Ovechkin won all four of the NHL's trophies for scoring leaders and most valuable players, but that was last year. Why, we asked, was the best player of October 2008 any less exciting than the best player of 2007-2008? more ›

Caps left wing Alexander Ovechkin is back in the spotlight today. The NHL named him its second star of the week. Last week, of course, Alexander Semin took over the NHL's scoring lead for the second time this season, and Ovechkin was among the first to suggest that his teammate would make a good MVP candidate this season. more ›

Last night, Alexander Semin chipped in two goals and three assists to blow out the Carolina Hurricanes at Raleigh and help the Capitals take sole posession of first place in the Southeast. With 15 games played, Semin leads the NHL in points (27), goals (13), and game winning goals (3). Often misconstrued as a "shoot-first" player, Semin is fourth in the NHL with 14 assists. Just as often considered a defensive liability, Semin currently leads the NHL in plus/minus with a +17. more ›

When Alexander Semin takes the lead league in points, with 14 in eight games, it is almost news. When Sergei Fedorov matches Alexander Mogilny's record for NHL goals, it is news. When NHL MVP and ESPN presidential nominee Alexander Ovechkin takes the day off to visit an ailing relative, it is multinational front page headline news. more ›

The Washington Capitals signed NHL MVP Alexander Ovechkin to hockey's first hundred million dollar contract last season, so the Capitals once again boast the league's leading scorer. Welcome back fast-skating, obscenely talented left winger Ovechkin, who likes to warm up for games by playing soccer in Crocs, falls to the ice with joy when he scores, and ignores jellyfish postings when he goes for a swim. more ›

Last night the Caps went to Philadelphia, gave up two quick goals and then scored four of their own to tie up their best of seven playoff series at three apiece. Tonight they face the Flyers at home in the Phone Booth for the tiebreaker. more ›

Tonight it's draft lottery time in the NHL once more. For the last four seasons, this has been the day that we Caps fans cross our fingers and hope that the team is lucky enough to get a chance at a player who will help them do better in the future. This year, though, Washington will not participate, because the Capitals have made the playoffs. more ›

This weekend the Capitals won their first two games under new head coach Bruce Boudreau. WashingtonCaps.com Senior Writer Mike Vogel announced that Boudreau had turned the team around by fixing the power play. This is true, but Vogel writes that he fixed it by "promoting Nicklas Backsrrom (sic) and Mike Green to the first unit and moving Alex Ovechkin up to his more customary forward spot from the point, where he had been stationed for... more ›

Since trading away team leader and expert benchwarmer Brian Sutherby to save money and cure a losing streak, the Caps have chalked up two more uninspired losses to teams from subtropical climatic zones. Last night's nominal crowd at Verizon Center cheered optimistically when the Caps lobbed soft shots from the blueline into the catching glove of Atlanta's third-string goalie, Johan Hedberg. They cheered sarcastically when Capitals museum piece Olaf Kolzig stopped easy shots. Some fans... more ›

This weekend the Capitals decided not to add a great goalie to pull them up from the dregs of the standings. After losing seven of eight games, the Caps were in last place. This gave them the first chance to pick up Ilya Bryzgalov, a goalie placed on waivers because he didn't enjoy playing backup on the Stanley Cup champion Anaheim Ducks. Two years ago, Bryzgalov posted one of the greatest playoff shutout streaks in... more ›

This weekend the Caps avoided a nasty mess next summer when they signed Alexander Semin to a two year, $9.2 million contract extension. The left winger finished last season second on the team in scoring, and has been the most creative puckhandler in Washington since before the lockout. If Semin had gone until summer without a new deal, he would have become a restricted free agent (RFA). As an RFA, Semin could have signed a... more ›

The skies are partly cloudy overhead with a high of 84 degrees and the winds are blowing a blustery four miles per hour. This can only mean one thing. Hockey is back in the Nation's Capital. Of course the Capitals would hardly know it tonight as they start their season in cold, rainy Atlanta, Georgia. At least they'll be home tomorrow to play Carolina. For the third year of probably only three years, the NHL... more ›

Well, it's been several weeks since we got a false report out of Russia saying that Washington Capitals superstar left winger Alexander Ovechkin savagely attacked someone. Therefore it came as no surprise yesterday when we got an apparently false report out of Russia saying that Alexander Ovechkin broke a hockey agent's jaw in a bar fight. Last time, we had to watch the video to see that nothing happened. This time all we have is... more ›

In anticipation of 2005 4th overall pick Niklas Backstrom's arrival from Sweden, the Capitals had already signed marginal Swedish defenseman (and former Capital) Josef Boumedienne to a one-year contract to interpret at the airport and through training camp. Therefore we have to try to look at the signing of Swedish center (and former Capital) Michael Nylander, to a four-year, nineteen and a half million dollar contract, as a hockey move. We said, "try." Nylander initially... more ›

This summer the Capitals planned to add a defenseman a center and a right wing, all of whom should contribute to the team's sub-par power play. Yesterday, on hockey's first day of free agency, the Capitals signed defenseman Tom Poti and towering center/right wing Viktor Kozlov, both of whom just finished contracts with the New York Islanders. Poti, thirty and heading into his tenth professional season, is a medium sized defenseman who plays mostly... more ›

With the NHL draft beginning this Friday evening, the Capitals must be excited to possess the fifth overall pick. That high pick gives them a chance to add one more skilled young prospect to a corps of young talent that includes First Team All Star Alexander Ovechkin, hard-shooting winger Alexander Semin and enough other good young players to get their top minor league affiliate to the last two AHL finals. One player likely to slip... more ›

Last week we reported that seven guys who played for the Capitals this year are now tearing up the American Hockey League playoffs with the Hershey Bears. Over the weekend, the Bears beat the evil Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins two more times, taking a 3-0 lead in the best of seven East Division Final series. The Bears weren't the only Capitals beating up on less talented players, though. Alex Ovechkin spends his summer vacations playing in the... more ›

Today, with great pride and pleasure, we bring you the second and final part in our season review of the tragedy known as the 2006-07 Washington Capitals. Yesterday we looked at the team's sticky relationship with elite offensive star Alexander Semin, their odd choice of a ten million dollar free agent with almost no NHL experience and the team's pattern of hiring capable but downtrodden goaltenders to help them plummet through the standings into the... more ›

When your alumni game features less than one former player for each year your franchise has played, and none of them play goalie, something might be wrong. The 2006-2007 season was a chance for the Washington Capitals to take a long, sometimes painful look at the prospects it has drafted and traded for in recent years. Over the season, the team discovered that these young players were generally young, inexperienced and insecure. With the right... more ›

Two games after we suggested the Washington Capitals were trying to lose games for better draft position, the team has won back to back games against teams fighting for playoff spots by a combined score of twelve goals to two. In home games on Friday night and Sunday afternoon, the Caps cakewalked over the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Tampa Bay Lightning, and climbed from twenty-seventh place all the way back to twenty-fifth in the... more ›

So some Penguins walk out of arena negotiations… The Pittsburgh Penguins are staying in Pittsburgh. After years of debate, the Pennsylvania government agreed to open up a bunch of casinos and use the revenue to keep the best young collection of hockey players anywhere on Earth right squarely in the Iron City. While this is great news for the Penguins and all of their fans, it is terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad news for the... more ›