Late last week, Alex Ovechkin was accused of using steroids by a columnist in Pennsylvania. Yesterday, he responded. more ›

I may not know much about hockey, but I do know this: Alex Ovechkin is about as close to a hometown sports hero as we have. So when he gets accused of using performance enhancing drugs, it better be well-sourced. more ›

This morning, Dale Hunter was announced as the new head coach of the Washington Capitals. more ›

Last night, the Washington Capitals defeated the Anaheim Ducks in a dramatic game which featured the team coming back from a three-goal deficit in the second period and eventually winning in overtime. But all everyone wants to talk about is Alexander Ovechkin's potty mouth. more ›

Yes, it's hockey season again. more ›

Earlier today, the power went out at Kettler Iceplex as the Capitals were on the ice, preparing for their second-round Stanley Cup playoff series against Tampa Bay which kicks off tomorrow night at the Verizon Center. Geez, I sure hope the power outage didn't have anything to do with Lightning. more ›

Well, now this is just getting plain embarrassing for the Metropolitan Police Department. Despite the fact that the department's chief, Cathy Lanier, said on Friday that she was "100 percent confident the proper procedure was not followed for a reimbursable detail," the Examiner's Freeman Klopott reports that the New York Rangers received similar treatment on Saturday as they traveled to the Verizon Center for a playoff game against the Capitals. more ›

Sure, we probably could pound out a few hundred words about the Capitals' epic comeback from 3-0 down against the Rangers in Madison Square Garden last night. (After all, the campaign to dub the rally and Jason Chimera's double overtime game-winner as the "Miracle on 34th Street" appears to be picking up steam.) But this image, taken from the back cover of this morning's New York Daily News, just wraps things up perfectly. more ›

Alexander Ovechkin: the man with a slap shot so powerful, it could be used as a boastful metaphor for the purportedly wide network of Capital One banks in the Washington, D.C. region! more ›

Have you ever wondered how the Verizon Center transforms from a hockey rink into a basketball court when the Capitals and the Wizards play at home on the same day? TBD's Sara Kenigsberg filmed this awesome behind-the-scenes look at the transformation in action, as crews resurface the ice, take down the glass around the rink, lay down concrete slabs, take out the penalty boxes and boards, retract and install a bunch of seats, and then hammer the maple basketball floor down into place -- all in the span of about three hours. more ›

This weekend, the best players in the NHL gathered in Raleigh, North Carolina to celebrate the league's All-Star weekend, in which hockey players come together to not play defense, show off various skills to paying fans and deliver awkward interviews during a faux red carpet ceremony. In short, the kind of stuff that Capitals megastar Alexander Ovechkin was born to do. more ›

If you were on Jeopardy, your response to that headline would surely be "what is the recipe for a hilarious YouTube clip?" (Or something far, far, far more disturbing that you should totally keep to yourself.) more ›

For being such a rugged sport, hockey sure does require a certain set of conditions in order to be played optimally and without interruption -- namely, it needs to be chilly and clear. So there are some concerns about the upcoming Winter Classic, the NHL's annual New Year's Day showcase game which, this year, will be played outdoors at Pittsburgh's Heinz Field and contested between the Washington Capitals and the Pittsburgh Penguins. more ›

The idea of being a professional athlete is an appealing to you, is it? Well, never forget: these guys have bosses too. And, often times, they enjoy utilizing the expletive slang. more ›

There are plenty of people out there who believe that fighting in professional ice hockey is something of an unnecessary distraction from the natural ebb and flow of the game. I am not one of those people. That said, it is with pride that I present to you this excellent video of an epic fight between the Caps' brilliantly-mustachioed John Erskine and Atlanta's Eric Boulton during last night's 6-4 Washington win. more ›

Washington Capitals megastar Alexander Ovechkin does not suffer for attention from the ladies -- this much we already knew. But in a profile in the November issue of GQ, Ovechkin delivers the most backhanded of all compliments, calling D.C. "a quiet, calm family town" -- while at the same time delivering some rather pointed remarks on the difference between Russian and American ladies. more ›

Dan Steinberg shares an embeddable version the Capitals' new pre-game introduction video this morning, which obviously prompts us to consider whether or not D.C. is a Hockey Town, capital letters and all. more ›

Well, that certainly crept up on us -- the Capitals face off with the Atlanta Thrashers this evening to kick off their 2010-11 season. To think, it's been only a few months since we were licking our wounds as Jaroslav Halak ripped out Washington's collective heart and spit on the Caps' record regular season. We know it's Friday afternoon, so here's some images from last weekend's fan convention to get you ready. more ›

Yesterday, the Capitals traded for a pure fighter in D.J. King. more ›

The Capitals wrapped up their development camp Saturday with a Fan Fest and a scrimmage that had not one, but two fights, and went into a shootout. Not bad for a July game. more ›

This week, the Capitals are hosting their annual development camp for top prospects in the system. One of these is goalie Braden Holtby, whose resume has filled out significantly since we last chatted with him during training camp in 2009. Holtby started the season in net for the ECHL's South Carolina Stingrays and finished with a Calder Cup in Hershey. He also got five call-ups to the Capitals last year, though he didn't get any time on the ice. DCist caught up with Holtby this week to see what he's learned from last year. more ›

We've just received confirmation that Michael Nylander cleared waivers today. That means that yesterday, the Capitals put the 37-year-old center up for grabs to any of the NHL's other 29 teams that wanted him. Today, they found out nobody did. more ›

The Capitals have signed restricted free agent forward Boyd Gordon to a one-year, $800,000 deal. Gordon received only a $40,000 raise over last season's salary, but he'll be an unrestricted free agent next season if the Caps can't work out an extension in the coming year. more ›

Last year, the Pittsburgh Penguins signed Brent Johnson, the steady, fan-favorite goalie who didn't quite fit into the Washington rotation. Today, at 9 a.m., the Washington Capitals announced they have signed former Pittsburgh Penguins backup goalie, Dany Sabourin. more ›

On Thursday, the NHL allows unrestricted free agents to begin negotiating with new teams. Players who have reached the end of their contracts and achieved the right combination of age and experience -- usually guys over twenty-seven years old -- can go play anywhere they want, for whatever someone will pay them. more ›

Who is Evgeny Kuznetsov? A lot of D.C. publications will ask this question in the next few weeks, but we won't. Okay, sure, he's a six foot tall, 172 pound kid who was born in a time when Courtney Love was a legitimate feminist icon and global superstar. But it's not when he was born, what he eats for breakfast, what kind of music he listens to, what he believes in or how many goals he scored as captain of his team in the under-18 world championships (five, plus seven assists -- in seven games) that made Kuznetsov the right choice for the Capitals in last night's 2010 NHL Entry Draft. It's where he was born. In Russia. more ›

Tonight at 7 p.m. you can watch the first round of the NHL draft on Vs. In a week where the Caps have received some of their annual propers with one of two available MVP awards (Alexander Ovechkin), comeback player of the year (former Capital Jose Theodore), and first team NHL all star nods (Ovechkin and defenseman Mike Green), this is just one more reliable sign that summer is here and hockey isn't. more ›

The L.A. Times reports on the arrest here in D.C. of Mark Hardy, an assistant coach for the Los Angeles Kings. Hardy was taken into custody at about 2 a.m. on Friday at the Mayflower Hotel (quickly becoming the go-to local spot for sex scandals), after a woman accused him of fondling her when she was passed out drunk in a hotel room. The Associated Press account of the arrest merely mentions that the complainant was a woman who knows Hardy, but the Times provides the extra ick factor -- she is reportedly a relative of the former hockey defenseman. No word on exactly how they are related, but Hardy has since been ordered not to have any physical, verbal or electronic contact with this particular family member. more ›

It's not as hard as netting a game-winner or facing down Steve Downie (after all, we can't all be Matt Bradley), but covering the NHL's top team during the regular season is a pressure-filled assignment for the Washington media. Since we get to cast judgments and analyze the Capitals' play all year, it only seemed fair to ask the players themselves how well we -- the media -- have performed this season. more ›

If the Caps are going to pull this series out and avoid one of the biggest stomach punches in Washington sports history, they're going to need to play hard from the moment they step out onto the ice in Game 7. The Caps obviously didn't heed their coach's criticism about starting games poorly -- Mike Cammalleri scored twice in the first ten minutes to put the Caps into an early hole again. The Caps are being outscored in the first period during this series 8-3; the rest of the way, Washington is up 18-10. One gets the feeling that if the Capitals would have come out like they meant it from the start of this series, we'd already be talking about facing Philadelphia. Oh, and scoring a couple of goals on the power play -- on which, Washington is mired in a 1-for-30 slump -- would probably help a little bit too. more ›