Results tagged “washingtoncapitals”

While perusing the local sports headlines this weekend, it dawned on us: the Washington Capitals might be the only thing that's saving this town from a potentially large major-league sports coma.

After the first draft in nearly a decade where the Caps didn't make an exciting trade or a high-profile pick, it's good to see the front office back into the mix of things, adding forward Mike Knuble at the dawn of free agency this afternoon. Costing just over $5 million for two years, Knuble snugly fits into the team's payroll as a replacement for Viktor Kozlov, who will play in his native Russia this season.

Okay, maybe it's not coming up. Maybe it's not tomorrow. Maybe it's not next year. Maybe it won't happen this decade, but someday, Alex Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals will face Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins in the playoffs again.

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.

Canadian television personality Don Cherry grabbed some press this weekend for saying that Alexander Ovechkin celebrates his goals with too much exuberance. Cherry said he favors the Canadian way. Don Cherry is famous for making inflammatory statements while wearing suits in which Elton John would not be caught dead.

It's not often in professional sports that the home team has the chance to keep the best player on the visiting team after the game, but that might be the case this afternoon if the Capitals can make the right impression on the Florida Panthers. Panthers defenseman Jay Bouwmeester is an emerging star. He plays defense well, passes the puck well and scores goals. All year, Florida has tried to secure a long-term contract to keep him in a Panthers uniform. But this week, the Panthers' general manager said he is actively considering trades for the All-Star.

The Capitals have launched hockey's first official website for female fans. The web site mixes player stats and bios with videos depicting the personal lives of Capitals players, dreamy headshots and, of course, shopping.

Nicklas Backstrom is skipping the NHL's Young Stars Game because he wants a day off. The Caps' second leading scorer is sitting out a competition that pits second year players against rookies. Last year, when the Young Stars game featured only rookies, Backstrom competed. This year, many fans and analysts have asked why Backstrom isn't on the Eastern Conference All Star team. While it's nice that the NHL expanded the Young Stars game to include more developing talent, Backstrom deserves to appear on a larger stage.

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?

We all know the Capitals are known to rock a microphone. This year a few Caps prospects will get a little more exposure on the world circuit. Darren Machesney, the starting goalie for the Caps' top farm team in Hershey, will represent Canada in the Spengler Cup. Machesney has been in the Caps system since the 2005 draft, and has worked his way up from the South Carolina Stingrays to play for the Bears. The opportunity to represent his country, even if it's only in a Swiss tournament, is a testament to just how hard he has worked.

Simeon Varlamov's long trip from Hershey, PA meant he didn't arrive in time to back up Brent Johnson when the puck dropped Friday against the Ottawa Senators. Instead, the Caps had to rely on team Web Producer and former Division III goalie Brett Leonhardt as their backup goalie for ten minutes of nail-biting NHL action. The Senators took every possible opportunity to try to hurt Johnson and get to Leonhardt, the only Division III goalie in the NHL this year. But once Varlamov got his pads on and joined the bench, the Sens stopped crashing the crease, as though Johnson had taken on the powers of Obi Wan Kenobi. Last night in Montreal, Varlamov showed exactly why.

Last night the Capitals continued their domination of the once-mighty Ottawa Senators with a 5-1 win at home. Goalie Brent Johnson had fans asking "Olaf who?" as he held the Senators scoreless until the game's final minutes, stopping every shot and holding on to every puck that came near him.

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?

It seemed like things couldn't get more difficult for the Washington Capitals this week. The Southeast Division leaders were missing enough talented players to field a respectable power play. Alexander Semin, a former first-round pick who had been leading the NHL in scoring, was injured. Sergei Fedorov -- frequent All-Star, holder of multiple Stanley Cup rings, and the highest scoring Russian-born player in NHL history -- was injured. Boyd Gordon, a former first round draft pick who once centered Jaromir Jagr, was injured. John Erskine, the team's toughest defenseman, was injured. Jeff Schultz, a former first round pick and the team's tallest defenseman, was injured. Mike Green, a former first round pick who led NHL blue-liners in goal scoring last season and was first-team All-Star, was injured.

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.

Coming into this hockey season, Brent Johnson was even more of an afterthought than usual. After leaving Johnson in the press box to watch games and leaving him on the bench to watch practices at the end of last season in favor of Olaf Kolzig and Christobal Huet, the Caps replaced those two aging starters with former NHL MVP Jose Theodore. Johnson battled through training camp to regain his NHL backup job against a couple of highly regarded European teenagers, and figured to start 20 games in Theodore's shadow, while possibly taking up a few new hobbies and obsessively rereading Dostoyevsky's seminal Notes from the Underground.

In the 1990s, Brent Johnson was a terrific starting goalie for the St. Louis Blues. He led a good team, stopped the shots he had to stop and won more than he lost. He set a (since broken) playoff shutout record. At that time, the Capitals had a great starting goalie of their own named Olaf Kolzig. Towering over other NHL goalies of the day at 6'3", Kolzig wore the nickname Zilla with pride, even getting it painted on the back of his helmet. Two years ago, Johnson came to Washington and became Kolzig's unquestioned backup. For two years he struggled unsuccessfully to shake that tag.

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.

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.

Usually at this time of year the Washington Capitals are a distant memory and an icy dream in the warm hearts of their fans. Today, though, we watched 14 likely team members (12 returning Capitals plus Karl Alzner and Jose Theodore) practice together at Kettler Capital Iceplex. This unusual level of commitment is a positive sign for a team on the rise. Even better, we are pleased to report that Caps captain Chris Clark looks ready to play hockey.

Just yesterday, the first reader question Hockey News columnist Adam Proteau answered about the entire NHL came from a Caps fan frustrated about the lack of information about Brian Pothier's recovery from a serious concussion. Pothier missed the second half of last season and all of the playoffs, and was believed close to retirement. But one frustrated fan wanted to know for sure.

As the Capitals make international headlines by signing free agents, local hockey players and fans are just as interested in the future of D.C. native Stephen Werner. The first locally born player ever drafted to the NHL, Werner played with the Washington Little Capitals until he made the unlikely move to playing at UMass. Now, as he rises up through the minor league ranks, Werner's struggle to play a game from the Canadian tundra at the highest level represents, for so many in the area, our own impossible dreams.

In the column of news that we could have told you months ago, the Capitals have agreed to a long-term contract with coach Bruce Boudreau, who led the team to win 37 of 61 games after taking over midseason. This is the kind of first-season coaching record that will have Caps fans forgetting the triumphant debut of Bruce Cassidy. In the department of news we've been telling you for weeks, Nicklas Backstrom has been officially named one of the three finalists for the Calder Trophy as the NHL's rookie of the year.

It's over. Last night, the Caps lost game seven in overtime to the Philadelphia Flyers. They will now face the dreaded eighteen hole golf courses of McLean, and their own personal workout regimens. Led by the season-long heroics of Alexander Ovechkin, Mike Green and Olaf Kolzig, the team came back from 14th in the East at New Years to third place in the East with home ice advantage in their first playoff series in five years.

It is a great time to be a Caps Fan. We've seen media coverage of the guy who brings his trumpet to the games and the rock bands who have sung the team's praises.

Friday night the Caps open their first Stanley Cup Playoff series in what feels like twenty-thousand years against the Philadelphia Flyers. The first six games of the series have all been picked up by national television stations. The team's meteoric rise to the playoffs has even inspired a heavy metal theme song. What makes this the most anticipated Capitals playoff series ever? For one thing, there is a great symmetry between the opponents.

First of all, let's remember that the Capitals would be nowhere right now without Jeff Halpern. The Bethesda native, lifelong Caps fan and former Caps captain scored with five minutes left on Saturday night to help the last place Tampa Bay Lightning beat the Carolina Hurricanes.

After two straight losses knocked the Capitals five points out of a playoff spot at the trade deadline, General Manager George McPhee pulled off four deals to give his team the strength to make the playoffs. Then, last night, with all four new players in other cities making travel arrangements, the Caps put together a great team effort to beat the Minnesota Wild.

Clarifying the intriciacies of replacing himself at his job, Boudreau told the Canadian Press, "Until further notice, I'm here."

Talented European prospects Jacub Klepis and Jame Pollock left the Washington Capitals' farm team this week to play in Europe. The Capitals will no longer have to pay their salaries, but they will also no longer have them around to call up when their star players get injured. Klepis played half the season for Washington last year, gradually developing into a decent center, and showing signs that he could become more of an offensive force...