Michael NylanderWe’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. Nylander is set to make three million dollars this season, which is slightly more than the Caps just agreed to pay their second best defenseman, Jeff Schultz. Additionally, Nylander has a salary cap hit…

Flamboyant Canadian hockey commentator Don Cherry 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. Cherry’s absurd assault on the NHL’s reigning scoring champion and most valuable player follows criticism of Ovechkin by Pittsburgh…

Florida defenseman Jay Bouwmeester. (Steve Mitchell/Associated Press) 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…

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. Ovechkin was beaten for first star voting this week by his own linemate, sophomore center Nicklas Backstrom….

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…

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…

Three of the Capitals’ best five offensive players are still out with minor injuries. That’s the good news. The bad news is that, after being absolutely destroyed by the Carolina Hurricanes last night, the Caps are tied with the Atlanta Thrashers for the worst record in the East at 5-9-0. Last night’s loss would have been easier to explain if the Caps were missing ten, or maybe twenty of their best players. Two Hurricanes scored…

It’s getting hard to keep track of what to think about the Capitals this year. At the beginning of the year, they won three straight games, and even spent an hour as the league’s first place team. Then they lost a few, won one, and tried losing again. Last night, in what should have been a hopeless battle against a hot team, they put together a seven to one victory over the grammatically challenged…

Former Capitals coach Bruce “Butch” Cassidy (who famously wrote his plays on napkins, and then brought the napkins to practice) has just been fired by the Kingston Frontenacs of the Ontario Hockey League after they lost six straight games. The firing from the junior team confirms the suspicions of many Caps fans who remembered the 2003-2004 season and though the coach might have been slightly less than qualified for the NHL. Cassidy joined the Capitals…

One of the best things about covering hockey is that you get the summer off. Just ask USA Today’s Gary Graves, TV Analyst Darren Pang or the anonymous Western Canadian hockey experts on this conference call. All of them are really excited to watch what happens when Alexander Ovechkin plays with newly signed free agent center Michael Nylander. But as Ovechkin kindly told these vacationing reporters when they asked him how he felt about it,…