In the history of the Washington Capitals, only one goalie has carried the team to the Stanley Cup Finals. That goalie retired today, after a decade in D.C. and a brief curtain call with the Tampa Bay Lightning. Olaf Kolzig may not play in the NHL any longer, but Caps fans will always remember him as one of the most dedicated, team-focused players in Washington history.
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…
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…
Jose Theodore signed a two year, $9 million contract to play for the Capitals yesterday. Theodore brings a lot of great accomplishments and a lot of question marks to the Capitals. Last year in Colorado, he took turns losing the starting goalie job with younger disappointment Peter Budaj. Still, Theodore is the answer on paper to many of the Capitals’ questions. NHL free agency started yesterday–the time when veteran players who have finished their…
They may measure two inches shy of a collective 19 feet tall, but the first three Caps picks from this weekend’s NHL draft stand on the shoulders of giants. With two picks in the first round and their first of two in the second, the Caps brought in players with strong connections to franchise history, tying the team’s future to its past. The Caps traded up to the 21st overall spot to pick Anton Gustafsson,…
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…
Alexander Ovechkin has raised the NHL’s record for goals by a left wing from sixty-three to sixty-five. Incidentally, Ovechkin’s sixty-fifth goal of this season was a crucial game-winner–and his second key goal of the night–in the game that put the Capitals in playoff position for the first time in months. Although the Caps opened the season tied with Ottawa for first place in the league, the team quickly fell off due to an ineffective combination…
Professional hockey players come from all over the world. They come from South Africa, Canada, Kazakhstan, Norway and there is even one from Washington, D.C. Well, okay, two come from the Washington area. Jeff Halpern from Bethesda signed with the Capitals as an undrafted free agent in the 1990s. When the Caps declined to sign him two years ago, he joined the Dallas Stars, who have him in a five-year, $10 million contract. That leaves…
In the midst of trying to pull the Capitals out of last place, new coach Bruce Boudreau (2-1-1) has the challenge of finding enough playing time to let the young guys–and except for goalie Olaf Kolzig and a few free agents, they’re all young guys–develop to their potential. Boudreau has already won top marks from embedded blogger Mike Vogel for letting Steve Eminger play his second game of the season. It will be interesting to…
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…