Regular preview for the series here.

In the build-up to tonight’s game against the Canadiens much of the talk around the Capitals has centered around the team is unhappy with what they perceived as Montreal attempting to run up the score against them Tuesday night, perhaps most simply summarized by Viktor Kozlov’s statement, “They tried to embarrass us.”

This attitude has some Capitals fans watering at the mouth with visions of a fight-filled game tonight at Verizon Center and while that might be gratifying to some degree in itself, what the Capitals need to focus on is beating the Habs on the scoreboard, not in the fight department. The Capitals need to come away from this game with two points more than anything else and while I’d expect some hard hits and maybe a fight or two I think Bruce Boudreau is a good enough coach that he’ll keep the team focused on the task at hand.

One last note - apparently at some point there was concern that Alexei Kovalev’s thumb was broken, but he will play tonight.

Around the (Inter)net

James Mirtle has one of the best NHL blogs in the business (perhaps due to the fact that he actually is in the business, as a sports desk staffer for the Globe and Mail) and it’s especially good right now as he takes a look at how the game has changed in a series of articles. Part one is about how the distribution of penalty calls differs from the pre-lockout days and part two is about the NHL’s youth movement.

Elsewhere….Alex Ovechkin’s new contract is worth 124 million dollars or 8.857 million haircuts…JP takes a look at whether Olie Kolzig just needs to see more shots…Atlanta’s Ilya Kovalchuk, who trails Ovechkin 39 to 38 in the NHL goal-scoring race, was injured in last night’s against the Penguins…Someone at the North Bay Nugget (?) is saying what I’ve been saying all along - let the All-Star Game be what it is…

I haven’t kept up the prospects update like I’d wanted to when I published the first one in November, but I still think it’s worth taking a look at how some of the Capitals’ top prospects are faring:

Karl Alzner (Defense, Calgary Hitmen, WHL)- many Caps fans probably already know that the 5th overall pick in last year’s draft was the captain of Canada’s gold medal winning World Juniors team. Alzner is playing his junior hockey for the Calgary Hitmen of the WHL and having an impressive season in just about every facet with 27 points (7 goals, 20 assists) in 41 games. Alzner is also +21 and has just 11 penalty minutes.

Francois Bouchard (Right Wing, Baie-Comeau Drakkar, QMJHL) - while not producing at quite as a prodigious rate as last season Bouchard is putting up good offense numbers with 71 points (26+45) in 52 games and looks poised to lead Baie-Comeau Drakkar in points for the third straight season.

Chris Bourque (Right Wing/Left Wing, Hershey Bears, AHL) - Bourque made his NHL debut this season, getting in three games without scoring a point. In Hershey (AHL), Bourque has 14 goals and 15 assists through 40 games.

Eric Fehr (Right Wing, Hershey Bears, AHL) - Fehr has made an impressively quick comeback from a back/hip injury that at one point looked to threaten his career. Though he’s only played nine games so far this season, picking up a goal and four assists, don’t be shocked to see Fehr in a Capitals uniform by season’s end.

Joe Finley (Defense, North Dakota Fighting Sioux, WCHA) - with two goals and eight assists in 25 games for the Fighting Sioux, Finley has actually exceeded offensive expectations (he had one goal and nine assists in 83 games in his collegiate career coming into 2007-08). Finley is a defensive defenseman however, and he has shined in his own end as - his whopping +19 rating is the highest on the North Dakota team.

Josh Godfrey (Defense, Sault Ste Marie Greyhounds, OHL) - Godfrey is shaping up to be a good draft pick for the Capitals. Thought to be a bit of reach in the secon round of last year’s draft Godfrey has had an impressive season this year, making the Canadian World Junior team and putting his 99 mile-per-hour shot to good use, racking up 15 goals and 21 assists in 41 games for the Greyhounds. Godfrey is also +16 and has 49 penalty minutes.

Michal Neuvirth (Goalie, Oshawa General, OHL) - Neuvirth has been traded twice already this season, first from the Plymouth Whalers to the Windsor Spitfires and then from Windsor to Oshawa, and has performed well at every stop. For the season, combined amongst all teams, Neuvirth is 13-5-2 with a 2.67 GAA and a .915 save percentage.

Mathieu Perreault (Center, Acadie-Bathurst Titans, QMJHL) - the Capitals’ scouting staff must have known something that no one else did because the team was able to nab Perreault in the sixth round of the 2006 draft, after a season which Perreault put up 52 points (18+34) in 62 games, and watch Perreault put up 119 (41+78) points in 67 games last season. This year Perreault has 69 points (24+45) in 43 games.

Sasha Pokulok (Defense, Hershey Bears, AHL) - Pokulok’s numbers this season aren’t particularly impressive (no goals, five assists, 35 PIMs, +6) but the fact that the big defenseman has been able to make it through the first 31 games of this season without a serious injury and shown some improvement is a good sign

Keith Seabrook (Defense, Calgary Hitmen, WHL) - Seabrook has found his stride somewhat but the 2006 second round pick still has just three goals and eight assists in 39 games for the Hitmen.

Semen Varlamov (Goalie, Lokomotiv Yaroslavl , RSL) - as with most players (and especially goalies) in the Russian Super League it was difficult to find statistics on Varlamov, but I was able to dig up that he is 23-10 and has a GAA of about 2.40.

Tarik is reporting that Shaone Morrisonn may play tomorrow and that the Capitals aren’t too happy with the way Montreal finished the game last night…A little love for the Alex Ovechkin/Nicklas Backstrom combination from the Canadian Press and a little love for Bruce Boudreau from Newsday…On Frozen Blog takes a look at Ovechkin’s contract

Canadiens 4, Capitals 0

Everyone’s had those days where nothing seems to go right and last night was one for the Capitals. When in the first 21 minutes alone you’ve given up a goal that came when your team went shorthanded because of quite possibly the worst rule in the history of the NHL, given up two goals that came as a result of opposing players getting out of the box at just the right moment and hit the post the post twice in the other team’s end, it’s just not your night.

Unfortunately for the Capitals they ran into a particularly bad opponent to be up against when the breaks don’t go your way early as the Canadiens lived up to their reputation and stifled the Capitals’ attack after going ahead early. I don’t mean to suggest the Capitals deserved to win last night because they didn’t play particularly well. They did, however, play well enough that they should have had at least a chance to come back and win and didn’t deserve to be buried by the first intermission.

This game also underlined the importance Shaone Morrisonn to the Capitals as John Erskine, Morrisonn’s replacement alongside Mike Green, was -1 and took three unnecessarily penalties.  Morrisonn has been the most consistent Capital defender in his own end this season and no one is feeling his impact more than his defensive partner Green, who has had zero points and is a -4 in the games Morrisonn has missed after putting up 14 points and a +3 in the nine game before Morrisonn’s injury.

Washington Capitals at Montréal Canadiens
Monday, January 28th, 2008
Bell Centre in Montréal, Québec
Last Meeting: January 5th, 2007, Capitals win 5-4 in overtime

About the Opponent

Montréal Canadiens (26-15-8, 2nd in the Northeast Division, 2nd in the Eastern Conference)

Team Leaders
Goals: Alexei Kovalev (21)
Assists: Saku Koivu (27)
Points: Alexei Kovalev (45)
Plus/Minus: tie - Alexei Kovalev and Mike Komisarek (+11)
Penalty Minutes: Tom Kostopoulos (85)
Fights: Tom Kostopoulos (7)

Betcha Didn’t Know…
The Canadiens jersey has featured some variation on the current crest (the ‘H’ within the ‘C’) since 1916.

Random Canadiens Statistic
Not only is the Canadiens’ potent powerplay clicking at 23.9% and ranked second in the NHL, they have also allowed only one shorthanded goal against.

Keys to the Game

Washington
Score the first goal. For all that the Capitals have done well since Bruce Boudreau took over, they’re not scoring first nearly often enough and with how talented the Canadiens are defensively and the Bell Centre crowd behind them this would be an especially difficult game to come back in.

Montréal
Keep the pressure up. The Capitals are simply too talent on offensive to try and hold them off all game if the play is in the Canadiens end.

Players to Watch

Washington
Brent Johnson - Tarik is reporting that Johnson, who has shined since Boudreau took over, will start tomorrow. With another strong outing Johnson could make the Caps’ goaltending situation very interesting.

Montréal
Tomas Plekanec - everyone know about Saku Koivu and Alexei Kovalev, but Plekanec has been an important part of the Canadiens success this year and is second on the team in points (42) and tied for second in goals (16).

Round the (Inter)net:
Teemu Selanne is returning to the Ducks…unable to let any bit of significant NHL news pass without defending his title as the reigning bastion of negativity in the hockey world, Ross McKeon has already criticized him for for it…No need to panic, ESPN has found a way to cover Sidney Crosby even when he’s not one the ice - talk about his life off the ice!…E.J. Hradek likes Alex Ovechkin for MVP…My nominee for Best New Hockey Blog goes to: I am the best in the world at NHL ‘94.

If you’ve ever read the Yahoo! Sports hockey page, chances are you’ve stumbled across this yutz who is, I believe, the single biggest bastion of negativity in the NHL journalistic world. Just in the last week or so he’s put up an article about how boring and pointless the all-star game is, followed by an article about how the NHL needs the media to help it cultivate a good image for events like the all-star game, followed by an article about how the NHL Skills Competition was boring and pointless. Just to recap McKeon’s position here:

1. The NHL all-star game is boring and stupid and pointless. I can say this and my opinion counts because I am a media member.
2. The NHL has an image problem because the media is always criticizing it and and events it puts on.
3. Let me note, from the press box, in my Yahoo! blog that the NHL Skills Competition is stupid.

My problem with these articles isn’t that I wholeheartedly disagree with McKeon, it’s that all he seems to do is complain about the NHL and make really ignorant statements like “Much like the situation in Atlanta, the only intrigue [in Washington] is Alexander Ovechkin and his pursuit of a goal-scoring title” and I can’t understand why Yahoo! would be paying a columnist who neither seems like nor follow the NHL.

There’s not really any way around the fact that for a number of years it has been frustrating to be a hockey fan. The NHL saw its on-ice product become significantly less appealing as the trap and clutch-and-grab styles of play becoming increasingly effective and popular, suffered through the first work stoppage to ever cancel an entire season in North America and lost its contract with (and hence its coverage from) ESPN. And to top it off, Gary Bettman is still the commissioner.

These problems have built a culture of negativity around the NHL, where it has become en vouge to criticize the league on everything from the on-ice product to the off-ice management to the rules of the game to the uniforms. To an extent these criticisms are warranted and anyone who thinks the NHL doesn’t have significant obstacles in front of it needs to either take of their rose-colored glasses or have their opinion taken again once they’re off Bettman’s payroll. But at the same time anyone who doesn’t believe that the NHL is an exciting, world-class league that is in better shape for the long term financially and in terms of the on-ice product than before the lockout is…well, wrong. But I digress.

This aura of negativity has unsurprisingly extended to the center of the NHL world for this weekend, the All-Star game in Atlanta. Even before All-Star weekend started the chorus of critics ratcheted up with claims the NHL All-Star game is irrelevant, meaningless to casual fans and boring, all because the game itself won’t resemble a real NHL game. While I don’t disagree with those assertions my overwhelming response is “so, what?”

These “problems” aren’t singular to the NHL by any stretch. When is the last time you ever saw an NFL game played without blitzes, a Major League Baseball game where both managers made an effort to get all the players in and were required to change pitchers every three innings or that ended in a tie, or an NBA game that ended in regulation with both teams scoring over 130 points? It doesn’t happen anywhere but the Pro Bowl, the Midsummer Classic or the NBA All-Star game and yet you don’t hear people within the professional football, baseball or basketball fanbases or journalistic circles fret about the integrity and nature of the all-star game nearly as much as hockey fans and journalists do. The other major sports realize what an all-star game is: a chance to honor the best players in the game, take a break from the grueling regular schedule and a chance to watch the best the game has to offer play in a non-competitive exhibition environment that is, yes, meaningless.*

The NHL and its fans shouldn’t expect or hope for anything more for their all-star game, yet they do, a direct result of the other problem with the negative attitude that permeates the NHL these days. Besides making it fashionable to levy criticism at events like the All-Star game before they even occur the culture of negativity has in and of itself created a severe images problems for the NHL. Imagine you’re a relatively casual sports fan surfing websites during down times at work and every time you read something about the NHL the league is unconvincingly insisting attendance and television ratings are up and while pundits mock the leagues rule changes, uniforms and leadership while painting a doom-and-gloom picture of the future while wistfully writing about how much better the league was twenty years ago. Does that sound like the kind of league you’d want to check out? If the guys who are paid to write about hockey having nothing but complaints about the NHL, what do people expect the casual sports fan’s response to be?

Not that the NHL can silence the pundits, nor should they try to. But the league can control what it discusses and why. To insist at every turn that the league is drawing people to arenas in records numbers or that television ratings are steadily on the rise makes the league seem desperate for approval; desperate to impress and is completely at odds with the image the league had cultivated for years. If this were high school the NHL would have gone from being the kid that not a whole lot of people knew but who everyone thought was a badass to the kid who, yeah I mean he’s pretty cool, like, if you get to know him but yeah it’s totally weird how, like, he’s like always asking about whether or not people like him or not and junk (and why does he always change the way he dresses and stuff, does he think people are going to like, like him more for it or something….?)

Let me say this: I am a hockey fan, no doubt. I played travel hockey as a kid, I still play, I purchased NHL Center ice and a DVR just so I could watch more hockey and I spend hours every week writing about hockey without compensation. But I’m not going to watch the All-Star game.** I don’t think people like me a problem for the league any more than people who watch the NFL every week but skip the Pro Bowl are for the NFL.

Simply put, the NHL All-Star game is what it is: a nice little break in the middle of the season where the players can have fun and as fans we might see some dazzling offense and as such, it is fine. But it isn’t enough to be a savior for the league or even a legitimate chance to showcase the NHL or its players, so of course the event is going to fail to live up to any expectations people might have that it should be. The league needs to realize this and concentrate their efforts on making the on-ice product as good as possible rather than continually hoping that if they can just nail the presentation in All-Star game/Winter Classic/Opening Night/Crosby vs. Ovechkin/Playoffs or whatever else all their problems will be solved.

*I know the MLB All-Star game decides home field advantage in the World Series. To me that’s not really enough to make it important to most people, even those in the Major Leagues. Rather, it’s just an embarrassing example of what happens when a league decides it tries to all-star game mean something.
**Okay, the full version is less dramatic. I’ll be playing hockey during the All-Star game, but I’m not too upset that I’ll miss it and if I weren’t playing I’d probably have the game on in the background, but not really watch it.

Capitals 2, Maple Leafs 1

Now that’s more like it.

After clearly outplaying the Maple Leafs Wednesday night in Toronto and losing, the Capitals came home to Verizon Center last night and claimed two points in a game in which they were outshot 32-20 and in which they twice had the man advantage and saw themselves shorthanded five time. If we’re going to be objective, you’d have to look at this game and say the Capitals didn’t necessarily deserve two points. Not that they were outplayed or deserved to lose per se (I don’t think Toronto played all that well either), but the Maple Leafs were pretty effective in shutting down the Caps offense and without the stellar performance from Brent Johnson Washington’s defense wouldn’t have looked that great either. But given that the karmic balance after last night was such that the Capitals were probably deserving of two, I won’t feel too bad about it.

The story of last night’s game goes beyond the Capitals and the Maple Leafs though. Now, heading into the all-star break, the Capitals are the only team in the Southeast Division above .500 and are one point out of the division lead, with two games in hand. I can’t speak for any other Capitals fans but if I were offered that scenario at the beginning of the season, I would have taken it. If I’d been offered it Thanksgiving Day I would have asked if you thought I believed in Santa Claus too.

Yet here we are, mid-January and the Capitals are not only poised to take control of the Southeast Division, they are clearly looking like the class of the division, going 17-8-4 since Bruce Boudreau took over while each of the other teams in the Southeast have played well below .500 since then. With Carolina and Atlanta still looking inconsistent at best it would be surprising if the Capitals don’t take first place in the division with their two games in hand on the ‘Canes. It’d be even more surprising if, once they took the lead, they ever relinquished it.

DMG’s 3 Stars
(1) Brent Johnson - 31 saves on 32 shots, .969 save percentage
(2) Alexander Ovechkin - 2 assists
(3) Viktor Kozlov - 1 goal (game winner)

Quotable

Since Coach Bruce Boudreau stepped behind the bench on Nov. 22, Johnson has been one of the team’s best players. He is 5-1 with a 2.05 goals against average and .926 save percentage since Boudreau arrived, and his coach believes he has earned the right to play more down the stretch.

Quick Hits

• John Erskine’s first period penalty for delay of game was real bad because there’s no reason to even come close to putting the puck off the rink when there’s no pressure.
• Each Capitals player who took a faceoff (Nicklas Backstrom, Brooks Laich, David Steckel, Boyd Gordon, Matt Bradley) was at 58% effectiveness or higher. For the game the Capitals won 33 of 53 faceoffs (62%).
• Milan Jurcina led the Capitals with six hits. Nice to see the big man finally using his body.

Photos: AP

Maple Leafs 3, Capitals 2

I can’t remember the last time I saw a team get dominated like the Maple Leafs were last night and still win the game. The Capitals outhit, outshot, outchanced, outskated and outworked the home team in Toronto last night but they just couldn’t outscore them.

Two things can bury a team that generally outplays its opponent: bad luck and bad plays; the Capitals fell victim to both. The Leafs first game came when Donald Brashear tried to make a between-the-legs breakout pass in his own zone (bad play). The Leafs second goal came at the end of a sequences where the puck was kept in the Capitals end because Mike Green blew a tire behind his own goal line (bad luck). The Leafs third goal came because whoever should have been covering Mats Sundin (the center on the line, I think Dave Steckel) was no where to be found (bad play), because Olaf Kolzig put a rebound in a bad area (bad play) and because Sundin just happened to be in exactly the right/wrong spot (bad luck). Take away those combined thirty seconds and there’s really nothing to complain about as a Caps fan.

The Capitals haven’t yet lost consecutive games in regulation under Bruce Boudreau and with the team coming home and looking to get the two points they earned last night, I’d be willing to bet today won’t be the first time it happens either.

Quick Hits

• If he’s going to hit like that every game I, for one, can overlook John Erskine’s deficiencies in the skating department.
• Where was Tom Poti going with that hog-tie on Dominic Moore?
• The Maple Leafs had 11 players take shots; the Capitals had 16.

Leafs GM Ferguson Fired