Fiction: “I finish my hits all the time. There’s always motivation in these games. There’s always a little extra in the air, and that will be the case again tonight.” - Sidney Crosby talking to Tarik El-Bashir before last night’s game.

Fact(s): (click second image to enlarge)

Despite being minutes away from the match-up between the Oilers and the Capitals, some elements of the media are already diverting their attention to tomorrow’s Capitals-Penguins game.  It makes some measure of sense: last year’s Eastern Conference champions against this year’s most interesting team; Sidney Crosby versus Alexander Semin; Alexander Ovechkin versus Evgeni Malkin, and so on. What’s a shame is when the media has no idea what they’re talking about. For example, this article by the Associated Press’s Alan Robinson which I came across because it’s ESPN publication was linked to J.P.:

But the one-time friends [Ovechkin and Malkin] have become cold-as-ice rivals, and their on-ice feud has grown increasingly nasty. Last season, the Pittsburgh Penguins’ Malkin ducked just in time to avoid a hard drive into the boards from the Washington Capitals’ Ovechkin.
[…]
Ovechkin’s defended his play by saying that he hits hard against every opponent, although he does not have a reputation among his fellow NHL players for regularly throwing his body around.

If that’s the case, the players’ opinions of Ovechkin must have changed an awful lot in the last couple years, when seven percent of players polled by ESPN said Ovechkin was the hardest hitter in the NHL. At seven percent only Dion Phanuef (43%), Zdeno Chara (11%), and Rob Blake (8%) received higher percentages of votes.

But maybe it isn’t about who Ovechkin finished behind, but who he finished ahead of. I mean, Robyn Regehr, Jordin Tootoo, Chris Neil, Eric Lindros, Brendan Witt, and Donald Brashear don’t really hit that hard, right?

Of course, it wouldn’t be fair to expect this writer to be familiar with the a player poll from 2007, would it? Of course not. But there’s not really any excuse for such a comment when numbers that blatantly contradict the assertion are so easily and readily available:

NHL Hits Leaders, Forwards, 2008-09
(1) D. Brown, 157
(2) M. Lucic, 154
(3) M. Cooke, 145
(4) C. Clutterbuck, 143
(5) A. Ovechkin, 138

NHL Hits Leaders, Forwards, 2007-08
(1) D. Brown, 311
(2) B. Morrow, 260
(3) T. Hunter, 256
(4) D. Backes, 240
(5) M. Fischer, 234
(6) A. Ovechkin, 220

NHL Hits Leaders, Forwards, 2006-07
(1) C. Neil, 288
(2) D. Brown, 258
(3) T. Hunter, 246
(4) C. Kilger, 234
(5) R. Hollweg, 231
(9) A. Ovechkin, 184

NHL Hits Leaders, Forwards, 2005-06
(1) B. Morrow, 234
(2) T. Hunter, 230
(3) C. Neil, 221
(4) S. Begin, 202
(5) S. Ott, 186
(7) A. Ovechkin, 172

Four years in the league; four years in the top ten in hits among forwards; four years in the top three percent among forwards in terms of hits.

Oops.

note: in addition to ESPN, this article has been picked up by The Hockey News, Yahoo! Sports, MSN, and Fox Sports.

Capitals 2008 first round selection John Carlson (27th overall) and his London Knights will be getting a new teammate:

John Tavares is headed to the London Knights.
Sources tell TSN that the Oshawa General scoring star has waived his no-trade clause and approved a trade to the Knights after Generals’ general manager-coach Chris DePiero and Knights’ general manager Mark Hunter successfully concluded trade talks Thursday morning.

Those who following Major Junior hockey or the NHL’s top prospects are already familiar with Tavares, as are those who watched the NHL Network’s coverage of the IIHF World Junior Championships, where Tavares was second in scoring with eight goals and seven assist.

For those who aren’t familiar with Tavares, let’s just say this. He’s kind of a big deal. People know him. And Dale Hunter’s team apparently thought enough of him to give up “four second-round draft selections, two third-round choices, forward Christian Thomas, defenceman Scott Valentine and goaltender Michael Zador” in return for Tavares, Michael Del Zotto and Daryl Borden.

The OHL’s second leading scorer, Tavares joins a London team that is already leading its division with 61 points, also good enough for second in the league. For the Knights, the trade gives them a chance to not only win the Ontario League but to win the Memorial Cup, Major Junior’s biggest prize. That is, of course, provided the cup is fixed in time.

The NHL announced its rosters for the league’s all-star game today. Alexander Ovechkin will represent the Capitals for the Eastern Conference while his teammates Nicklas Backstrom and Mike Green will not.

Both deserved, and I’m sure got, consideration but in reality neither was the kind of shoe-in whose absence is particularly egregious. Yes, Backstrom is seventh in the conference in scoring, but three of the players ahead of him are centers, and Jeff Carter, who’s tied for the NHL lead in goals, is only one point behind.

Green, who leads the NHL in goals by defensemen and is tenth in scoring for blueliners (third in the East) is a more obvious oversight. But still, Green has only played in 28 of the team’s 41 games, perhaps too high a percentage to be considered for the event.

The approach that ought to be adopted by the team, especially Backstrom and Green, is pretty well summed up by Bruce Boudreau:

“We know on merit that Nick and Mike and maybe Alex Semin should all be on that. But that’s not how [it] goes, and it’s not because they don’t deserve to be on it. It’s how the whole thing is situated. They have to pick a player from every team.”

The all-star rosters are designed for a lot of things: to have a representative from each team, to get players with name recognition, to find players people want to see play with one another in a wide-open (non-checking) game. What they are not designed to do is provide a definitive list of the best players in the league; if you were to ask around, I think there would be very few who don’t consider Mike Green one of the six best defensemen in the Eastern Conference or don’t think Nicklas Backstrom is having a better season than Eric Staal. To put it simply: all-star game selection simply aren’t worth worrying about.

Capitals 2, Rangers 1

It wasn’t all that long ago that Jose Theodore was pulled in favor of a noticeably ill Brent Johnson after giving up three goals on five shots to the Rangers at Madison Square Garden. It was the eighth time in nine appearances Theodore had given up at least three goals, and with Johnson playing well it seemed Theodore was destined to be relegated to a backup role - not to mention to be labeled one of the offseason’s biggest busts.

If Johnson hadn’t been sick that evening Theodore probably wouldn’t have found his way back into the net, but Caps fans should be glad he did. Since then Theodore has played 280 minutes and conceded only seven goals, stopping 116 of the 123 shots he’s faced, putting up a 1.50 goals against average and a .943 save percentage, numbers reminiscent of the netminder’s 2001-02 Hart Trophy season. Obviously Theodore’s hot streak isn’t going to continue for the rest of the season but what he has done is show what he is capable of and in the process made goaltending look much less like the vulnerability many feared it would be on opening night. With Karl Alzner’s recall and Milan Jurcina’s subsequent resurgent play the defense has also been substantially upgraded, which begs the question, ‘Does this team have any major weakness, and if not, what’s to stop them from being a legitimate Stanley Cup contender?’

Quick Hits

• It’s good that Chris Clark is showing the tenacity and attitude that made him a captain and fan favorite…but getting KO’d by Wade Redden still has to be embarrassing.
• Speaking of fights, after seeing Alexander Semin without his pads on you’d have an awfully hard time convincing me he’s within fifteen pounds of the 205 he’s listed at - even if he actually is 6′2”.  Nice bling though.
• Speaking of Semin, it may have been my imagination but he looked a little less willing to get hit in his first game back from injury.  Given how he’s played in the past, that might not be a bad thing.
• Eric Fehr looks like he’s about 90% of the way towards being a twenty-goal, fifty-point power forward.  His 2009-10 could be analogous to Tomas Fleischmann’s 2008-09.
• Did Craig Laughlin really say the Capitals were “arguably” the best team in D.C.?  Just to recap, the Nationals have the first pick in next June’s draft, the Wizards are 6-25, the United were 11-15-4 last season, and the Redskins finished at .500.  If there’s an argument that the Caps aren’t the best team is town, I’d love to hear it.
• Speaking of Laughlin, has anyone else noticed that he thinks 80% of goals go in through the “seven hole”?
• A quick lesson in “careful what you wish for”: Saved By Zero may be gone but those NetStar-1 ads where the guy distorts his face while imitated are race car are definitely worse.
• How good is Alexander Ovechkin?  He had a goal, nine shots, and six hits and he didn’t really seem to be any better than most night.

The jersey coming off, Semin beating on the fallen Staal like Donkey Kong on the bongos, the incredible amount of bling Semin’s sporting when he comes up from the fight - there’s enough good stuff here to make this one an easy instant classic.

Watch it, love it, cherish it…and try not to hurt yourself laughing.

update: here’s the CSN feed.

By now you might be familiar with Sidney Crosby’s now- infamous attack on Boris Valabik of the Atlanta Thrashers. For those who aren’t, Crosby attacked Valabik from behind while Valabik was engaged with another Penguins player and punched Valabik several times in the groin:

During this afternoon’s 6-1 Penguins loss to the Florida Panthers Crosby showed marked improvement in the fighting department:

Hey, jumping a guy who’s looking at the ice right off the faceoff isn’t quite as bad as attacking another man’s testicles from behind, right? (am I really writing this?) Maybe Crosby will even face his next victim opponent and let him know he’s about to be attacked, provided that’s not too much to ask.

If you watched the second clip with the sound on, you probably heard how ecstatic the Penguins announcers were that Crosby had dropped the gloves to try and encourage the crowd and rile up his team. Call me crazy, but if I were the Penguins I’d want my team’s second leading scorer on the ice, rather than in the box for nineteen minutes for instigating a fight.

Coming off a 7-4 loss to the Canadian junior team, the United States looks to rebound Friday afternoon in an elimination game against Slovakia. The game airs at 3:30 ET on the NHL Network.

The United States team was undefeated before playing their neighbors to the North and is it stands has still outscored their opponents 28-12 in their first four games, though a 12-0 win of Kazakhstan helped to pad those numbers. Slovakia comes into the game at 2-0-2 using the North American system and 1-1-0-2 using the system common in Europe where regulation wins count for three standings points and overtime wins count for two. Should the United States win, they would play Sweden in a semifinal on Saturday afternoon.

You could say that Stefan Della Rovere played his “pest” role to perfection during last nights 7-4 victory for the Canadian junior team. A pair of ugly incidents (both of which could be fairly labeled ‘cheap shots’) could have, and more realistically should have, seen the 18-year-old seventh round Capitals draft pick rack up 30 penalty minutes and a pair of game misconducts. Instead Della Rovere managed to escape the period having been whistled for only one infraction, a minor penalty that gave the United States a two minute powerplay and saw Della Rovere banished for an additional ten for a misconduct.

Della Rovere started the game off innocently enough, coming aggressive but not too aggressive save for one instance in which he hit an American player in open ice several seconds after a stoppage in play, though it was unclear whether Della Rovere had heard the whistle go, something that could be forgiven from a player playing in front of a raucous sell out crowd.

Della Rovere’s first cheap shot came after Canadian star John Tavares had notched his second goal in just over forty seconds, to pull the Canadian team to within one at 3-2. As the Canadian team made their way past the American bench (during which Della Rovere was mockingly extending his fist as if to engage the American players in a celebration) to celebrate with their teammates one or two of the Canadians ran into American winger James van Riemsdyk, who had his back to the jubilant Canadians. The result wasn’t all that surprising: the Canadians bunched into one another and several lost their footing, including one who appeared a take a stick up high (update: reader 246 points out that the Canadian player was clipped by an American seated on the bench, something I had missed in the telecast and in the intial recaps). Della Rovere in turn quickly and subtly punched van Riemsdyk from the blind side before continuing to the Canadian bench as if nothing had happened. The result? An ice pack to the face of van Riemsdyk , who lay prone on the ice for several minutes before getting up, and no penalty minutes for what should have been a game misconduct.

In the later stages of the first, Della Rovere struck again. After defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk had leveled a clean, but perfectly legal, hit on Tavares behind the American net Della Rovere waited for the puck to come within the vicinity of Shattenkirk before running the Avalanche draft pick from behind into the boards. It was the prototypical example of a dirty hit from behind: the player had his back turned the entire time, he was several feet from the boards in a dangerous position and, to top it off, wasn’t even in possession of the puck. On his second game misconduct-worthy play of the night, Della Rovere recieved two minutes for checking from behind and a ten minute misconduct (as a brief aside, given its dangerous nature shouldn’t checking from behind be an automatic game misconduct like spearing or butt-ending?)

Through the first period two words kept coming to mind during Della Rovere’s antics, and they weren’t particularly welcome ones:

Sean Avery.

I wasn’t the only one with that reaction. One of the NHL Network commentators called Della Rovere’s punch on van Riemsdyk a “cheap shot”. The check from behind was described by The Globe and Mail as “antagonism somewhere between Claude Lemieux and Sean Avery”, while the NHL Network’s commentator said of the play, “when you talk about players not having respect for each other, that’s the kind of play you’re talking about”. Canadian bench boss Pat Quinn took notice, benching Della Rovere for the third period.

So is Della Rovere a younger version of Sean Avery? Maybe. His overaggressive play seemed partially steeped in selfishness: the United States scored their first goal in part because Della Rovere was out of position trying to make a big hit, his mock celebration with the American bench was the kind of unsportsmanlike play that embarrasses teammates and fires up the opposition, and Della Rovere made efforts to (literally) hide behind officials and teammates after his two blatant cheap shots and post-whistle open ice hit while simultaneously affecting an Avery-eqsue “who me?” expression. Pat Quinn’s decision to keep Della Rovere on the bench during the third period suggests that he too was worried that Della Rovere might hurt his team.

On the other hand Della Rovere exhibited humility, a trait not often associated with Avery, after the game, saying, “My emotion ran, obviously, a little too high. My New Year’s resolution is to stop taking bad penalties.” It’s also very unlikely a player as selfish or, well, downright stupid as Avery would be named the captain of an OHL team. Plus I’ve never heard Della Rovere say he appreciates a well made purse.

For now, as a Capitals fan at least, I’m ready to give Della Rovere the benefit of the doubt when it comes to whether or not he’s a quality role player or an agitator who makes you wish for the repeal of the instigator rule. In any case, Della Rovere won’t be in the NHL before 2011-12. Here’s hoping he grows up enough to avoid embarrassing the Caps by then.

note: Team USA plays January 2nd in an elimination game against Slovakia at 3:30. The game will be broadcast on the NHL Network.