Capitals 3, Panthers 1

DMG’s 3 Stars
(1) Sergei Fedorov - 1 goal (the game winner), 1 assists, +1 and some fine penalty killing work
(2) Alexander Semin - 1 goal, 1 assist, +1, 8 shots
(3) Cristobal Huet - 25 saves on 26 shots (.962 save %)

All photos AP/Getty by way of Yahoo!

There are 82 games in the NHL’s regular season, and the Capitals have needed every one of them to try and get themselves into a playoff position. It all comes down to this for the Capitals in 2007-08, a game in their own barn, with a sea of red backing them inside the arena and the support of a city that hasn’t been this fully behind the Caps since their 1998 Stanley Cup run. The Caps opponent, the Florida Panthers, played the role of spoiler last night in Raleigh and will be looking to do the same against the Caps. The improbable Panthers win might just be a case of the hockey gods looking favorably upon Washington: the Panthers were outshot 46-17 last night, were called for nine penalties to Carolina’s zero, used both their goaltenders and won in Carolina for the first time since 2002. Beyond just the win, this is good news for a Capitals team that will be facing the traveling Panthers squad less than 24 hours after last night’s intense matchup, so something tells me the Caps will probably have more spring in their step.

The bottom line? The Capitals need one point to get in to the postseason. Let’s do this thing.

Florida Panthers at Washington Capitals
Saturday, April 5th, 2008, 7:00 PM
Verizon Center in Washington, D.C.
TV: CSN
Last Meeting: 3/29/08, Caps win 3-0

About the Opponent

Florida Panthers: 38-34-9, 85 points, 3rd in the Southeast Division, 11th in the Eastern Conference

Team Leaders
Goals: Olli Jokinen (34)
Assists: Olli Jokinen (37)
Points: Olli Jokinen (71)
Plus/Minus: Jassen Cullimore (+21)
Penalty Minutes: Nathan Horton (85)
Fights: Tanner Glass (7)

Keys to the Game

Washington
Score early and score often. Florida’s primary motivation in this game is going to be playing the role of spoiler. While that might be enough to get off to solid start or provide a boost late in a close game, it’s probably not going to be enough to motivate a team to come back from a 2-0 or 3-0 deficit.

Florida
Convert your chances. Unless something strange happens, the Capitals should have more shots, more scoring chances more puck possession and more offensive zone time, so the only way Florida is going to have a shot on the big board is to convert an unusually higher number of their opportunities.

Players to Watch

Washington
John Erskine - The only way I see the Capitals losing this game is if they make mistakes to hand the game to Florida; the only player that I think is likely to make a mistake like that is Erskine. The Capitals don’t need a great game from Erskine, they just need him to not screw up.

Florida
Tomas Vokoun/Craig Anderson - Both are capable of stealing a game, and there’s a very good chance that whichever Panther is in net will be the toughest task for the Capitals tonight.

Capitals 3, Panthers 0

Coming into the final stretch the Washington Capitals are looking increasingly like a team of destiny (or an unstoppable force, for those more scientifically inclined fans) and last night’s 3-0 over a Florida Panthers team that needed a win to keep any glimmer of playoff hope alive did nothing to diminish that feeling, as the Capitals emerged victorious behind stellar performances from Viktor Kozlov and Cristobal Huet.

With their win, Washington caps a 5-1 road trip that exceed the expectations of even the most optimistic fan but still leaves the Capitals on the outside of the playoff picture looking in, one point behind Philadelphia for the eight spot in the Eastern Conference and two points behind both Boston (for seventh in the Conference) and Carolina (for first in the Southeast Division)(note: all three teams have a game in hand on the Capitals).* Who would have thought that even after picking up ten points in the six game swing the Caps would still be on the outside looking in? At least on the plus side for Caps fans, it was nice to have a game that didn’t induce any gray hairs.

On the ice the Washington Capitals number one goal is to maintain focus, play smart and do their best to pick up every single point that’s still available to them. In the front office of the Washington Capitals to number one goal should be finding a way to get newly acquired netminder Cristobal Huet under contract for next season. Speculation is that Huet would be looking for something in the range of an average salary of five million dollars for three or four years and if that’s the case he’s well worth the money. The Capitals are used to shelling out 5.45 million a year for Olaf Kolzig and although a number of players including Alexander Ovechkin, Alexander Semin, Mike Green and Brooks Laich are going to get significant raises next year, you’d have to think that Ted Leonsis and George McPhee will find a way to devote a significant chuck of cash to the goaltending position, especially given how much this season illustrated the impact of mediocre goaltending on an otherwise very good team.

No doubt there are alarm bells going off for some Caps fans at the thought of signing a goalie to play the next three or four years for the the team given that Semen Varlamov and Michael Neuvirth are both pretty decent prospects. But the reality is that Neuvirth just turned 20 last week and Varlamov is only 19, so both are likely a ways from being capable NHL regulars. Like pitchers in baseball or quarterbacks in football, goalies tend to take long to develop; Kolzig didn’t become the Capitals’ starter until after his 25th birthday, Evgeni Nabokov was the same age when he became San Jose’s number one and Jean-Sebastien Giguere wasn’t a starter until he was 23. Even most highly-regarded netminders take a little while to get going: Roberto Luongo wasn’t a clear cut starter until he was 22 and Rick DiPietro only really put everything together last year, at age 25. Some goalies establish themselves at a younger age, but in all likelihood it’s going to take at least a couple seasons before either of the Capitals’ goaltending prospects will be ready and Huet seems to be more than capable of holding down the fort until then.

DMG’s 3 Stars
(1) Viktor Kozlov - 1 goal, 2 assists, +3, 7 shots
(2) Cristobal Huet - saved all 32 shots sent his way
(3) Alex Ovechkin - 1 goal, 1 assist, +2, 2 hits, 4 shots

Quick Hits

• Even if Eric Fehr doesn’t turn into the type of sniper the Capitals once hoped he should still be a valuable player as a big guy with decent hands who isn’t afraid to throw his body around, as evidenced by his 3 hits and 3 shots last night.
• I wonder how long that Ovechkin-to-Nicklas Backstrom play from behind the net is going to work before other teams catch on?
• If Bruce Boudreau had been the coach of this team from the season’s outset, I think we’d be talking about Ovechkin hitting 70.
• The Panthers managed to shoot and miss the net 15 times.
• The Capitals only had one player (Sergei Fedorov) who was over 50% on draws; not surprisingly the Panthers had only one player (Greg Campbell) who was below 50%.

*Note: this was written before the results of the Flyers game were posted on TSN (my source). As it turns out, the Flyers have won and have now played the same number of games as the Capitals and have 91 points.

Washington Capitals at Florida Panthers
Friday, February 15th, 2008, 7:30 PM
BankAtlantic Center in Sunrise, Florida
TV:CSN
Last Meeting: 1/19/2008, Caps win 5-3

About the Opponent

Florida Panthers: 26-27-6, 58 points, 4th in the Southeast Division, 13th in the Eastern Conference

Team Leaders
Goals: Olli Jokinen (29)
Assists: tie - Olli Jokinen and Nathan Horton (29)
Points: Olli Jokinen (58)
Plus/Minus: tie - Jassen Cullimore, Nathan Horton and David Booth (+10)
Penalty Minutes: Ruslan Salei (69)
Fights: Tanner Glass (6)

Random Panthers Fact
In the franchise’s early days, Florida and its fans had an infatuation with rats that started before their home opener in the 1995-96 season when Scott Mellanby “one-timed” a rat that had invaded the team’s dressing room, killing it in the process.  Mellanby scored two goals in the ensuing game, a feat which was dubbed a “rat trick” by John Vanbiesbrouck. Soon fan were brining rubber rats to the rink and throwing them on the ice in support of their team. The per-game rat counted reached as high as 2,000 in the playoffs. Full story.

Random Panthers Statistic
The Panthers’ 33.1 shots allowed per game are the most in the NHL this season.

Keys to the Game

Washington
Secondary scoring. Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, Viktor Kozlov and Mike Green can’t do it all.

Florida
Contain Ovechkin and Green. With their speed and puck control skills, these two are the ones who can break open a play under just about any circumstances and between the Capitals lack of secondary scoring and the tight defensive game Florida likes to play, they’re the only two the Panthers should have to worry about.

Players to Watch

Washington
The duo of Alexander Semin and Tomas Fleischmann. The Capitals desperately need offense from guys who aren’t on the first line and the pressure should be on these two. Each have received two-year extensions, Semin can’t use health as an excuse anymore and Fleischmann should be settled enough to play his best hockey.

Florida
The trio of Jay Bouwmeester, Olli Jokinen and Tomas Vokoun. These guys are carrying the Panthers, and each will need to play well for the team to send the fans in Sunrise home happy.

Around the (Inter)net
Bloggers, along with the Capitals and the Hershey Bears are banding together to benefit Wilson High School, “the District’s only public high school with a varsity hockey team”.

Glen Hanlon has landed a new coaching gig in Finland with Helsinki Jokerit, a prestigious team in Finland’s top league…Rod Brind’Amour is done for the season…More Foppa news.

Capitals 5, Panthers 3

….so close to free wings.

For about fifty minutes of this game the Capitals were dominant and for about ten they were terrible. That ten minute stretch looked like it had the potential to bury the Caps but at the end of the night the boys in red, white and blue held on to improve to 4-1 on their homestand, behind strong efforts from Viktor Kozlov, Mike Green and Nicklas Backstrom, who assisted on four of the Capitals five goals.

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Florida Panthers at Washington Capitals
Saturday, January 19th, 7:00 PM
Verizon Center in Washington, D.C.
Last Meeting: 12/1/2008, Capitals win 2-1

This game is important for so many reasons: it concludes the Capitals homestand and for this team the difference between going 4-1 and 3-2 over five games is huge, the winner assumes sole control of third place in the Southeast Division and a win would let the Capitals gain ground on the stumbling Carolina Hurricanes (3-6-1 in their last ten) and Atlanta Thrashers (lost 10-1 to Buffalo last night).

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Capitals 2, Panthers 1

After the Capitals 4-3 loss to Carolina I wrote that the bad luck that had been plaguing the team for more than twenty games only seemed to be getting worse and wondered when it would finally end.

As the expression goes: “It’s always darkest before the dawn”.

Luck finally seemed to be on the Capitals side last night, and as a result the team caught a number of breaks during the game:

• Pothier’s goal was the result of a good decision to put the puck on net, but Vokoun really should stop that shot.
• The Capitals also caught a break on Ovechkin’s goal. As talented as Ovechkin is, 95% of the time you score that kind of angle it’s more luck than skill.
• The call on Bryan Allen for holding Ovechkin was weak. Not only did he not hold him, I even thought whether there was intent to hold was questionable.
• Olli Jokinen had his stick slashed by a Capitals player hard enough to break it, but the Capitals were not called for a penalty.
• With about three minutes left in regulation Dave Steckel caught Rostislav Olesz with a high stick that was missed by the referees.

I don’t mean to imply the Capitals managed to pick up a win when they didn’t deserve to. The Caps outshot Florida 43-25 and controlled the play for the majority of the game, while Brent Johnson had a very good night between the pipes, stopping 24 of the Panthers 25 shots. It was nice to finally see the bounces and calls going the Caps way though.

The Capitals now have five days off, days they need to rest after their stretch of playing ten times in sixteen days. The team will also have the chance to fully absorb Bruce Boudreau’s system. Obviously the changes he has been able to make so far have paid dividends but there’s no doubt the team will welcome to chance to internalize the system more so that they don’t have to think about it as much on the ice.

Quotable

“We got outplayed and outhustled.

Quick Hits

• Man, I thought Denis Potvin was going to have a heart attack whining about how Ovechkin’s cross-check on Horton should have been a major penalty. Funny how he neglected to mention it was the result of Horton shoving a Caps player in the chest after the play and how he didn’t seem to have a problem with both Backstrom and Kozlov being on the receiving end of facewashes that ended being shoves to the head only minutes later.
• Quintin Laing is winning me over fast. Four blocked shots in the first game and two crucial ones in the closing seconds tonight. In just two days I’ve gone from wondering who the heck this guy is to wondering why he wasn’t with the team sooner. If he keeps this up he should challenge Matt Bradley for ice time.
• For a smallish 20 year old guy who’s game is built on skill Nicklas Backstrom sure isn’t shy about digging around in front of the opponent’s net.