Washington Capitals all-star winger Alexander Ovechkin’s trophy case is getting a little crowded.

During last night’s NHL Awards Show, Ovechkin picked up both the Hart Trophy (Most Valuable Player) and the Lester B. Pearson Award (Players’ choice for the most outstanding player). Two weeks ago, Ovechkin was awarded the Maurice “Rocket” Richard Trophy (NHL’s top goal scorer) and Art Ross Trophy (NHL’s top point scorer). He’s the first player in NHL history to win all four awards. So suck on that, haters.

Good God, just look at all that totally sweet hardware.

Tonight at the Verizon Center is going to be amazing, nuts, historic. I’ve been to two of the playoff games, but don’t get to go this time around. Our quintessential Caps fan, Drew Thiemann of Arlington, a season-ticket-holder since age 8, does. So how is Drew weathering the ride with the “Cardiac Caps”?

You could properly call this Caps squad a team of destiny. To make it into the playoffs, defying a string of ridiculous odds, is incredible by itself. But to find ourselves down 3-1 in the series, against this same hard-nosed Philly team, then rebounding to tie the series, now facing a home Game 7…this sort of material is hockey legend in the making. Shades of Dale Hunter’s 1988 overtime game winner are lingering in my thoughts as I nervously wait for tonight’s puck to drop. I’ll be in section 400, sporting red instead of my usual Bobby Gould No. 23 jersey.

He’s been wearing that jersey to the game since he was a small boy who didn’t fit in it, but is switching so he can Rock the Red. See what I mean about historic? Go Caps.

They’re saying “Love Ovechkin,” right?

Did smooth jazz doom the Caps the other night? Or was it existentialist dread on the part of body-painting fans? Maybe a little of both? Free Ride’s got the account.

Caps fans, fairweather and not, were a unified, thundering, mass of red on Friday night, Game 1. They were less-thundering—but still enthusiastic, still buying snacks—on Sunday afternoon, Game 2. We are filling the seats, Verizon. So how about you stock up on some pretzels that were fresh sometime after 2003, the last time the Caps were in the playoffs. Really, this thing was like chewing on lawn furniture.

This morning, Washington Post sports columnist Mike Wise summed up the lessons of the first two games of the ongoing Caps-Flyers series:

Playoff hockey wasn’t Friday night; that was an aberration, a once-in-an-era, 18,000-strong love-in, consummating the relationship between fans and the players they’ve come to embrace. Playoff hockey was Game 2, the Flyers mercilessly forechecking, keeping the pressure on Capitals goalie Cristobal Huet even with a two-goal lead.

Which raises the question: Does this guy know from hockey? It sounds like a lot of sports-columnist boilerplate to me. You tend to hear the same line about the playoffs in the NBA–about how the defense tightens, and wimps lose, and finesse has no place. In other words, the sort of analysis that gets written when the columnist doesn’t have anything particularly insightful to add.

Caps fans, please help: Does Wise have it right that the Caps tried to play too pretty on Sunday and folded under the brute force of the Flyers?

A friend of mine and occasional Caps ticket buyer got a taped phone message over the weekend from owner Ted Leonsis, asking folks to purchase playoff tickets ASAP, before the first-round pairings had been decided. Leonsis’ recorded pitch was aimed at keeping opposing fans out of Verizon Center, specifically fans of what at the time was the Caps’ most likely opponent, the Philadelphia Flyers.

Leonsis has gotten in trouble before for trying to stymie out-of-towners’ attendance. But I can’t quibble with his goal here. The great Dan Steinberg posted earlier this week about Philly fans and their habit of taking over the Caps’ house, which dates all the way back to the team’s founding in the 1974–75 season, which happens to be the last time the Flyers won the Stanley Cup.

Hockey meant a lot more to me then then it does now, and though the rivalry was totally one-sided throughout the 1970s—the Caps as a franchise didn’t even make the playoffs until 1983—the Flyers games always provided the most intense moments of the season. Not for what went on on the ice during the contests, but for all the fan violence in the Capital Centre grandstands.

Steinberg’s post and all the hype leading up to tonight’s series opener got me thinking about yet another a nostalgic column I wrote some years ago of how excited a kid I grew up with used to get when the Flyers would come to town. He knew he was going to brawl with at least a couple fans who’d beer-bused down to Largo from Philly with just as bad an attitude as he had.

And I used to get excited just knowing I was going to watch him brawl. Good times.

In fact, it actually looks a LOT like Hershey Bears defenseman (and recent Washington Capitals minor-league callup) Sami Lepisto. You be the judge.

Alexander Ovechkin:

The Alexander Ovechkin bobblehead:

Sami Lepisto:

Not that I’m complaining. I got this sweet beauty for free at the Caps’ last regular season game right before they kicked ass and made the playoffs, and it’s been sitting pretty right next to my television for the last week getting me pumped for tomorrow night’s Game One against the Philadelphia Flyers.

Well, how do you like that? After 81 games—which included an early-season meltdown followed by an improbable comeback—the Washington Capitals found themselves in a win-and-you’re-in, lose-and-you’re-out playoffs situation during their final game of the regular season. (Okay, technically, they could have lost in overtime and still made the playoffs, but my way sounds much more dramatic.)

Of course, no team in the history of the NHL had ever found themselves in last place within their conference midway through the season and then gone on to make the playoffs. (Okay, again—technically, the Caps were dead last in the NHL on Thanksgiving Day when coach Glen Hanlon was fired and replaced with AHL coach Bruce Boudreau but 14th in their conference midway through the season. But you know what? No team has ever been in that position midway through the season and made the playoffs, either.) So, when the Capitals defeated the Florida Panthers (who had actually saved the Caps’ playoff hopes by defeating the Carolina Hurricanes the night before) by the score of 3-1 Saturday night, the team not only secured its first Southeast Division Championship title since the 2000-2001 season and first playoff appearance since the 2002-2003 season, it also secured its place as one of the NHL’s greatest comeback teams in the league’s history.

Read the rest of this entry »

Crazy about those Caps? Or just plain crazy? Free Ride’s Christopher Porter got robbed of his promotional burrito at last night’s game. It spilled rice all over his cranberry-colored T-shirt! Cranberry?

Well, here we are folks. After a disastrous start, a coaching change, a sudden surge through the standings despite long-term injuries to key players, and an MVP-worthy season by franchise left-winger Alexander Ovechkin, the Washington Capitals find themselves in a position to make the playoffs for the first time since the 2002-2003 season. Not only that, but—as the Washington Post’s Tarik El-Bashir points out—they could actually win the Southeast Division.

Holy fucking shit.

The Caps have six games left in the following two weeks—all against Southeast Division opponents. Two games against the Southeast Division-leading Carolina Hurricanes (five points ahead of the Caps), two games against the Florida Panthers (who are also competing for a playoff spot and only one point behind the Caps), and two against the league-worst Tampa Bay Lightning. The first three games are away and begin with tonight’s matchup against the Hurricanes.

If the Caps kick ass, they could win the division and get into the playoffs in the third spot. If that were to happen, who knows what team they’d play in the first round: Of the seven teams competing for the last three playoffs spots in the East, only eight points separate the 12th-place Toronto Maple Leafs and the 6th place New York Rangers. In fact, the whole goddamned conference is one big ol’ clusterfuck, thanks to Gary Bettman and the three-point system in which a team that loses in overtime gets a point for, well, losing. Trying to do the math gives me a fucking headache, know what I’m saying? So the Caps shouldn’t waste any energy worrying about whether or not they might have to play Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins in the first round of the playoffs and just kick the shit out of Carolina, Florida, and Tampa.

Oh yeah, and making the playoffs is the only way Ovechkin will win the Hart Memorial Trophy for most valuable player. Because the people who choose whoever wins the award (members of the Professional Hockey Writers Association) are douchebags who think that—even though the NHL already has a fucking award for Playoff MVP—the award should only go to a player whose team makes the playoffs. Never mind that Ovechkin, you know, leads the league in goals. And points. And checks the shit out of everything that moves. And has almost single-handedly carried the Washington Fucking Capitals to within two points of the playoffs.

“Hey guys, check me out. I’m a member of the Professional Hockey Writers Douchelord SuperClub! What say we give the Hart to Evgeni Malkin instead of Ovechkin on the basis that I am a complete fucking tool?”

DCist today has a nice breakdown of the Caps’ victory last night over Minnesota, complete with a bit of analysis of recent trade developments. Overall, a great little piece of work by Eli Resnick.

Just one comment thus far, though, and I’ll bet there’s not much more activity on the post before the day’s out.

Which brings me to my point: Does anyone around here give a shit about the Caps, aside from Resnick, our own beloved Matt Borlik, and a few commuters from the exurbs?

NHL attendance stats tend to confirm my hunch: The Caps are 26th of 30 franchises in 2008, just in front of Nashville, Columbus, Phoenix, and the Islanders.

So on the hockey attendance front, D.C. can beat a backwater or two and perhaps a Sunbelt town. And Long Island is just a weird place.

Maybe if the squad gets deep into the playoffs. When are they, anyway–July or something?

On November 23, 2007, newly-promoted Washington Capitals coach Bruce Boudreau worked his first game behind the bench in the National Hockey League. That night, the cellar-dwelling Capitals—who were in last place in the Southeast Division—beat the Philadelphia Flyers in overtime by the score of 4-3, earning Boudreau his first NHL win. Last night, Boudreau and the surging Capitals returned to Philadelphia, winning again by the score of 4-3. And now the Caps—one of the NHL’s hottest teams since Boudreau’s promotion—find themselves in first place of the Southeast Division, which automatically puts them in third place in the Eastern Conference.

And, wouldn’t you know it? If the playoffs started today, the Caps would play the Pittsburgh Penguins. Boo. (P.S. Suck it, Pittsburgh.)

Of course, the Florida Panthers and the Atlanta Thrashers—two of the Caps’ Southeast Division “rivals”—play tonight; a Panthers win would tie them with the Caps for first place in the extremely tight division while a Thrashers win would actually put them back in first place. So root against both of them. They suck.

On Friday night, the Caps play the Carolina Hurricanes at home in what will essentially be a four-point game. You should go. And here’s a heads-up for all you broke-ass students: Tomorrow night is one of the Caps’ “Student Rush” nights, which means—if you present a valid student I.D. card at the Verizon Center box office on the day of the game—you can get a $25 lower-level ticket or a $10 upper-level ticket. Good God Almighty, what a deal! Just remember to NOT lean forward during the entire game and to NOT get in/out of your seat while the puck is in play.

Shhh. Shut your yapping mouths for a minute, Pittsburgh. Let me enjoy this moment.

The Washington Capitals have finally beaten the Pittsburgh Penguins. In Pittsburgh, no less. Which, you know, hasn’t happened since dinosaurs walked the Earth. (Note: I’m pretty sure that the Weekly World News reported a T-Rex sighting in southern Florida in 2002—which IS the last time the Caps won in Pittsburgh.) The same Penguins who beat the Capitals in the playoffs six times out of seven in an 11-year span. The same Penguins who have beaten the Caps nine out of the last 10 times since their respective superstars, Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin, entered the league in 2005-2006. The same Penguins who I hate with the flaming passion of a thousand suns.

Suck it, Pittsburgh.

Ovechkin scored two goals and had an assist—putting him in sole possession of first place in the NHL’s goal-scoring department. Viktor Kozlov had his second two-goal game in a row; rookie Nicklas Backstrom, meanwhile, had his second four-assist game in a row. Goaltender Olaf Kolzig stopped 10 out of 15 Penguins shots. Okay, so that’s not so great, but a win is a win—even when it requires a shootout, which was the case last night (following a spirited Caps penalty-killing performance during an extended 5-on-3 Penguins powerplay in overtime).

As Penguins fans will be lightning-quick to point out, “OH MY GOD Sidney Crosby is injured! Why hasn’t NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman put the 2007-2008 season on hold until he recovers? The league can’t have an All-Star Game without Secondary Sid!” Because, like, no other team in the league has to play through injuries. Like, say, the Capitals, who were missing their captain (Chris Clark), their second highest scorer (Michael Nylander, out for the season), and two of their top four defensemen (Shaone Morrisonn and Brian Pothier).

Okay, okay—so the Penguins were also missing their “number one” goalie Marc-Andre Fleury as well as forwards Gary Roberts and Colby Armstrong. Boo-fucking-hoo. Maybe the NHL’s new moisture-proof jerseys will wick away your tears.

Did I mention that the Caps beat the Penguins? Hot holy fuck on ice.