Since injuries are the story of the day/week/month, I’ll throw out a question for discussion and be back with more later.
Q: If you could have one of the injured Caps back in the lineup for tomorrow night’s game, who would it be?
Of note, the Caps are 3-4-1 without Alex Semin in the lineup, 2-4-0 without Mike Green, 3-3-1without Tom Poti, 3-2-0 without John Erskine and 7-3-1 without Sergei Fedorov. Of course, there’s massive overlap in those records, so take them with a grain of salt. Oh, and they’re 3-1-0 without Chris Clark. Sad.
Elsewhere ‘Round the Rinks:
Mike Morreale‘s Southeast Division Notes over at NHL.com last Friday spotlighted Brooks Laich‘s heroic shot-blocking effort against the Kings and the team’s reactions to it…. Nicklas Backstrom made a Top 10 list that he’d probably rather not be on…. The Bears won their ninth straight game, thanks in no small part to Simeon Varlamov‘s goaltending…. Ben Boudreau made his ECHL debut in the same building in which his father coached for three years and won a championship, which is pretty cool…. Finally, on this date in Caps history in 1979, Mike Gartner notched his first of 13 hat tricks with the Caps in a 7-2 win over Quebec. Twenty-one years to the day later, Calle Johansson would pass Scott Stevens for the most assists by a defenseman in franchise history with his 332nd helper as a Cap (his 361 assists still stand as the franchise mark).