i take a nap for a few hours and our goalies spontaneously fall down, go boom.

How the hell did JT60 hurt himself on the bench? Not that I’m complaining.

COME ON STRETCH

Btw, Collins and Osala were sent down. Does that mean that Green and Feds are back, or that just one is (with Varlamov taking the other freed up roster spot)?

Our hockey pool’s so deep, someone’s going to pick this guy up.

I want to see Johnson get a game misconduct for fighting near the end of the first period. Stretch comes in, the caps score – making it 1-0, he then has to make ONE glorious two pad stacking save on Heatly before the buzzer. Then Varlamov goes from the police escorted cab to the crease with no warmup to start the second period and preserves the shutout. Stretch gets the win.

from the NYT Nov. 9 2002

"Lefty Wilson, a longtime trainer for the Detroit Red Wings who left the bench three times to become an emergency goalie in National Hockey League games — twice facing his own team — died Tuesday in Naples, Fla. He was 83.

Wilson, who lived in West Bloomfield, Mich., was visiting friends when he was hospitalized with heart and lung failure, his family said.

Wilson, who served as a Red Wings trainer from 1950 to 1982, exchanged his stitching thread for a goaltender’s stick on the rare occasions when a goalie was hurt and could not stay in a game.

In the 1950’s, N.H.L. teams carried only one goaltender. An emergency backup — often an amateur goalie — was kept on hand to complete games when either team’s goalie was sidelined.

Wilson, who had played in the minors briefly and served as a goalie in Red Wings practices, made his N.H.L. debut on Oct. 10, 1953. He replaced Wings goaltender Terry Sawchuk, a Hall of Famer, whose kneecap was slashed by one of Maurice Richard’s skates in the third period at the Montreal Forum.

The Canadiens won, 4-1, but Wilson made two especially difficult saves. He entertained fans with his chatter and did not allow a goal in 16 minutes.

On Jan. 22, 1956, he substituted for ailing Harry Lumley of the Toronto Maple Leafs, another Hall of Famer, and played 13 minutes, again without permitting a goal. But he was on the losing side once more, this time a 4-1 Wings victory.

Wilson’s longest stint came on Dec. 29, 1957, when he played for 52 minutes as a Bruin, replacing goalie Don Simmons, who separated a shoulder. Wilson allowed one goal in Boston’s 2-2 tie with Detroit.

‘’There was no way I wanted those guys to score on me,’’ Wilson told Dick Irvin in ‘’In the Crease’’ (McClelland and Stewart, 1995), referring to the Red Wings players he had ministered to as a trainer. ‘’It would have been terrible to go to work in the dressing room the next day and have them give me the needle about how many they scored.’’

Ross Ingram Wilson, a native of Toronto, was a trainer for four Detroit Stanley Cup winners in the 1950’s, and he designed early goaltender masks. He developed the fiberglass Sawchuk style, first worn by Sawchuk in 1962, and provided those models to goalies around the league, charging only $35 apiece, according to Douglas Hunter, author of ‘’A Breed Apart’’ (Viking, 1995).

Wilson is survived by a son, Ross, of Shelby Township, Mich.; two grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren. His wife, Lillian, died in 1995.
‘’He was a throwback,’’ Bruce Martyn, a former Red Wings broadcaster, told The Detroit News, recalling Wilson’s career as a trainer in those years of hard-nosed goalies. ‘’He was supposed to take care of people, but he’d say: ‘Get up. Get up. You’re not hurt.’ ’’

I guess there is limits to Brook’s versatility, guessing he didn’t volunteer to don the goalie equipment.

Does Ottawa crash the net a bit harder than normal in the first period?

The team has provided this goodness on the goalie situation:

1. Brett Leonhardt, our website producer, will be filling in as backup goaltender to Brent Johnson until Varlamov arrives tonight
2. Jose Theodore is out tonight, currently day-to-day with a hip flexor
3. Leonhardt has practiced with the team before (maybe three or four times total)
4. Local TVs: the Verizon Center feed will carry warmups including footage of Leonhardt
5. Out-of-town TVs: Comcast SportsNet and Rogers Sportsnet will carry footage of Leonhardt in their game broadcasts
6. Leonhardt will wear No. 80 tonight
7. Leonhardt is 6’7" and his nickname is "Stretch" – if he plays he would match the tallest goaltender in NHL history (St. Louis Blues goalie Ben Bishop)
8. Leonhardt played four years of Division III college hockey – two years at Oswego State (in Upstate NY) and two years at Neumann College (outside of Philly)
9. Leonhardt is 26 years old, graduated in 2007 and joined the Capitals in December 2007
10. Among his career highlights with the Caps before tonight:
    http://capitals.nhl.tv/team/console.jsp?catid=810&id=25847
    http://capitals.nhl.tv/team/console.jsp?catid=810&id=26022
    http://capitals.nhl.tv/team/console.jsp?catid=810&id=18308

He’s the guy who edits the video for the caps website right. How much you wanna bet that tomorrow’s hightlight clip will be 20 minutes of him sitting on the bench?

I do, actually, now that you mention it. Great stuff, DC.