Saturday Caps Clips

I’m 24, been watching hockey for ~18 years (so mostly the late 90’s and early 00’s you were mentioning), and I much prefer an offense-driven game. There can be beauty in great defense as well, but you’re right, when the score is 1-0 because the puck never moves past the blue line, it’s boring. It feels like a stalemate to me. You’re just hoping for the other team to make a single mistake, capitalize, then sit back and trap for the rest of the game.

On the other hand, I would say that the process for creating new fans in DC who aren’t brought in by a current fan is:

1) Notice the Capitals are winning a lot of games in newspaper/media/win tickets from their employer
2) Notice the Capitals win big. They aren’t squeaking out 1-0 games very often. But they also only got shutout once last year. Meanwhile, in 2009 the Nationals were shutout 7 times. Moreover, they lost 57 games by 3 or more runs. There’s just not a guarantee of much to get excited about in any given game. On the other hand, either the Caps will blow somebody out or they’ll trail, come back to tie it late after they look like they’ve fixed their mental mistakes, then lose in OT. Even the majority of their losses are worth the price of admission, and that hooks people.
3) Notice the personalities. The Caps definitely have a huge advantage over some other teams here and it would be unfair to leave it off the list. But I don’t think it plays as large a role as #2.

The other thing with this team is that we never feel like it’s over. Think of the Miracle on 34th St., Nicky’s HT (including the coast to coast OT GWG) after Ovi was kicked out in Chicago, and any game against the Pens except That Which Shall Not Be Mentioned, and I just don’t have the sinking feeling even if they’re down by 3 that I would with another team.

I’m 17 and have been watching hockey regularly since the lockout (I’d say I was following hockey since the year before the firesale, but for a long time we didn’t have cable, let alone CSN or Versus).

not because of great goaltending performances, but because the puck rarely left the neutral zone.

For “playoff” hockey, I don’t really mind either way. I just want to see great offense—it doesn’t have to result in goals, just chances—strong defensive plays, and good goaltending. I don’t want to see 15 shots from the outside, all easily saved, per side for regular season games, though. That Lundqvist vs Brodeur 1-0 game from earlier this year was terrific—shots, great goaltending duel, and good chances (only bad thing was that it ended in shootout and not OT).

I’d prefer it if the league were catered towards offense, but in such a way that shutouts are still possible and relatively common (not like 10 a season per team, but around 4 or 5 on average sounds right). I really don’t think the rules need to be changed further towards offense or defense, then, just player safety. If I had to pick, I’d say cater towards offense because I think it’s all too common for average goalies to go on hot streaks and in many years you have guys who don’t deserve to have numbers with the elite goalies actually exceeding those goalies’ numbers (the trend is true for forwards as well, but not to the same extent, I’d say). There’s too much uncertainty, and at this point I’d guess if you cater towards offense it would really expose the worse goalies and let the better ones who fly under the radar like Vokoun really shine.

I guess I’d prefer a 5-4 game, but probably like many others, it really depends on the excitement, and a 1-0 with 30 shots apiece is plenty exciting. I love that in hockey one mistake can ruin a game.

I’m in the same age cohort as you. I caught the very end of the high flying years, but didn’t really become a true follower of hockey until the dead puck years. And I never want to see that sort of hockey again. Goalie duels? Sure, exciting (like pitching duels). Hockey where the puck spend 75% of the time in the neutral zone? Not so much.

I’m not blind to the fact that the game doesn’t have flaws (and that the people running things are deeply flawed). But right now, the game might be the best it’s ever been. The days of the 1-0 defensive tussles are gone, and I, for one, am happy about that.

28, and the score isn’t the big deal for me, but I guess given the choice I’d take 5-4. I’ll take the 1-0 games when each goalie puts up 30 saves and faces several tough chances. The days of the 18 save Brodeur 1-0 shutouts should be dead and buried forever. Basically I’m saying the score isn’t the focus, it’s the process/product on the ice. The more open rules make the 5-4 more likely than the 1-0, so insofar as that’s true I’ll take the high scoring game. I don’t particularly think the 5-4 is the end all though, because sometimes those games are not very entertaining when they are a result of crappy hockey/goaltending. I’d still probably take a crappy 5-4 over a snoozfest 1-0, but anyone that has tried to watch the classic games from the ’80s on NHLN probably realizes that wide open offense =! good hockey. Those games are basically as unwatchable to me as the ’95 NJD.

I’m 29 years old, and started watching hockey in the early 90’s – I think it might have been 1993. I don’t mind a low-scoring game if it is due to great goaltending, as opposed to the incredibly boring trap system. However, I think many of the best games are when they are 4-2, 4-3 or something in that range. I watch much more hockey now than I did from 2000-04 because it is much more exciting, much more open, and far more interesting. I like the way the rule changes have been going, although there still is room for improvement. The best thing the NHL did was to move away from the clutch-and-grab style to a style that allows the players to use their talent and skills to create plays.

I know it’s totally coincidental that the Caps and Mystics had similar playoff results but we certainly are all getting deja vu all over again about it.

I was hanging on that convo myself before snippage.

Sorry about that. Thought we were going to get to that earlier in the interview. It is always available for download for the extra 7 minutes of Mirtle goodness.

Wow, that was ugly, does anyone know why Slapshot was at the Dolphins game last night?