Friday Caps Clips: Penned In

Not the worst transcription Dan’s had to do in the last 24-36 hours.

I love Tony, but he was so far wrong on that it was pathetic. I’d rather he ignore hockey than be an idiot about it.

From time to time I see the same complaints here about these two bozos. I don’t understand why anyone here really gives a shit about how Korny and Wilbon do the Caps at all.

At this point both Kornheiser and Wilbon are clowns. They are lazy, melodramatic, self-righteous fools. I’d rather read the comments at CI than listen to them talk about the Caps.

He also apparently needs to work on not making stupid cross ice passes when there’s a defender ready to intercept.

Agree completely. I would like to see a little more “dirty goal,” attitude on Saturday to get things going. Dont wait for the something pretty to set up. Get it on the net, play pinball in front…generate more shots.

Let’s also pray like hell the goaltending stops being so bad, and Vokoun is just having one of his patented “slow starts”.

I find this encouraging – the captain understanding and buying into a different approach. As they say, “go to the net and good things happen”

"It was something new for us. It’s new system," said Alex Ovechkin,…"I think when you get the cycle you have to go to the net — right now it’s just a period of time. Goals is going to come. It’s not going to be like we score every game one goal; it’s never going to happen to this team. . . . We have to get used" to the system.

In the last few seasons, we all made a case that things only mattered in the spring, but what was left unsaid was that we knew they’d be good over the course of the regular season. Two 50-win in three seasons attests to that.

Well, they’re not very good now, but they can be in the spring. This year’s Caps might be that team that finishes 6-7-8 in the East but is the proverbial team that “no one wants to face” in the playoffs. But here’s the catch. Since the NHL went to a six-division format in 1998-1999, no team has won the Cup finishing lower than fourth in the regular season in their conference, and that has been done only twice by fourth-place finishers (Pittsburgh in 2009, New Jersey in 2000).

Winning the conference isn’t the be-all and end-all of getting to a Cup (as we have discovered in painful fashion), but winning a division has its charms.

I was glad to see some attempts to dump and chase, use their size to try and create a cycle. Problem was that most of the dump ins ended up behind the net where Fleury deftly handled most of the pucks. Pens dmen did a good job of retrieving said puck. Seems like some hard arounds or dump ins down the slot might have been a good idea to mix things up a bit.

BTW, did Knuble play on every line at some point last night?

But do the Caps have an identity yet?

There were parts of last night’s game where I was just floored with excitement. Not for the game going on, but for what I was seeing, and what I hoped would come. Yeah.

I’m repeating myself from the recap thread, but institutional culture changes, where they involve changing to a more rigorous standard, take time. Just the nature of the beast, and that’s what the Caps are doing.

Institutional culture changes that involve going to a looser standard, e.g., an avuncular bald guy trundles in and says boys, forget about the details, just get out there and play hard, those take no time at all.

Agree with the triage metaphor. Basically the same strategy as acquiring or merging a business.

Anyway, it’s going to be ugly for a while, but I’m preaching patience.

The Caps just gave up 2 goals to one of hockey’s hottest teams, and then 2 goals (on brainfarts, not on system breakdowns) to the best team in hockey — a team with extraordinarily dangerous weapons.

I think the defense triage is working out OK. And the brainfarts will slow down as the system becomes second nature and as folks get healthy.

Part of that better breakout is going to come with the defenders making a better (i.e., fast and tape-to-tape) first pass. A lot of those initial passes ended up in either the board winger’s skates or just not in a place where the winger can make a play. At the height of their powers, the Caps were regularly making that first pass, and the wingers on the boards were either bump-setting it out to the center or back to a defenseman in a flee-flicker-like sort of play.

Crisp execution is so important, and that’s what seems to be missing from the Caps right now. They need a few days off in a row and a couple of good practices really badly right now.

After 4 years of BB, this whole “work in progress” theme running through a lot of the chatter is something I never expected to see in the Ovechkin era. It’s quite the bummer. But on the positive side of things is I think the players we have will make the transition to Hunter mode easier.

He is, and he was also annoinced an an inductee into the ECHL Hall o’ Fame yesterday. Congrats, Woody.

Not to play into any narratives, but I read “I gotta get better on my forehand side” and don’t for a second doubt that he will.

I have a friend who is a Pens fan (I know). He hates the Caps with the searing heat of a thousand suns but said that there wasn’t a team that wouldn’t love to have Brooks Laich and that he hated playing the Caps more because of him.

So do we credit Dale for realizing that weakness in Sid’s faceoff game and putting Laich out there for what seemed like every draw against him? Love the fact that Dale will match lines and situations. I think BB would have thrown out the next line regardless of who was on the dot for the other team.

Never given it any thought before, but does goalie handedness have any effect on side-to-side distribution of face-offs?

This game was so one sided I’m actually encourage we only lost by one goal.

Ouch

I’ve generally stopped reading the pundits about Ovechkin. With many of them, he’s going to have to win 10 Stanley Cups, five Conn Smythes, and 6 Harts before they say something nice about them. Such is life.

You forgot about “gold medals.” In any case, I really liked what I saw as well. Seemed to be a good effort on both sides of the ice (particularly loved Ovechkin making some good hustle plays…..Locker loved it). Bottling up Crosby and Malkin was crucial, IMO, for the confidence of this team. They can play with anybody when they want to.

I just hope the jump he had wasn’t because of the opponent.

It’s time to step back and take a more critical look at Ovechkin’s production. In his last 103 games covering last season and this one to date he is 40-63-103, plus-18. That works out to a per-82 game pace of 32-50-82, plus-14 pace. In his last 82 games he is 30-47-77, plus-14. That’s not bad, by any means, but in terms of how guys finished last year, it’s pretty much Loui Eriksson (27-46-73, plus-10 in 79 games).

It isn’t outside the realm of possibility that this is who Ovechkin is and will be. The problem he has is context — all those 50-plus goal seasons before he was 25. It’s not necessarily “what’s wrong” with Ovechkin (although it could be), it’s “holy crap, was he good a few years ago.”

I saw a video of it last night. Definitely should be looked at by Shanahan, IMO. 74 got his elbow up into Cooke’s head.

On the first point, it’s not lateral/blindside and Carlson has no history, so I don’t think it gets supplementary discipline. But I do think it was a missed call, in-game. Also, if the League wants to give him one or two games and start applying that across-the-board for similar hits, I’m fine with it.

On the second point, fuck every Staal.

It looked a little like the Steckel “hit” to me. The puck goes right in front of him, Carlson is trying to get up ice at the very end of the game and Cooke appears in front of him. There’s nothing pre-meditated or malicious and if Cooke is Carlson’s height it’s just a little collision.

2 minutes for elbowing, no more. From the front, not blind side. Funny part is it’s at Carlson’s waist/chest level too.

Craig Button sucks. I said it last night, and I’ll say it again.

The fact is that no one, no one knows what Ovechkin did or didn’t do related to Boudreau. It’s nice that folks like Kornheiser are so positive, but none of them were in the room.

David leads with a statement about the supposed Ovi/Bruce rift (coach killer narrative) and said "the Media acknowledges the rift"

Meta.

what was going to change from May until now

The roster. Conditioning standards. Game systems. Bench management.

narratives

Put Knuble on the top line and Brouwer on the second line………

Semin is what he is, a very talented mentally fragile player….interesting to see Vogs say that in hindsight team would have been better off keeping Flash and trading Semin.

Semin needs a grinder on his line – either Knuble or Brouwer. There is no one on that line to win the battles along the board. Johansson and Semin are both great in open space, but Eakin is holding that line back. They need someone to do the dirty work and help keep possession.

I don’t know about lost, Sasha looks fairly engaged and playing the system, he’s just not getting results. Swapping out Eakin couldn’t hurt, but what does he need? Knuble? Laich? Ovie?

Let’s play a mind game…imagine Alexander Semin on the Penguins, playing for Dan Bylsma. Imagine him playing for St. Louis under Ken Hitchcock, even in Tampa under Guy Boucher or in New York under John Tortorella (ok, that would be entertaining). How long does he last?

I’m not seeing a player who colors inside the lines here, one who does well with structure.

With Alex Semin, what you see if what you get. Whether he’s suckin’, not suckin’, tripping, hooking, diving, looking to the ref for a call, curling and dragging, or spending his hard earned millions.

I’ve been forced to watch Root Sports and it is brutal. Their announcers go beyond blind homerism into something dark and I feel dirty after listening to them.

Local announcers are usually homers. It happens. Some are unapologetic about it, like Jack Edwards, although he takes it to another level completely by being defiant about it.

They’re really no different than the Detroit guys, or Jeanneret or even Joe B. and Locker on occasion.