Friday Caps Clips: Capitals @ Blackhawks Game Day

OK, time for some technobabble. This is an instance in which the designation “1” or “2” for whatever line should be viewed as “nominal” designation of a line, not an “ordinal” ranking. Don’t pay so much attention to who plays the “first” line or the “second” line — after all, the “first” line as we have come to know it doesn’t start every game. If the “third” line starts, is it the “first” line?

Watch ice time and who gets the top minutes at even strength. Power play time doesn’t enter into this, nor does penalty killing time. Each requires players with specialized skill sets for the conditions. Even strength ice time — and who gets it — will indicate if there is a “first” and a “second” line in terms of ordinal rankings. And I suspect that the top two lines will be getting more or less equivalent amounts of ES ice time…

…except when Bruce is in a juggling mood.

No TV during preseason.

expect to have fewer hits today then my friend. :/

None of those guys is waivers-exempt.

Predsbloggers are loving them some T-Slo.

303: This team is known for a hard work ethic, never taking a shift off, that kind of thing. I’m certainly not suggesting that Washington doesn’t do those things but can you kind of compare the two?
TS: Yeah, you know, I think they’re very different make-ups. Washington has a lot of players like "Ovi," "Backie" and "Green" (Alexander Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom and Mike Green) and those guys who have a lot of skill but work ethic is something that Bruce always stressed and everybody tried to work on that. (In Nashville) everybody is held accountable, everybody buys in, everybody plays both ends of the ice. Practice is a great tempo and everybody’s working hard. I think here they make it happen. Work ethic really is really driven in. There, I think they’re working on that.

I had to think about it for a minute before I realized it was a racist thing to do instead of just a stupid thing to do during a shootout attempt…

I started to read the comments, and the vast majority understood that it was racially motivated. And every person who posted something about it not being so was routinely schooled.

I enjoyed the statement by the Flyers owner who totally missed the point

I’m still confused..wasn’t the game IN philly?

What was amusing to me though was that the search started trending Sasha and came up with this:

Definitely worth reading, but the insistence that the Semin critiques are rooted in cultural bias grinds my gears. Odd that in an article which goes to such lengths to present a scholarly approach, there isn’t a single supporting citation to justify that claim. It’s obviously an opinion, and unproveable as such, but to not even recognize that there could be another, non-cultural, reason for criticizing Semin is upsetting and detracts from the attempted scholarly approach.

These numbers are actually probably misleading because, while I’m a firm believer in the inverse correlation between shift length and effectiveness, Arnott in particular was taking ridiculously short shifts at even strength in the playoffs. It appears that it was as obvious to him as it was to me that he could barely hang on and keep up with NHL playoff pace, and he accordingly and wisely got off the ice at the earliest opportunity.

No mention of a leg injury that had him miss games late in the regular season. And no mention that most of the hockey community would agree that Arnott’s 42 second shift average is just about ideal. It only looks “ridiculous” compared to the Caps, a team notorious for pushing shift length to the limit.

I imagine “Knoobs” and “Brads” are good friends who talked a lot, whereas it wouldn’t surprise me if Bradley and Semin have never had a conversation.

I’d be absolutely floored. I’d be absolutely floored if Brads hasn’t had more conversations with Semin than all of the non-Capital-employee supporters and critics of Semin combined.

Oh crap, I almost got the computer wet.

Never tell Hanson the odds.

Did I miss something? Who penciled Brooks into that spot aside from Whyno?

Good decision.

Really interested to see what Shanny does when it’s not a goon of whom an easy example is made.

And I loved Shanahan’s video on the Letourneau-Leblond hit. It looks like the NHL has grown up a bit.

Wait… Lukowich is still playing hockey? It seems that he’s been in the league forever.

I’m just overly sentimental or something, but I get wistfull at the “old guy” retirements, even though I’m older than they are. I think the Dallas thing was sentimentally sweet.

Excellent point. I think MarJo’s performance will be the most important determining factor of the make-up of lines 1 & 2 than the discussions about Knuble and Brouwer. At this point, I am fine with MarJo holding down #1 IF – and only IF – he can produce. I like his skills and think that he can do it…if not this year, then perhaps in a year or two from now. So, since this is preseason and since BB knows what Backis can do, why not experiment? I think it makes a lot of sense especially if Backis can kick up Semin’s game. The only thing I find surprising is that some people find it surprising that Brouwer could be on the first line. Frankly, as with MarJo, I say let’s try it.

Mackan’s being set up with expectations that he’s very unlikely to match. In a few months, you’re going to be hearing what a bum he is from the I-hate-Jeff-Schultz-and-puppies crowd

kind of glaring error: Finley wasn’t the Caps first pick that season, even though he was a first round pick. detail, shmetails.

Pinizzotto had a bit of a nasty scrap yesterday against the oil. Hope he didn’t get hurt. He was punching the other guy’s helmet for a while and took a few good slugs himself.

I missed the game entirely. Who did Ruth fight with?

Flyers: masters of the CBA

Lambert was killing Panaccio yesterday on Twitter for Panaccio defending the Shelley hit (or something… I wasn’t paying close attention).

The lot that covers the Flyers is just fucking awful.

Not just their beat writers. Laugh at their front office, too.

Yeah – go where you are and click “live feed.”