Comments / New

Capitals in Motion: Sick Mitts and Silky Moves

The votes are in, the hanging chads counted, and your choice for last week’s best GIF is Michal Neuvirth showing off his snappy glove hand:

Another_angle_of_the_neuvirth_save_-_imgur

That is some ridiculous glove-save goodness right there, and a nice reminder to the rest of the League that if you want to score on Neuvirth, you’d best aim for somewhere other than his glove side.

Of course, as we dip into this week’s GIFs it is very clear that Frans Nielsen didn’t get that memo. Observe:

U55lahh_-_imgur

It’s not just a badass save. It’s a badass save with a little break-dancing move thrown in at the end there. Look closely, you can almost see a piece of cardboard underneath him. Poppin’ Neuvy!

Boogieing on along…

The Caps certainly have a collection of characters on their roster, no question about it. But the biggest character of them all might be Jason Chimera, who is just so ridiculously, awesomely animated at all times – and the most animated when he scores a goal, which he’s been doing with pretty frequent regularity these days. His latest? This opening tally, and ensuing understated Chimera-esque reaction, against Detroit on Sunday afternoon:

Chimera_with_the_1st_tally_1-0_-_imgur

You just scored, Jason. Try and show a little excitement, would you please?

We definitely prefer to see happy, “holy crap, I just scored a goal HUGS FOR EVERYONE!” reactions, but there is something special – and distinctly hockey – about its stepbrother, the “holy crap, how the hell did I miss that?” reaction. Here to demonstrate, Alex “Esa” Ovechkin:

End_of_the_1st_period__ovechkin_fans_on_an_open_net_-_imgur

The shot may not have gone as planned, but the execution of the exasperated reaction? Perfection. Shoulders drop, head back, eyes to the heavens, frustrated yell… well done, sir. You can’t top that, so don’t try.

…no, really. Don’t try.

It’s certainly not often that the puck is on Ovechkin’s stick, a wide-open net presents itself and said puck doesn’t wind up in the back of the net. You don’t get 40 goals in 54 games by whiffing on chances like that. Heck, the wide-open net part is merely a technicality – he manages to score pretty frequently when the goalie is there, too.

Right, Jimmy Howard?

Ovechkin_with_the_gwg_in_ot_-_imgur

Just your typical rifle of a shot past a goalie from the Great 8. Game Ovi. Er, over.

That’s a very nice goal… but it wasn’t the prettiest one of the week. The prettiest goal of the week wasn’t even scored by Ovechkin. No, that honor belongs to Troy Brouwer and this beauty of an insurance marker last night against the Jets:

Brouwer_4-2

That was his second nice goal of the game, by the way… Troy Brouwer dance party!

Finally, as everyone knows, the Olympics get underway this week in Sochi, Russia. So as we wish the Caps’ Olympians well, we take a look back to four years ago, when the hockey-loving nations of the world last battled it out for gold medal glory… and Alex Ovechkin introduced Jaromir Jagr’s rump to center ice:

Ovi_hit

Such. A. Beast.

As the NHL goes on break, so too will Caps in Motion – but never fear, we’ll be back with more GIFs than you could ever ask for once the action resumes. In the meantime, enjoy the Olympics!

(As always, stick tap to Brendan of Capitals Hill for his GIF guru assistance – be sure to follow him on Twitter @CapitalsHill)

0 0 votes
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of
guest
0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

Talking Points

%d bloggers like this: