I've had a little bit of down time over the holidays, so just for fun I decided to create a fusion of two of the Rink's favorite things: the Washington Capitals and the classic HBO show The Wire. I decided to match up Caps players with characters from The Wire (with some consulting assistance from F&B) based on personalities, roles, etc. In addition, I provided some quotes from the characters that I think particularly highlights the comparisons.

This list doesn't cover every player on the Caps, and it certainly doesn't cover every character from The Wire, so if you have any other additions (or think I'm off on any of my comparisons) I'd love to hear what you have to say in the comments.

Warning: This list may include some spoilers for those who haven't seen the show. So if you are not familiar with The Wire go out and watch it. Then come back and read this list after the jump.

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First let me start by saying I like Knuble.

However he has got 1 goal and 2 assists and is -10 since the start of November and just 3 goals and 6 assists total. The biggest thing that those who think he should be on a top 2 line say is that his numbers are down because he is playing with less talented line mates and that is how he gets his points. So I looked up his TOI numbers with his teammates compared to our two other true RW Ward and Brouwer. Brouwer has been out with the best teammates having Ovie on the ice with him for 61.1% of his TOI, Backstrom for 55.3, MJ90 for 24 and Halpern for 16.6. But he also has 10 goals and 8 assists so he is producing with that talent. For Ward it looks like Chimmy 70.9, Laich 62.2, Halpern 17.3, and MJ90 12.1. For Knuble it is MJ90 32.9, Hendricks 31.5, Halpern 23.5, Semin 23.2, and MP85 for 19.

So for all the talk about Knuble having poor line mates for scoring his most common line mate is MJ90 who is tied for 6th on the team in points and also is out almost a quarter of the time with Semin who is also tied for 6th in points so it is hard to say that he hasn’t spent a fair amount of time on the ice with quality high scoring teammates and yet he is still ahead of only Hendricks among forwards with at least 25 games played in points and Hendricks is only -1 to Knuble is -8.

Ward has played at most 12% of his time with anyone who is in our top 6 and is still ahead of Knuble in points and is also +5 and is part of a great shut down line so I don’t see any reason to play Knuble on the 3rd line. So as long as we are playing either Semin or MJ90 on the right side I see no reason why Knuble should be higher then either of the other 2 RWs.

Even if you moved Halpern down from the second line and moved MJ90 over unless you move Semin back to the LW on the second line that doesn’t open up a RW spot so the only way that would move Knuble up is if either he or Brouwer move to the left side and play their off wing and I see no reason to move a guy to their off wing just to play Knuble on the top 6. As much as I like him he has become a lot like Holmstrom in Detroit who was also on the 4th line until he got hurt.

TOI numbers from behindthenet

As is usually the case when I’m looking up advanced stats, www.behindthenet.ca is an indispensable resource.

I decided that with the New Year approaching fast, this’d be a good time to look at the Caps through the lens of advanced stats, to see if I could glean anything useful or surprising from the data. I'll be doing player-by-player analysis as a series of Fanposts as I have time. I'll move through the roster by ES ATOI, as of 39 games played. First up:

Alex Ovechkin:

Let’s get it out of the way: Alex Ovechkin, barring a near-miraculous second-half surge, is going to finish the season with his worst counting numbers in his career.

By a lot.

But what do the advanced stats say?

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I was looking at the standings last night and the goals for and against jumped out at me so I wanted to take a slightly deeper look into that. I realize this ignores all the #fancystats and simply looks at GF and GA but at the end of the day that's at least a decent indication of how a team is doing. I am simply looking at this year vs the past 3 years and based on what I'm seeing I think that we are seeing several teams that have over-achieved so far and they will come back to earth and we are seeing a Caps team that is struggling but if they can return to average will be in good shape, provided they don't wait to much longer to start looking better.

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Games will be played in Calgary and Edmonton, Alberta

Washington Capitals - Prospect(s) to Watch

Evgeny Kuznetsov, Caps 2010 1st round draft pick, named Captain for Team Russia, is the only returning member from last year’s gold medal team.

Five Caps prospects played in last year’s tournament with four bringing home medals (Kuznetsov and Orlov, Russia, Gold; Eakin, Canada, Silver; Wey, USA, Bronze; plus Grubauer, Germany). This year Kuznetsov is the lone Washington Capitals’ draft pick playing in the 2012 WJCs.

Stanislav Galiev was the other eligible Caps draft pick with a chance to play in this tournament, but unfortunately, he’s been out with a wrist injury since early October.

In addition to drafted players, there are 2012 and 2013 NHL entry-draft eligible prospects playing in the tournament to keep an eye on. Eligible players for this tournament are born 1992 and later (1991 born are no longer eligible for the U20 WJCs.)

The Tournament Schedule and How to Watch

I recognize not everyone reading this lives in the US (which is great), but if you live in the US and want to watch the tournament games, coverage will be provided on NHL.com and NHL Network. All Team USA games, all medal-round games and five additional preliminary-round match-ups will be shown.

Unfortunately, at this time, no Team Russia preliminary round games are scheduled to be shown on NHL Network in the US, likely because Team Russia is not in Team USA’s group for the preliminary games. It’s possible some could be picked up and shown on the NHL Network via the Canadian broadcast since all 4 Team Russia games are being broadcast on TSN2 and some, if not all, games may be streamed online.

Link to complete US television schedule

Team USA Games (times shown are eastern time)

Preliminary Round

12/26 USA vs Denmark 8pm

12/28 Finland vs USA 3:30pm

12/30 Czech Republic vs USA 3:30pm

12/31 USA vs Canada 8pm

Quarterfinals/Semifinals/Medal Games

Jan 2 Quarterfinals

Jan 3 Semifinals

Jan 5 Medal games

Other Tournament Information and Links

- Link to the IIHF WJC site including schedules, rosters, format, articles. Note, at this time, some of the rosters are still preliminary.

- Hockey Canada website for the tournament.

- USA Hockey tournament site and Team USA Blog

- TSN Tournament Site

- Article on Team Russia and the Lokomotiv plane crash (RIP) and some pictures from last year's gold medal game and celebration on the ice in Buffalo.

- WJC Story (sounds like more are coming, Svitov perhaps...) from a former Capital, Brian Sutherby

and

- A twitter list I pulled together to follow tournament information.

2011-12 Washington Capitals and the U20 WJCs

Link to U20 WJC Medalists - History

Karl Alzner, Canada, ’07, ’08 (Gold/Gold)

Nicklas Backstrom, Sweden, ’06, ’07

John Carlson, USA, ’10 (Gold)

Jason Chimera, Canada, ’99 (Silver)

Cody Eakin, Canada, '11 (Silver)

Roman Hamrlik, Cz., ’92

Marcus Johansson, Sweden, ’09, ’10 (Silver/Bronze)

Brooks Laich, Canada, ’03 (Silver)

Michal Neuvirth, Czech Rep., ’08

Dmitri Orlov, Russia, ’10, ’11 (/Gold)

Alexander Ovechkin, Russia, ’03, ’04, ’05 (Gold/ /Silver)

Tom Poti, USA, ’96, ’97 (/Silver)

Alexander Semin, Russia, ’04

Tomas Vokoun, Czech Rep., ’96

Mike Knuble will join the exclusive 1,000 games played club on Tuesday, and we here at Japers' Rink want to congratulate him on that tremendous achievement! Our favorite Penguin Slayer has rocked the red for 179 regular season games and counting. Below are some of the man affectionately known as Grandpa Slippers Caps and career highlights. Please feel free to contribute in the comments!

Mike Knuble talks about reaching the 1,000 game milestone. This one is well worth your time!

Donna Weaver recently did a fantastic photo shoot with the Knuble family. Tell me the Knublets aren't the cutest kids ever.

Tarik El Bashir's wonderful profile of Mike Knuble from earlier this season.

Being a hockey dad, though, has also benefited Knuble. In the intense world of professional sports he navigates daily, he said it’s a pressure valve. When he’s watching his children’s games, he’s not thinking about his job.

Knuble is also a past nominee for the Bill Masterton for dedication to hockey. It was Knuble's parents, who fled Latvia as children at the end of World War II, who instilled the values of hard work, charity, and perseverance in Mike and his younger brother, Steve.

Some of Knuble's most memorable moments:

Mike Knuble's gross pinkie finger injury, complete with pictures.

The time he broke his face by running into Brendan Shanahan:

The Winter Classic goal

that gave us one of the great pictures from the 2011 Winter Classic:

Mike also was one of the stars of the 2009-2010 edition of The Hockey Diaries radio show. Make sure to check out the extras that didn't make the show's final cut.

Mike Knuble's first game went down in hockey lore. Come from the brawl, stay for the Mike Knuble cameo.

I'm so excited that Mike Knuble is playing his 1,000th game in a Capitals sweater. I can't imagine a better person to be part of the Capitals family, and I cannot wait to see all his teammates take warm-ups tomorrow in #22 sweaters. Here's to

Mike Kuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuunuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuble!

and many more wonderful games in the future!

Well, the Bears are defiantly a Caps farm team. For this game they once again came out huge and this time had a 3-1 lead after one outplaying the Admirals and dominating the game. The second they played OK but were lucky on a couple of loose pucks around the net and Norfolk couldn't find the puck and put it in so it was still 3-1 at the end of the 2nd but that was the last time anyone at the arena saw the Hershey Bears. The team that took the ice in the third was not the one that played even in the second. The Bears defense had more holes then Swiss Cheese and left Holtby out to dry. Every goal in the third he was in for was either a guy getting behind the D and going to the net or a Norfolk player sitting in front of the net without a Hershey player too be seen on the instant replay. Hershey could barely get the puck out of the zone and took several penalties that both made sure they couldn't attack and was the cause of one of the Norfolk goals. There was also a bunch of over passing by the Bears that kept them from getting many shots in the second and the third.

Eakin did look much better against this level opponent then he did in the NHL. If we have some D go down and we need to call up one from Hershey don't expect them to be helpful at all. Collins is the best they have and we saw what he did in his call up and as a team they were horrible in both speed and coverage. Joel Rechlicz did a great job of firing up the team early with a goal and a fight in the first three minutes but after that was invisible and seeing his history he is nothing more then an AHL goon. Christian Hanson who looked like a good third line center last week didn't this week. He took two penalties including the first of the third and helped turn the slide into a avalanche.

Nicklas Bäckström gave an interview to Swedish Radio after the game against the Winnipeg Jets. Below is a transcript of the interview. Obviously, the interview is in Swedish, but if you listen to the interview starting at 4.27, you can hear the team celebrating in the shower.

SR: Nothing has worked for the Washington Capitals this season. Ovechkin doesn't score any goals, the coach has been fired and the last time they were in Winnipeg they lost the game 1-4. So Nicklas Bäckström, who together with Marcus Johansson assisted on the only goal of the game by Alexander Ovechkin, is pretty relieved when he finally leaves the celebratory howling in the showers.

Nicklas Bäckström (NB): "Yeah, we really needed to win this game. So far we haven't been as successful as we were hoping for this year, so every win is of great importance."

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I'm a sucker for lists. So as 2011 comes to a close, I've been thinking about my favorite Caps games of the year.

The comeback-and-double-OT playoff win against the Rangers is a given.

The Winter Classic is also a given to me. It wasn't the best hockey played, but there's more to games than that, especially when it comes to the Winter Classic.

But after those two, it's wide open. What are your favorites of the year?

There's the back-and-forth 7-6 win over Anaheim last season. The "Ovi not on the ice" OT win over Anaheim last season. The home opener 6-5 SO win over Tampa this season. The list goes on. What about blowouts? Does the 7-1 win over Detroit count as a "good game"?

What a fearsome power play.