Up? Down? High? Low? Bulls? Bears? Read on for a round-up of the good, bad and ugly from the past week…
This week’s games:
HITS
THE NATIONALS ARE WORLD SERIES CHAMPIONS!!!… John Carlson: still good… Alex Ovechkin: also still good and moves into 12th place all time in goals scored… erasing a four-goal deficit in just over 20 minutes against Vancouver… best bromance in the NHL… DSP finds a home and begins a new adventure… going 4-0-1 on the longest road trip of the season… wrapping up a brutal October schedule with a 9-2-3 record and top spot in the League, including an historic seven wins on the road… the Caps doing a champagne-soaked conga line to “Baby Shark” is a Mood.
MISSES
As good as the comeback was, falling behind four goals to Vancouver in the first place es no bueno… the Caps have needed overtime a League-leading (tied with FL) six times, which isn’t ideal given the new tie-breaking rules… Nick Jensen (34 GP w/ WSH) and Jonas Siegenthaler (40 GP) are still looking for their first goals as Caps.
THREE STARS
3) Alex Ovechkin – Just another two-goal, four-point line through two games and another climb up the all-time goal-scoring leaderboard. Ho hum.
2) Whoever is in charge of the Caps’ travel – Where the schedulemakers dictateth, the team goeth, and that means someone needs to planneth. In this case that meant masterminding a 10-day, 5-city trip that involved crossing the Canadian border and stretched from Chicago to Vancouver and back to Toronto… and we’re pretty sure all members of the team made it back. Impressive.
1) DC Sports – The latest championship, and the way the local teams have supported each other, has made this a fun place to be a fan again.
Week in Review: Hit.
Ideally the Caps will start finishing games in regulation, but if you’re going to need extra time, it’s always best to win – and they did that, taking two more victories to close out their big road trip on a high note.
As has been the case throughout this first month, the overall record shouldn’t distract us (or the team, more specifically) from some of the issues still to be fixed, and there are issues. But the fact that the team is not only surviving but thriving despite those issues is damn impressive.
Now do that winning thing on home ice, fellas.