Results tagged “washingtoncapitals”

Semyon Varlamov earned his first shutout of the season Wednesday night, and it couldn't have come at a better time.

The Washington Capitals scored first, but the Montreal Canadiens scored more and won 3-2 on Friday night at the Verizon Center.

Friday's highlights belonged to the Caps' defense. In a 3-1 win over the Minnesota Wild, Washington's defensemen were responsible for the majority of goals scored, while Semyon Varlamov again turned in a strong performance between the pipes. Despite the Wild having the best penalty kill percentage on the road in the NHL, the Caps' first goal of the game came from Mike Green on a power play in the second period.

Tonight the Capitals came from behind to beat the Florida Panthers 7-4. With Alex Ovechkin and Mike Green among a slew of injured players, Mike Knuble put up four points to spark the win. The total tied his personal best, from Valentine's Day, 2003. Asked what it was like to be a leader on this team, Knuble calmly dismissed the assertion. "It's just one game," he said, talking up the importance of hard work over a long season.

On a night when the Caps nearly came from behind to beat the Columbus Blue Jackets, the team did something else to help cement their identity as a D.C. institution. With 8:35 remaining in the third period, and both teams readying for a faceoff in the Capitals' defensive end, the team's sound crew played Chuck Brown's "Bustin' Loose" over the arena speaker system.

The most frustrating thing for a head coach may be when the team drops a game it should have won. Capitals boss Bruce Boudreau certainly showed some of that frustration after the Caps gave up a 3-2 lead against the Rangers with under ten minutes remaining in the third period last night.

After last night's 6-4 victory over Toronto, the season the Caps are undefeated and scoring two goals for every one they give up. They have been defensively perfect from the start of any match until they have at least three goals of their own. Superstars Alexander Ovechkin and Alexander Semin have scored three points in each game. Both Caps starting goalies have won. The whole team is playing well. Everybody is doing their job to a tee and the fans are going crazy.

       

By DCist contributor Hemal Jhaveri

In the history of the Washington Capitals, only one goalie has carried the team to the Stanley Cup Finals. That goalie retired today, after a decade in D.C. and a brief curtain call with the Tampa Bay Lightning. Olaf Kolzig may not play in the NHL any longer, but Caps fans will always remember him as one of the most dedicated, team-focused players in Washington history.

A hockey-starved crowd filled the Kettler bleachers Saturday for the final scrimmage in the Washington Capitals' 2009 development camp for prospects. The Blue and White teams went at it for a full three periods Saturday with the White team winning, as they've done in every game this week. Of course, which teams won and lost was of less concern than the young players' individual performances -- DCist was there to dig out the good stuff.

Upon seeing that the Capitals had "signed Morrison for 1.5 million dollars," this hockey fan was delighted that Washington had locked up their reliable stay-at-home defenseman for another year. That move would take some of the pressure off the team for fellow blue-liner Milan Jurcina's pending arbitration hearing. Still, I was surprised that as reliable a source as USA Today had left the second "n" off the end of Shaone Morrisonn's last name.

While perusing the local sports headlines this weekend, it dawned on us: the Washington Capitals might be the only thing that's saving this town from a potentially large major-league sports coma.

After the first draft in nearly a decade where the Caps didn't make an exciting trade or a high-profile pick, it's good to see the front office back into the mix of things, adding forward Mike Knuble at the dawn of free agency this afternoon. Costing just over $5 million for two years, Knuble snugly fits into the team's payroll as a replacement for Viktor Kozlov, who will play in his native Russia this season.

Okay, maybe it's not coming up. Maybe it's not tomorrow. Maybe it's not next year. Maybe it won't happen this decade, but someday, Alex Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals will face Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins in the playoffs again.

Tomorrow night's Caps game at Verizon Center features the four most talented hockey players on earth competing in a winner take all, game seven, series final struggle for playoff survival. We'll have the last two winners of the NHL's Hart Trophy (player most valuable to his team) playing out a rivalry that has made hockey important even to non-fans. Alex Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby have been billed for years as the greatest talents of this generation, and this will be the first time one of them eliminates the other from the playoffs.

Canadian television personality Don Cherry grabbed some press this weekend for saying that Alexander Ovechkin celebrates his goals with too much exuberance. Cherry said he favors the Canadian way. Don Cherry is famous for making inflammatory statements while wearing suits in which Elton John would not be caught dead.

It's not often in professional sports that the home team has the chance to keep the best player on the visiting team after the game, but that might be the case this afternoon if the Capitals can make the right impression on the Florida Panthers. Panthers defenseman Jay Bouwmeester is an emerging star. He plays defense well, passes the puck well and scores goals. All year, Florida has tried to secure a long-term contract to keep him in a Panthers uniform. But this week, the Panthers' general manager said he is actively considering trades for the All-Star.

The Capitals have launched hockey's first official website for female fans. The web site mixes player stats and bios with videos depicting the personal lives of Capitals players, dreamy headshots and, of course, shopping.

Nicklas Backstrom is skipping the NHL's Young Stars Game because he wants a day off. The Caps' second leading scorer is sitting out a competition that pits second year players against rookies. Last year, when the Young Stars game featured only rookies, Backstrom competed. This year, many fans and analysts have asked why Backstrom isn't on the Eastern Conference All Star team. While it's nice that the NHL expanded the Young Stars game to include more developing talent, Backstrom deserves to appear on a larger stage.

For all the criticism out there about Caps left wing Alexander Semin's fighting style, we'd like to point out that New York Rangers defenseman Marc Staal is equally bad at curl and drag fakes, nifty stickhandling moves and goal scoring. While the big lumbering defenseman may fight in a more traditional hockey style, we like Semin's originality in the above video from this weekend's Caps victory. Yes, Semin might be the first NHL player to attempt a series of overhand slaps, but he comes out on top. The supposedly tougher Staal has to hug himself for safety on the ground after losing his balance and falling over. What good is being big and tough in ice hockey if you can't stand up on ice skates?

We all know the Capitals are known to rock a microphone. This year a few Caps prospects will get a little more exposure on the world circuit. Darren Machesney, the starting goalie for the Caps' top farm team in Hershey, will represent Canada in the Spengler Cup. Machesney has been in the Caps system since the 2005 draft, and has worked his way up from the South Carolina Stingrays to play for the Bears. The opportunity to represent his country, even if it's only in a Swiss tournament, is a testament to just how hard he has worked.

Simeon Varlamov's long trip from Hershey, PA meant he didn't arrive in time to back up Brent Johnson when the puck dropped Friday against the Ottawa Senators. Instead, the Caps had to rely on team Web Producer and former Division III goalie Brett Leonhardt as their backup goalie for ten minutes of nail-biting NHL action. The Senators took every possible opportunity to try to hurt Johnson and get to Leonhardt, the only Division III goalie in the NHL this year. But once Varlamov got his pads on and joined the bench, the Sens stopped crashing the crease, as though Johnson had taken on the powers of Obi Wan Kenobi. Last night in Montreal, Varlamov showed exactly why.

Last night the Capitals continued their domination of the once-mighty Ottawa Senators with a 5-1 win at home. Goalie Brent Johnson had fans asking "Olaf who?" as he held the Senators scoreless until the game's final minutes, stopping every shot and holding on to every puck that came near him.

When the NHL named Alexander Semin its First Star of the month for October, we chided our media colleagues for paying more attention to Alex Ovechkin's visit to his sick grandfather. Yes, Ovechkin won all four of the NHL's trophies for scoring leaders and most valuable players, but that was last year. Why, we asked, was the best player of October 2008 any less exciting than the best player of 2007-2008?

It seemed like things couldn't get more difficult for the Washington Capitals this week. The Southeast Division leaders were missing enough talented players to field a respectable power play. Alexander Semin, a former first-round pick who had been leading the NHL in scoring, was injured. Sergei Fedorov -- frequent All-Star, holder of multiple Stanley Cup rings, and the highest scoring Russian-born player in NHL history -- was injured. Boyd Gordon, a former first round draft pick who once centered Jaromir Jagr, was injured. John Erskine, the team's toughest defenseman, was injured. Jeff Schultz, a former first round pick and the team's tallest defenseman, was injured. Mike Green, a former first round pick who led NHL blue-liners in goal scoring last season and was first-team All-Star, was injured.

Last night, Alexander Semin chipped in two goals and three assists to blow out the Carolina Hurricanes at Raleigh and help the Capitals take sole posession of first place in the Southeast. With 15 games played, Semin leads the NHL in points (27), goals (13), and game winning goals (3). Often misconstrued as a "shoot-first" player, Semin is fourth in the NHL with 14 assists. Just as often considered a defensive liability, Semin currently leads the NHL in plus/minus with a +17.

Coming into this hockey season, Brent Johnson was even more of an afterthought than usual. After leaving Johnson in the press box to watch games and leaving him on the bench to watch practices at the end of last season in favor of Olaf Kolzig and Christobal Huet, the Caps replaced those two aging starters with former NHL MVP Jose Theodore. Johnson battled through training camp to regain his NHL backup job against a couple of highly regarded European teenagers, and figured to start 20 games in Theodore's shadow, while possibly taking up a few new hobbies and obsessively rereading Dostoyevsky's seminal Notes from the Underground.

In the 1990s, Brent Johnson was a terrific starting goalie for the St. Louis Blues. He led a good team, stopped the shots he had to stop and won more than he lost. He set a (since broken) playoff shutout record. At that time, the Capitals had a great starting goalie of their own named Olaf Kolzig. Towering over other NHL goalies of the day at 6'3", Kolzig wore the nickname Zilla with pride, even getting it painted on the back of his helmet. Two years ago, Johnson came to Washington and became Kolzig's unquestioned backup. For two years he struggled unsuccessfully to shake that tag.

When Alexander Semin takes the lead league in points, with 14 in eight games, it is almost news. When Sergei Fedorov matches Alexander Mogilny's record for NHL goals, it is news. When NHL MVP and ESPN presidential nominee Alexander Ovechkin takes the day off to visit an ailing relative, it is multinational front page headline news.

The Washington Capitals signed NHL MVP Alexander Ovechkin to hockey's first hundred million dollar contract last season, so the Capitals once again boast the league's leading scorer. Welcome back fast-skating, obscenely talented left winger Ovechkin, who likes to warm up for games by playing soccer in Crocs, falls to the ice with joy when he scores, and ignores jellyfish postings when he goes for a swim.