A lot has been said about Alexander Semin’s tremendous start to the season, and all of it well-deserved – after all, his sixteen points leads the league, his eight goals tied for the lead. But what’s even better about the way he’s playing, what makes those sixteen points even more enjoyable as a Caps fan, what really isn’t being talked about enough, is the way he’s gotten them.

Since arriving in DC Semin has been known as mostly a one-dimensional sniper. Get him the puck and he’ll put it in the back of the net faster and with more flair than anyone in the league…but don’t rely on him to hold the zone or backcheck or, heaven forbid, penalty kill, or you’re just asking for trouble. He would do his thing, wowing the crowd one minute with his puckhandling skills and a second later demonstrate an inability to hold the puck at all with a horrific turnover. It was the juxtaposition that made him so exciting to watch.

Terrifying, sure, but exciting nonetheless. (more…)

It’s been a funny week here in CapsNation. A bizarre week. A week when you’re not really sure how to feel about anything and pucks take funny hops and everything’s topsy turvy.

…sounds like the perfect time for the Caps to win their first shootout of the year, doesn’t it?

I have to say, there was kind of an odd atmosphere around this game from the very beginning – watching warmups without the familiar shaggy head and pink bubblegum bubbles of Ovechkin is unsettling, for no logical reason whatsoever other than the plain fact that we’ve grown accustomed to his face.

But the team had to soldier on without him, and for the most part they did. They fought off bad calls and nabbed goals of all three varieties – even strength, power play, and shorthanded. They laid out some nice checks, had some good scoring chances, watched Jose made the good saves, and came away with two points. Still, there was something just odd about this game. Whether it was Ovechkin’s absence or the complete lack of intensity for the better part of the game or the blatant non-calls or whatever, it was a strange, strange night.

What wasn’t strange, of course, was the continuation of Alexander Semin’s dazzling start to the season. His pass to Steckel for the shorthanded tally was a thing of beauty, and it came after he wheeled around taking valuable time off the penalty, dodging Nashville attackers and waiting for just the right seam. His goal was typical Semin, a bullet of a shot from the point that the goalie probably heard behind him before he even knew Semin had shot it.

So another multi-point game goes in the books for #28, and he even capped it off with the usual ho-hum gorgeous shootout goal. With those two points Sasha now sits alone (for the moment) atop the league leaderboard with, get this, 16 points. In nine games. Not bad.

It’s funny, after watching him play off and on here in DC for the last three years, I’m sure I’m not the only one who has been waiting for his inconsistency to kick back in. But I’m starting to believe – there’s something different about him, a maturity to his game, an awareness and a polish that wasn’t there before. I’d bet any amount of money that it has a lot to do with a certain veteran Russian coming to town.

The exuberant celebrations, on the other hand…that’s all Ovie’s doing.

As for the rest of the game? It was fine. Fine. The team, overall, played a very decent if somewhat less spirited game than usual, and the first twenty or thirty minutes were all Caps. Things evened out a bit as the game went on and Nashville started to press a little (hence both of the tying markers from Jason Arnott), outshooting the Caps 15-3 after being outshot 26-11 through the first two periods.

You could feel that third Nashville goal coming, too – the pressure was definitely on and the Caps looked fairly winded. No blame on Jose on that one, either, just a deflection off of Arnott’s stick to force the extra frame.

As sad as the circumstances were that created this situation, it was kind of nice to see Boudreau forced to put someone other than Ovechkin out in the shootout. We just all know that despite his immense talent, shootouts simply aren’t his thing.

Not so for at least three of the four Washington shooters, though. Kozlov’s shot was a great set of moves capped off with an equally great save by Ellis, Semin’s backhander was his typical jaw-dropper, and Nylander showed off some fancy stickhandling in his own right to put the game away.

And that was that. A win for the Caps, in the shootout no less, puts them in first place all on their own (thank you Montreal for at least winning your shootout against the Canes) – and now we enter the no-hockey zone. No Caps hockey until Saturday, when they travel to the happiest place on earth. That’s right, it’s time to shuffle off to Buffalo!

Feel…the excitement.

Tonight the Caps return home from a three game road trip with a mere two points in hand and a lot of changes to make. And after lackluster performances and blown leads this past week, you have to wonder what’s going on in that room. Because it’s certainly not lack of talent or even lack of chemistry that’s causing problems – what it seems to be is simply a lack of hard work. The work ethic among every single person on the team is just not there; while a handful of guys are showing up every night, there are just too many that take off a shift here and there, or even an entire game.

Did they read too many clippings over the summer? Take too much of that “team of destiny” or “most exciting team in the NHL” to heart? Because when they’re on, when they’re playing Caps hockey, it’s all true. This team has the potential to do great things. When they’re off…well, we’ve seen what happens and it ain’t pretty.

So now the next test for this team will be Nashville, a team that looks a lot like the Caps of the Western Conference so far – similar power play effectiveness, similar numbers on the penalty kill, and similar issues with consistency.

As we all know by now, the Caps will face them without #8, who headed back to Russia today to be with his ailing grandfather. We’ve seen how this team can score even without Ovechkin producing; the question is can they do it without his presence to take the pressure off the others? Semin is likely to feel the brunt of this load, but Laich sliding into Ovechkin’s top line spot puts a little pressure on him, as well. How well they each respond will set the tone for the game.

Thanks to the Versus blackout, if you’re not at this one you’re left with Steve Kolbe’s version of the events (and trust me, you could do a lot worse than to listen to Kolbe call a game). So get those imaginations fired u p or pull out the credit card, hop on the metro and hope for the best at the box office. Worse comes to worse, there are some lovely scalpers on F Street just waiting to make you a great deal!

Sometimes numbers just don’t tell the whole story. For example, looking at the numbers you would never know that Alex Ovechkin has actually had some great scoring chances over the last handful of games – or that Jose Theodore has had played very well in his last three starts.

And on the flip side, you wouldn’t know that someone like Shaone Morrisonn is struggling.

We’ve talked about it before and it’ll continue to be a topic around here until (unless?) Mo gets his act together – he’s just not playing the same, steady, positionally sound hockey we’re used to seeing from him.

So about those numbers. To this point he has one assist and has an even +/- rating; eight games in last year he had one assist and was a +1, so there’s not a significant difference there. The big difference? PIMs. Last season by this time he had eleven…but five of those came from his “fight” with Lecavalier. So far this year he has fourteen, all minors, and practically one a game to this point.

It’s not that he’s suddenly become a goon…far from it. What’s happening here is that he’s finding himself out of position, getting beat by the forwards, and having to resort to a desperation penalty just to keep the puck out of the net. They are what usually would be termed “good penalties” (mostly) – but when you take them consistently every game, especially with the PK not quite clicking yet, they become an albatross this team can’t afford to bear.

The problem lies with the fact that, in Tom Poti’s absence, Morrisonn and Mike Green have become the de facto top defensive pair – with top defensive pair minutes. While others may also be struggling, it’s the guys you see the most often that stand out the most (e.g. Alex Ovechkin). And Morrisonn’s play impacts the play of Green, someone that everyone is watching these days.

And it’s hard to say whether Morrisonn is just a slow starter or whether there’s something wrong; after all, last season he started the year alongside Milan Jurcina – a pairing that incidentally had been one of our best the year before. And if he is, it’s not that big of a deal. We’ve already seen how a few other Caps potentially have that slow-start-itis.

We also know that his offseason training might have been hampered a bit considering the fact that he had to put weight back on that he lost when his jaw was wired. Dropping fifteen pounds and packing on thirty in the span of a month or two can’t be conducive to off-ice workouts.

So maybe we’re just focusing too much on it. Maybe he’s just easing into the season like everyone else and will be back to top form soon enough. The fact that we know what he’s capable of – that we know how much he impacts both the team and Mike Green – should mean less cause for panic.

Eight games in, no matter how poorly someone is playing, is certainly no time to panic. We just have to hope it won’t be too late when Mo finally returns to form.

So let me get this straight. First we score a zillion goals a game and yet Ovechkin remains mysteriously off the scoresheet. Then we go through a stretch where no one including Ovechkin seems to be able to score. Now we’re back to the crazy zillion goals a game and every Russian but Ovechkin seems to score (and the odd Czech, too).

This season’s been fun so far, huh?

If you’d said to me before the season that the highest-scoring game to date for the Caps would come against Dallas, I would have said you’re crazy. But tonight, against one of the historically stingier teams in the league, it was all about the goals as the Caps and Stars engaged in a whirlwind, end-to-end battle that needed overtime to be decided. Defense was a four-letter word tonight, as Marty Turco was looking decidedly un-Marty Turcoish at one end and the Caps’ D was anything but solid at the other.

In the end, of course, it doesn’t matter how you slice it, those two points were incredibly important for this team regardless of how they happened. And for the record, despite that ugly five goal tally hanging on Jose tonight, he was again one of the better players on the ice. One, maybe two of those could even remotely be traced back to him – for awhile there it looked like he and Turco were matched in a battle of “my rebound can go further than yours”.

A fun game in the moment, but maybe not one we’d like to see repeated anytime soon.

Also, newsflash…Semin is pretty talented. Yes, that’s his mug perched atop the league leaderboard – his three points tonight including the sparkly game-winner keep him even with horsefa-, er, Malkin, and put him second in goals scored. He is basically doing what the other Alex can’t right now, and that’s fine. The other team will keep gravitating towards Ovechkin because if they don’t they’re insane, slump or no slump, and that leaves Semin with plenty of room to wheel around to his heart’s content.

And then there’s Fedorov. Seriously, what more can you really say about the guy? He continues to be a calming presence and commanding leader for this team, despite his ugly ugly turnover that led to an odd-man break the other way. His two goals give him the record for the most scored by a Russian-born player, launching him ahead of two pretty talented guys in their own right, Mogilny and Bure. During his intermission interview, though, he almost seemed embarrassed, humbled by the great company he is keeping and focusing only on the game at hand.

(Of course, we should mention that his flashy record-breaking number will probably be eclipsed – and probably in a relatively short period of time – by at least one of his current teammates. It’s a new era in the NHL for sure.)

From usual suspects to the more unusual, Fleischmann again finds himself just short of his first career hat trick, picking up two goals of his own. I don’t think anyone’s too upset, though…his goals were gorgeous and timely and the product of both hard work and skill, so I’m sure he’ll sleep fine.

And really, tonight’s game was a show of just how much offensive talent this team has. They may not all have scored, but all four forward lines were moving at a pretty good clip and made Turco pay time and time again for daring to have an off night.

The defense……….let’s just not even go there. Congratulations to Tyler Sloan on his first NHL goal, good job on a pretty decent game by Milan Jurcina, and the rest? The rest need to watch video of tonight (and Thursday and Tuesday and…) and re-learn how to play their position. Even Schultz, who has been one of the better defensemen this season, looked badly out of place at times. They just got beat, plain and simple, and spoiled yet another solid outing by their netminder.

Back to Ovechkin for a minute. There were times tonight when the consensus was that he was going to score – he looked like he did the last time this happened, right before he snapped out of the slump. His passes are just missing, his shots just a bit off, and the ones that hit their target found a goalie just lying in wait to make a fantastic save.

But we know it’s going to happen. The goals will come. No one keeps Ovechkin away from the net for too long, we all know that.

Until then…we’ve got Alexander Semin leading the way. And that’s just fine with me.

And now…a history lesson.

Famous Power Outages in Recent History

Northeast Blackout of 1965 – occurred on November 9, 1965, and affected Ontario, Canada as well as Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont, New York, and New Jersey. Around 25 million people and 80,000 square miles were left without electricity for up to twelve hours due to a maintenance area a few days beforehand.

New York City Blackout of 1977 – began on July 13 when lightning struck Buchanan South, a substation on the Hudson River, tripping two circuit breakers in Westchester County. It resulted in city-wide looting, arson, vandalism and rioting.

1998 Auckland Power Crisis – a five-week long power outage in the central business district of Auckland that occurred when a series of power cables, some well past their replacement date, failed.

Northeast Blackout of 2003 – a widespread power outage caused by a massive power fluctuation that occurred on August 14. Although power was restored to most homes within 24 hours, it was the most widespread electrical blackout in history at the time, affecting an estimated 10 million people in Ontario and 40 million people in eight U.S. states.

Power Failure in the Dome – the Washington Capitals squander a nine minute power play, including a five minute major during which they could have scored at will without losing the extra-man advantage.

So as history shows, some power outages are acts of god, others merely acts of human stupidity. Let’s try and minimize the latter tonight, shall we? As the saying goes, those who fail to learn the lessons of history…are doomed to be held without a power play goal in Phoenix.

2 Minutes with…the Great One and the Gr8 One
It’s a special edition of 2 minutes today, as Alex steps in to help CC out to interview one of the game’s all-time great players. This should go smoothly…

Alex Ovechkin: So, Wayne – you win lots of Cups, score lots of unbelievable goals. Do you think if you play in NHL today, you could do that?
Wayne Gretzky: Maybe – the game is really different now and-
AO: Is faster now, yes? I’m fast. I probably beat you if we skate right now.
WG: …well, yes, but you’re 23 and I’m 47 so-
AO: You saw my goal last time we are here, yes? It was sick. Sick goal, I don’t even know how I do it. You had a good view from bench, yes?
WG: I guess it was a pretty good goal, but-
AO: But I don’t care about goal, I want Cup. You win lots of Cups, Wayne.
WG: Four, Ovie.
AO: Four. That’s unbelievable, Wayne. How many when you didn’t play with Mark Messier?
WG: …wait, what does-
AO: It was none, I think, yes? And how many did he win without you?
CC: Ovie, be nice.
AO: Two, yes? Two. Wow. Doesn’t that suck?
WG: Look, I’m one of the greatest players ever – I don’t have to put up with this from some punk kid!
AO: Hey, how is wife, Wayne?
Gretzky storms out; Ovie grins triumphantly.
CC: That wasn’t very nice, Ovie. You could have taken it easy on him – he is a legend, after all.
AO: I just have fun with him! Don’t worry, Grandpa will forget all about it tomorrow.
CC: I suppose…
AO: Yes. Here, have an ice cream cone. They’re unbelievable.