The role of luck in winning

Hockey fans, players, coaches, and anyone involved in the game are typically very superstitious because luck is a part of sports.  In fact, my boss happened to mention to me that he watched the Caps lose recently and worried that his bad luck as a fan of the Wizards was transferring to the Caps. I promptly told him he couldn't watch any more games live and the Caps have won every game since.  See, it's true.

Good luck plays a part in any team that slogs its way through an 82 game season, followed by an even more intense second season, and a final win to hoist the Stanley Cup.  The Caps got a little bit of luck on Saturday night by ekeing out a win against the rebuilding New York Islanders, even when no one named Alex scored.  The Caps still gave the Isles a standings point by not putting the game away in regulation.  They played a bad game so they were lucky.

The power play went 0-4 again.  The Caps lost 70% (yes, you read that right) of their faceoffs which is downright miserable.  Alex Ovechkin was held without a goal for the second game in a row. Caps were lackluster and slow and didn't looked like they cared that they were playing a hockey game.

But, the Caps did have heroes.  Brooks Laich and Mike Green, 1st and 3rd stars, respectively, won the game with Green's goal coming in the 3rd period to tie it up and Laich netting the overtime game winner one minute into the extra period.  I'll also throw in Jose Theodore as the other hero, as he's playing well in net and keeping the Caps in it, at times.

I hope the Caps bring their A game to the Philadelphia Flyers tomorrow night. The Flyers play them tough.

Let's go Caps!