Saturday, May 12, 2012

Anybody that is proud of this team

has low expectations.  They underachieved again.  Do you remember the expectations of them before the season started?  And, the architect of this disaster, GMGM, lives to keep his job another day.  Astounding.  He's the longest tenured GM in the NHL with the highest amount of failure.  But, I have no doubt he's staying.

Thank you Dale Hunter for what you tried to do.  So sorry that you didn't have the players you needed and so sorry that the "stars" on your team sucked. But, you did more with a badly put together team than most coaches could.  Get out while you can.  Nothing will ever change with this organization.

The only thing that makes me happy is that I will never spend another dollar on an organization that has no real desire to win.

Wednesday, May 09, 2012

And, then they give you hope

In staying with my "keep positive" theme, I won't talk about the Caps game 5 except to say this.  They played like lazy hockey players.  I'm sure Dale was not happy.  I wasn't.  Onward to game 6.

Tonight, in game 6, the Caps showed up to play playoff hockey and beat the Rangers 2-1 to force a game 7 at Madison Square Garden.  Braden Holtby stopped everything he had to and didn't give the Rangers any juicy rebounds.  He snagged pucks out of the air and made ridiculous saves. This game started with his performance and also with Alex Ovechkin's power play goal 1:28 in the first period.  That was sweet.  Even better, it proved that the power play works a lot better when Ovie is not on the point.

Bottom line, the Caps always do things the hard way and tonight wasn't any different, like during that last minute surge from the Rangers when Marion Gaborik scored with 51 seconds left.  It's oh so irritating to be a Caps fan, at times.

Other highlights of notes:
  • Matt Hendricks, 4 hits tonight and 54% faceoff wins, not to mention timely hits and gritty play.  The dude is meant to play playoff hockey and is enjoying his moment in the sun.  
  • Jason "I'll take Manhattan" Chimera scores his 5th playoff goal against the Rangers.  He has 7 career playoff goals total.  Chimera loves playing against Henrik Lundqvist.  His goal tonight was a thing of beauty as he calmly potted a puck from John Carlson into the net.
  • The penalty killers - killed off a 4-minute penalty when Jeff Halpern got caught on a high sticking call.
  • The Rangers had 31 shots and 24 of them were blocked by Caps, including 3 by Ovie. Wow, just wow.  I'm not used to Caps teams, of late, giving it their all.  This shows they did.
Anything can happen in a game 7.  Hockey is a game that is all about seconds.  That's what makes it exciting.

Let's go Caps!

Saturday, May 05, 2012

Taking a break with the Nats

Instead of watching the Caps eke out a 3-2 win over the Rangers to even up their playoff series 2-2, I visited Nationals Park and watched the Nats beat up on the Phillies 7-1 today.  How sweet it is when Philly fans feel pain when they're invading the home team's park.  They weren't the majority of fans, but there were still a lot of them.  Watching the former Philly, Jayson Werth, hit a three run homer to put the Nats ahead for good and inject further pain into Phillies fans made the day enjoyable.  A Caps win cemented that.

A friend of mine, Susan, was also at the Nats game.  We were texting during the game and I texted that watching the Nats was so relaxing versus watching the Caps.  After the game, we met up and she told me she had to turn off the Nats game last night because she couldn't stand the pressure.  That's how I am about the Caps, but not about the Nats...yet.

Of course, I checked in on the Caps game during the baseball game.  With two minutes left in the hockey game and the Caps up by one, I started hitting refresh on my phone over and over.  Then, my phone jumps to a different screen and I'm going nuts.  Meanwhile the guy in front of me turned around and said, "hey, the Caps won" because it was being shown on the screen at the stadium.  I felt like a complete idiot.  I was so buried in my device, I missed that.  Pathetic.

But, nice touch for the Nats to show quick highlights of the Caps game, including Mike Green's GWG.  It's been a while Mike.  Glad to see you can still score.

The Caps evened up their series against the Rangers and the Nats are still in first place in the NL East.  I couldn't ask for more on a Saturday in May.

Let's go Caps!

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