Tuesday Roundup/Gamenight: Caps @ Flames
Japers' Rink — The Flames are allowing the most goals per game in the League and have had trouble scoring five-on-five in the early going (and their performances overall have been somewhat uneven ). The Caps, on the other hand, are a five-on-five machine so far. If they stay out of the box, they'll be putting themselves in a good position to succeed. Ovechkin hasn't yet scored a goal in the Saddledome, one of seven NHL cities in which he has been held goal-less (Chicago, Edmonton, L.A., Minnesota, San Jose and St. Louis are the others). Throw out the first period against Atlanta and Jose Theodore has a 2.79 GAA. Throw out his three first periods overall and he has a 1.35 GAA. Five of ...

Flyers Under the Radar
Hockey From the Cheap Seats — “Will the real slim shady please stand up” --Eminem That’s right, I just compared a hockey team to a white rapper from Detroit. Two seasons ago, the Philadelphia Flyers had the worst record in the NHL and were able to pick up James van Riemsdyk 2nd overall in the 2007 NHL Draft. They were so bad that they lost 60 games; then they lost the draft lottery too! Last season, the newest edition of the Broad Street Bullies was able to claw all the way to the Eastern Conference Finals before they were ousted by the cross-state rival Penguins. That begs the question: which Flyers team is the team we can ...

Where's your crown King Wellwood?
Waiting For Stanley — It's no secret that I have been a Wellwood fan since he first played for the Leafs. It's great to see a story like this where he has been blasted for his lack of fitness, becomes unwanted through waivers, then becomes needed because of a Demitra injury, and then performs as well as he has. That's 3 points in 2 games. That would be the game-winning goal he scored last night. Was that a pretty goal or what? What patience he has with the puck. His talent is undenied. The Canucks have found themselves a power play specialist. Another thing that I like about Wellwood is that he'll chase the puck in the corner knowing he is going to get hit, but rather than turn the puck over, he makes a ...

Tuesday Roundup/Gamenight: Preds @ Caps
Japers' Rink — So Mr. O is taking a few days off to be with his ailing grandparent far away - and I thought that was last week's news . While the Caps haven't won a single game without Alex Ovechkin in the lineup since March 30, 2004 (they lost the only game he has missed in his NHL career so far), one could easily view the current melancholy situation as one that presents somewhat muted silver linings for both the player and his team. For the Caps, the opportunities abound for every player on the team to step up where they might have thus far been over-relying on the League's best player, consciously or otherwise. It's an opportunity for Nicklas Backstrom to re-assert himself as ...

Thursday Roundup/Gamenight: 'Canes @ Caps
Japers' Rink — [image] [ AP Preview - WashingtonCaps.com Preview ] Ah, the Southeast Division. If the Caps were in the Atlantic and facing the division leader tonight, a loss would drop them to eleven points out of first place. In the Pacific, a similar hypothetical would find them an even dozen points out of the top spot. In the Northeast, another loss would have the Caps sitting in the division's basement. But not in the Southeast, baby. With a loss tonight, the Caps would be a half-dozen points out of first place, and with a win? Second place, just one win out of first. For all the mediocrity we're seen out of the Caps so far this year - an MVP scoring champ who can't score, a ...

Saturday Roundup/Gamenight: Rangers @ Caps
Japers' Rink — [image] [ AP Preview - WashingtonCaps.com Preview ] No more Jagr. No more Avery. Can you really still hate the Rangers? You're damn right you can (and if you need a new reason why, here are a couple ). The Rangers come into tonight's game with the most wins in the Eastern Conference , a 4-1-1 record on the road, a miserly 2.12 team goals against average (thanks to an eye-popping 90.3% effective penalty kill ), a born-again Nikolai Zherdev and a brick wall named Henrik Lundqvist (who is 5-1-0/1.82/.936 in his last six games). Against that stout team defense, the Caps will ice a squad that has scored four goals in its last ...

Wednesday Roundup/Gamenight: Caps @ Ducks
Japers' Rink — [image] [ AP Preview - WashingtonCaps.com Preview ] The last time the Caps were in Anaheim, Alex Ovechkin potted his first career hat trick in a 3-2 Caps overtime win over J.S. Giguere and the Ducks, and that OTL still stands as one of only two blemishes on Jiggy's unbelievable 3-1-1/1.39/.951 resume against Washington. In fact, take away that night's "shelling" and Jiggy is an even more ridiculous 3-1-0/1.00/.966 against the Caps... of course, take away AO and a lot of goalies' numbers look much better. Besides being the site of one of the Great Eight's many coming out parties, Anaheim was also home to Sergei Fedorov for just over a season - 85 games, to ...

Monday Roundup/Gamenight: Caps @ Wild
Japers' Rink — [image] [ AP Preview - WashingtonCaps.com Preview ] The last time the Caps and Wild hooked up, it was just hours after the trade deadline last February, and Brooks Laich 's two-goal/two-assist performance paced the Caps in a game that produced one of the year's great hockey photos and the host's third win in four all-time meetings between the teams at the V.C. In Minnesota, however, the story has been quite different, with Washington going 0-3-1 while scoring just three goals getting shutout twice against the Wild. In fact, the Caps haven't won in Minny since February 9, 1993 (when Nicklas Backstrom was five years old and Niklas Backstrom was ...

Canucks-Flames preview
Waiting For Stanley — I like the attitude of Ryan Johnson. When asked if he will change his game when he comes back 3-5 weeks from now, as he has a broken finger and foot, he said "No." Johnson is a gutsy, character guy. He will be hard to replace. Alexandre Bolduc will try to fill Johnson's role the best he can. “Here, I’m not going to try to do anything crazy, I’m going to play my game, play it safe,” said Bolduc. “Not get noticed in a bad way, keep it simple and go from there. “I think there are lot of guys they could have called up from our team, we’re on a roll right now. Ryan Johnson is a defensive guy and they wanted someone who could fill that role, so I’m just going to ...

Saturday Roundup - Caps 3, Habs 0 - Gamenight: Caps @ Jackets
Japers' Rink — ... that's only scoring on 10.2% of its chances. And despite a young stud goaltender, the team is fifth from the bottom of the League in goals against average. As you might suspect, all of this adds up to ...

Thursday Roundup - Gamenight: Isles @ Caps
Japers' Rink — ... Back to the "crappy-on-paper" part, the Isles' offense is terrible (they haven't scored more than four goals in a game since October 11... kiss of death, I know), their defense is worse (though ...

Canucks have to take down the Wild tonight
Waiting For Stanley — ...not only because they can retake possession of first spot in the Northwest Division, but also because he longer this losing streak goes the harder it is on player and team chemistry and morale. I'm not feeling overly confident in the Canucks' abilities to play a tight 60 minutes at this point. I'm also not overly confident in the abilities of Sanford or Schneider. Both have played well, there is no doubt, but they need to steal a game at some point. And to continue the broken record.... the players in front of them need to tighten up defensively. 5 goals scored against the Wings is great, but not when you allow 6 against. -The Wild are coming off a 4-0 win over the Blues ...

Saturday Roundup - Gamenight: Caps @ Leafs
Japers' Rink — ... canned him on May 10, 2002, Ron Wilson is 4-0 as a head coach against Washington. All-time, Crazy Ron is 7-2-1 against the team he took to the Stanley Cup Finals in his first year behind the bench for them. What does he have in store for the Caps this time around? If yesterday's practice is any indication (h/t TRS on the link), it may very well be sixty minutes of hell. The Leafs come into the game with a crappy record due largely to the fact that they're giving up a ton of goals (funny how things tend to work out that way). They can ...

Wednesday Roundup - Gamenight: Bruins @ Caps
Japers' Rink — ... a goalie duel that the good guys won in a shootout, and what was likely the last game of Brian Pothier's career (speaking of which, make sure to read Corey's piece today). One only can guess what tonight has in story when the best team in the Eastern Conference comes to the VC. The B's have won five straight and 14 of their last 16, have the League's best goalie by the numbers, and are scoring the most goals per game in the East while allowing the fewest in the entire League. They've been devastating at five aside and are ...

We should be able to beat a slumping Senators team, right?
Waiting For Stanley — The Senators have lost the first 2 games of their season-high 8-game road trip, a 6-3 loss to Calgary last night and a 6-4 loss to Flyers on the 23rd. Ottawa has not won a game on the road in 11 games now (0-9-2). However the Canucks have lost 3 of their last 4 games and are taking a lot of penalties in the process. -Ottawa is 29th overall in goals per game ...

The "Models of Inconsistency" return home to dance with the Stars tonight
Waiting For Stanley — Both the Stars and Canucks are coming off disappointing losses. The Stars played catch up against the Oilers last night but failed 4-1. Coach Dave Tippett called it a "slap in the face to his team." He singled out Marty Turco for letting in 2 soft goals. When the Canucks lost 2-1 in a shootout to the Thrashers a couple nights ago, he called out Wellwood, Raymond and Bernier for lack of production. There is no problems with the Sedins right now. From Canucks.com: Daniel Sedin, who leads Vancouver with 19 goals and 41 points, had a goal and two assists against Atlanta, and has two goals and four assists over the last four games. Henrik Sedin, who registered two goals and an assist on Friday, has ...

Saturday Roundup - Gamenight: Bruins @ Caps
Japers' Rink — ... (that night in December they were without Mike Green, Sergei Fedorov, Tomas Fleischmann, Jeff Schultz and John Erskine, among others), while the Bruins have been bitten by the injury bug (losing Patrice Bergeron, Phil Kessel, Milan "I Love" Lucic in the interim). But the juggernaut that is the 2008-09 Boston Bruins seemingly cannot be stopped. They're second in the League in goals per game and first in goals against average. They're killing it on the power play, penalty kill ...

Tuesday Roundup - Gamenight Caps @ Devils
Japers' Rink — ... the season with 8-7-0/2.94/.888 career marks. Must be a late bloomer. But by now you know that this isn't the same Devils team you're used to seeing piling up the 2-1 wins - these guys can score, to the tune of 3.06 goals per game thanks to fantastic play at five-aside. They have five different 40+ point men already (as many as they had all last season), and as many double-digit goal scorers as the Caps have. And, of course, they're not giving many goals or leads (if you're trailing after two to these guys, good luck - ...

Suddenly hot Canucks look to beat Desert Dogs
Nucks Misconduct — ... that are close to-but do not hold a playoff spot. A win by them puts them 1 point away from 8th spot Vancouver.  A loss by Vancouver in regulation means they will fall to 9th spot as the Oilers have more wins. So it's going to be a playoff-like game. For a team that has the same amount of wins as us, the Coyotes suck in most of the significant categories:   They rank 20th or worse in the following categories: Goals per game: 25th Goals against per game: 21st 5 on 5: 28th Power Play efficiency: ...

Tuesday Roundup - Ovechkin Readying For A Ross Repeat?
Japers' Rink — ... The Caps have two games remaining against the team with the worst goals against per game in the League (Toronto), four remaining against second-worst Atlanta, and single games against the third- and fourth-worst (the Isles and Avs). ...

Numbers Game: Aggregate Rank - Goals For/Against
IllegalCurve.com — In last week’s Numbers Game, I compared each team’s combined power play and penalty kill ranks to their point totals.  For the analysis, I assigned each team an aggregate score which was the sum of their power play rank and penalty kill rank, with the idea being that teams that ranked higher in both categories would be more likely to win games.  The numbers indicated that teams that ranked higher in aggregate score tended to have more wins. However, the difference between the top ranked teams in aggregate score and those in the middle of the pack was not as significant as one would expect. Continuing on that analysis, in today’s Numbers Game, ...

Game Day - Thrashers @ Capitals
Japers' Rink — ... Kozlov (nine points in his last eight games and 52 on the season), Sergei Fedorov (nine points in February) and Viktor Kozlov's return to the Caps' lineup and top line, and to say there will be heavy Russian artillery on display at the VC tonight would be an understatement. Behind the WWII nostalgia evoked by a cliched metaphor, however, lies the fact that the Atlanta Thrashers are a bad hockey team. They have the second-worst points percentage, goals against average and penalty kill in the League (though, ...

Game Day - Hurricanes @ Capitals
Japers' Rink — ... the Caps' schedule three times in the next 18 days (a span of ten games). It's not quite the three head-to-heads in four games the two teams had back in late January of 2007, but it's still more than enough time for these pseudo-rivals to get plenty reacquainted. How are our old buddies from N.C. doing these days? Well, they're fighting for their playoff lives, and not doing a great job of it. They're in the bottom half of the League in goals per game and goals against average, five-on-five ratio, power play ...

Game Day - Capitals @ Predators
Japers' Rink — ... (in which they scored 28 goals) snapped on Saturday in Philly. For the Caps, Nashville is the last Western team on the schedule, which is a good thing, given the team's 7-10-0 record against the Conference. Then again, they are 4-2-0 against the Central Division, including a 4-3 shootout win over these same Predators back in late October (and who can forget the Caps' last visit to Nashville?). But the Preds are a tough out at home (21-11-2), have been stingy defensively all season long (thanks to Pekka Rinne and a great ...

Canucks vs Ducks (Uh-oh, not another game against a non-playoff team)
Nucks Misconduct — ... anymore. I think Mike and I have done that enough already over the past couple of days. Oh wait, Kyle Wellwood's stats are worth a look..no goals, 2 assists and 24 shots in his last 21 games. Does Woody have any finish left in him? Keep in mind that Mattias Ohlund only needs 1 more point to break the Canucks' points record by a defenceman. COMPARATIVE STATS -The Canucks have scored more goals per game on average than the Ducks. -The Canucks have allowed fewer goals per game than Anaheim. -Vancouver is also: ...

Islanders Gameday: Where the Wild things aren't
Lighthouse Hockey — ... As you've heard or guessed, the Wild don't score much -- more than only the Rangers -- at 2.45/GP, but only marginally less than the Islanders (2.49). Plus, they give up a lot less. Still, the Islanders' first-half stats should be thrown out the window. When Yann Danis is in goal and the young forwards are clicking, they show the signs of something around the corner. Facing a conservative system like Lemaire's is actually a perfect test for them. ...

The Avalanche Just Plain Suck
Hockey From the Cheap Seats —

Where The New Guys Fit In, Part I
Japers' Rink — ... this past season, so it makes at least some sense. What jumps out here, of course, is how high Morrison's 2008-09 season appears on the list (and before you claim Anaheim or Dallas played solid defense, neither of those teams finished in the top half of the NHL in goals allowed, and both might have finished behind the Caps, had the Caps not laid ...

The Southeast Division's Top Ten Defensemen
Japers' Rink — ... ), posting the best plus-minus on the Division's best defensive team and taking just eight minor penalties in 72 games. He might be higher on this list if he got more ice time, though more responsibility may not necessarily agree with Babs. ...

The Southeast Division's Top Ten Goaltenders
Japers' Rink — ... and fourth-most GA/G in the league.  He allowed four goals or more in 11 games (40 starts) last season, and seemed to keep his team from completely unraveling until suffering a concussion that finished his 2008-09 season by February.  (By comparison, José Theodore allowed four or more 19 times in 55 starts.)  The kid has certainly got ...