Caps vs Pens

[herrmag]

Dec. 11 vs. Pittsburgh Penguins at Verizon Center
Time: 7:00 pm
TV: Versus
Radio: WTNT 570 AM
Washington Capitals (13-10-6)
Pittsburgh Penguins (12-11-5)


Matchup

The Pittsburgh Penguins waddle into Washington for their first visit of the season to Verizon Center. The Caps play host to the Flightless Fowl on Monday at 7 p.m.

For days the game has been hyped as a duel between Washington’s Alex Ovechkin and Pittsburgh’s Sidney Crosby, but that’s just the hype. Monday’s contest really pits a pair of upstart teams looking to move up the standings and into playoff contention. As good as the two young stars are, they’ll be on the ice for only about a third of the game. And what’s most important to both the Caps and the Pens is picking up two points against an Eastern Conference rival.

This is the first time the Caps and Penguins have met while both teams have been above .500 since Oct. 28, 2002. The Caps were 4-3-1 when that game started while the Pens were 4-2-2. Dainius Zubrus and Steve Eminger are the only Caps who played in that game who are still in the Washington organization. None of the Pens players who dressed that night is still drawing a paycheck from Pittsburgh.

Washington has won five of its last six games, slipping into third place in the Southeast Division standings in the process. The Capitals are coming off a 5-3 win in Philadelphia on Saturday night. After going 0-15-1 over the last eight seasons in the City of Brotherly Love, the Caps have won two straight over the Flyers in Philly by identical 5-3 scores. That win over the Flyers also moved Washington into eighth place in the Eastern Conference standings. The Caps are just two points shy of fifth place in the conference.

It took Ovechkin 27 games to record his first three-point game of the 2006-07 season, but he now has a pair of three-point games in his last two. After totaling six goals and 10 points in his first 10 games this season, Ovechkin has racked up 12 goals and 25 points in his last 19 games. The 21-year-old Washington sophomore is tied for third in the league with 18 goals and is 12th in the league’s scoring race with 35 points. He leads the NHL with 152 shots on goal.

With a win over Pittsburgh on Monday, the Caps can move four games above the break-even point for the first time since the conclusion of the 2002-03 regular season.

Heading into Sunday night’s light slate of NHL activity, the Capitals have the league’s 17th ranked power play with a conversion rate of 16.3%. Washington’s penalty killing corps stands 18th in the circuit with a kill rate of 83.1%.

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Now this should be a fun game to watch! I wish I was going to the game tonight. Lets hope our boys can make Syd cry a little more and truly live up to his name "the Kid". I'd love to see Ovy catch Syd coming over the blue line with a nice shot right into the middle of that penguin.

[PokerPacker]

lets kick some penguin ass!

[Maxito]

This team needs to learn how to keep the lead. They were up 4-0 in the 2nd quarter. There have been several occasions where the caps were up by 2 goals or more and still lose.

[BayouBrave86]

First time since 91' they have blown a 4 goal lead and it's against the Pens, figures. At least we got a point but damn that was depressing.

[SkinsHokieFan]

Damn that sucked, you cannot blow 4 goal leads

[PokerPacker]

i don't get it. why can't the caps win when i watch them play?

[Patrick Evidente]

Well that really sucked.

I bet if we were up only 1-0 we would have won.

[Burgold]

I don't watch enough to really say this, but it seems over the years, the Pens just have the Caps number. It's probably one of those flukey things that lead to uber confidence.

[SackMachine]

3 of the pens 4 goals were identical, from the front of the goalie left alone, wrist shot top right corner.
Caps should have won, but the pens wearing their helmets backwards were able to make kolzig laugh and forget about making the save in the shootout.

[herrmag]

3 of the pens 4 goals were identical, from the front of the goalie left alone, wrist shot top right corner.
Caps should have won, but the pens wearing their helmets backwards were able to make kolzig laugh and forget about making the save in the shootout.

They actually came up with that gimmick during the third period (although I don't think they did it on the ice). I was sitting right behind the Pens' bench last night. What a game. Despite the outcome, it was pretty exciting.

Unfortunately, when there was about 3 minutes left in the game, a girl asked me what I thought the outcome would be. I said "We lose in a shootout". What's even worse is the fact that she said a bunch of other people told her the same thing. We've had 5 shootouts, which equates to 15 one-on-ones with the goalie. Last night, AO scored our first one. That means we are 1/15 on what are essentially penalty shots. We have given up way too many points to still suck at these. Hanlon needs to address this issue.

Oh, and BTW, WHY THE FREAK WAS MIKE GREEN TAKING A SHOT IN THE SHOOTOUT, while Zuby and Semin sat on the bench?

[SackMachine]

He had a really nice breakaway goal... thats no reason to do it. If you ask me, you should put guys out there with stick handling ability, two out of your three guys went for a shot and it landed right on Marc-Andre Fleury.

[BayouBrave86]

Klepis and Gordon need to be out there. They have some nice moves in their arsenal. Gordon is just never given the chance.

[stretch]

Having Clark in the shootout over Semin was pretty dumb.

[The End]

it never should have come down the the shootout. It was one of the craziest games i've seen in a while. In the first period the caps out-muscled the pens and proved that when we play our best, they can't stop us. But the reason the pens were able to come back is simple.
1. Michelle put Malkin and Crosby on the ice at the same time. This made back-checking 20x tougher for our forwards and confused our defense.
2. In the 2nd and 3rd periods, the Pens outplayed the caps on the boards and in our own zone. The diving malkin goal was a bad break because that puck took so many bad bounces in that possesion it should have been out of there before the pens were able to swarm the net. The Crosby slapper was the only goal that was the result of just bad defense.

Tough loss, but lets not dwell on it too much we are ahead of the pens in the standings and considering how awful we played starting 7:00 into the 2nd to the end of the game, we were lucky to get a point.

[PokerPacker]

Oh, and BTW, WHY THE FREAK WAS MIKE GREEN TAKING A SHOT IN THE SHOOTOUT, while Zuby and Semin sat on the bench?

that is EXACTLY what i was wondering!