Failure to Capitalize

Tonight, the Capitals lost Game 7 of their series against the New York Rangers. I don't want to be negative, I swear I don't, but hearing quotes of "Oh, it's just another game" tossed around beforehand, I shouldn't have been surprised to see another half-hearted, lackluster offense. The Rangers wanted it more, so they won. Rushing back to play defense doesn't score goals. There are no moral victories- it's a pretty objective, results-based activity. This should have been the RuPaul's Drag Race Lipsync for Your Life moment, leaving it all out there, ripping your wig off (figuratively), making an impression. Seeing the game go at the leisurely pace I've seen too often this year, I had little hope.

 I hope Dale heads back to London and honestly, I don't know who else on this team should stay. The few ones who do care, I don't know if I want to see their hard work go unrewarded anymore and maybe they should be where they are valued.

 We get promised every time that this is the one, this group of guys is committed, but it never pans out. It's all talk. Living in Washington (or close enough), hearing big talk and no action gets old.

Karl Alzner: "I’m gonna view it as an underachieved season, in my opinion. I know a lot of people don’t feel the same way."
-via Katie Carrera's Twitter feed

Prediction

 The Caps aren't making the playoffs.There will be one loss too many to make that final cut. Someone will be traded for a name that sounds good but won't be a fit and the season will sputter and cough away like an old Chevette. I loved that Mike Green returned and looks solid enough out on the ice, but I still have seen more team identity and synchronicity (that is a word and not just a Police song, right?) in pick-up games. I don't know any more. It still doesn't feel like it's Dale's team but if he's not going to stay around long enough to restyle them in his likeness, then this season is just an experiment.

Double Despair

 Last night was the first of the winter where the Capitals and the Wizards played on the same night at the same time. This had the potential to be a very busy and eventful night, but being the Capitals and the Wizards, it ended up being a double disappointment.

 The Capitals had a penalty and goal against before the Wizards got around to announcing their starting five. It didn't take long to see that making the switch over to standard definition CSN+ was not going to be worth the effort. The Wizards put up some strong numbers early- their largest lead was 21 points, but the play was sloppy and they would have been trounced by a better team than New Jersey.

 By the second half, the Wizards fell apart and let Kris Humphries have decent numbers. The man is a joke, following after the real shooters and putting up leftovers, plus he tripped up Andray Blatche who in turn knocked into Nick Young and put him in a lot of pain, even though he managed to come back limping toward the end. The game should have been easily dominated the whole time but there was a level of unfamiliarity and discomfort amongst teammates that was obvious and led to too many missed shots and awkward passes. Hopefully the shortened prep time is mostly to blame for this because they look like a determined group of guys and even Dallas is looking like crap this early on.

 What sucks the most is the negative comments by CSN Washington and their followers on Facebook. There was no positive comments the last time I looked and with titles like "new season, same Wizards" it doesn't seem like pro-team attitudes are encouraged. There is still building being done and it's different than when I bitch about the Caps. They are supposed to be "finished" by now and ready for success but it's not happening. There is a higher level of expectation. Fire Saunders? Maybe. Wasn't impressed with him last year, but let's see after more than one game.

Say Hello, Waive Goodbye

   

  For the second time in less than a year the Capitals waived DJ King. This time he asked for it to happen, in the hopes of getting some ice time somewhere. No one bit so once again it looked as if he was the team's invisible extra man, the assumed odd man out every game day. When Joe B didn't even name him as a healthy scratch on Saturday, I knew things were bad and sure enough, on Sunday it was announced that DJ would be sent down to Hershey. I read sighs of relief from other places, as if he were some dead weight on the team that had no value, when in truth he was traded for- giving up who I thought was an impressive minor leaguer in Stefan Della Rovere (10 goals and 10 assists, 147 PIM for Peoria over the last two years, and no points and 11 penalty minutes in 7 games for St Louis). GMGM thought he had some value, but BB, despite trying to give off this air of badassery, never liked him, so he was screwed.

  I don't get it. People loved Matt Bradley (more on that another post) and love Matt Hendricks. They cheer when Ovie takes someone down, but out and out fighting is bad? We have the only superstar who doesn't get vicinity calls in his favor and we don't need someone to take down the douches? Is Semin taking up all the PIMs?

  So in prep for this rant, I looked up DJ's stats again on NHL.com . I don't know anything about youth hockey. I don't know if everyone scores because the goalies are still learning. It's a concept beyond my American understanding, but the first line of 30 goals and 28 assists at age 15 impressed me. As I went down the list, I saw a guy who was an asset when given regular playing time. Somewhere around 2006-2007, which coincided with his first NHL run, the games played/PIM ratio jumped. Someone somewhere thought he was a pure enforcer. I don't know if he'll ever prove me wrong, but I disagree.

   A one-dimensional badass wouldn't hustle so hard in practice every day with a smile on his face, and his Twitter avatar certainly wouldn't be him fishing in a Snoopy t-shirt. He might have looked like Bambi out on the ice in actual games, but in BB's ADD style I don't know who could look smooth with more time in the press box than on the ice. This guy is awesome, and I don't think seventeen games in two years is anywhere near enough time to give him up as a lost cause. I hope he shows Hershey he's meant for this and makes Boudreau look like even more of a fool. There's a game tonight. We'll see what happens.

  

Promise?

I won't talk about that game if you don't.

I have a feeling the disappointment tag will get some use around here.