Comments on: How Not to Win at Hockey: Flyers beat Caps 3-2 (OT)

By: The Laziest Five Guys » capitalpowerplay

The Laziest Five Guys » capitalpowerplay — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 17:40:16 +0000

[...] A quote by the Flyers game announcers during the Caps vs. Flyers: “That was the five laziest guys you could have found to have on the ice against that line.” Summed up best by Russian Machine Never Breaks, “They played 40 seconds of gritty hockey in an hourlong game.” [...]

By: Craig

Craig — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 03:25:09 +0000

A very sobering analysis. And a bonus point for using ‘kvetching.’

By: GreenGuy

GreenGuy — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 02:56:24 +0000

Look at the bright side. American Idol is starting.

By: Cathy W

Cathy W — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 00:38:35 +0000

The coach and players say the right things after games, but never seem to learn and follow through. I am beginning to think they all got Ds in school. Waiting to turn it on until partway through the the third period is getting old. Now both goalies are injured. It is more than time to be concerned. I can’t click my heels together and close my eyes and pretend that the first two periods of several recent games did not happen because they played well during part of the third period or that everything will magically get better with optional practices. They have more road games in the second half of the season ans the injuries are mounting. Plus, we get to watch the roulette wheel that constitute the lines. I wish I could buy every excuse in the book, but I can’t because I have heard them all before.

By: J.P.

J.P. — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 00:18:47 +0000

“So wait. Bizarro Stan Lee is into hookers and blow?”

Heh! Yeah, you’d think it would be regular Stan Lee, but he’s too obsessed with making cameo appearances in Marvel-branded movies to be into anything as mundane prostitutes and nose-candy.

By: Katie

Katie — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 20:51:47 +0000

I think a lot of people like to chalk things up to bad luck and bad bounces. You see the moments where the puck is practically sitting on the line and doesn’t go in, and it’s easy to say, damn, we have terrible luck. But Philly had plenty of moments like that against us last night, but they still found a way to win. We know the right things to do, we just don’t seem to do them consistently, and I wish I knew why. This was another game where a portion of it reminded us how good the Caps can be….but still aren’t consistently.

Also, why are we so damn bad at 4 on 4 hockey? We cannot seem to win in OT. It’s ridiculous.

By: Peter

Peter — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 20:51:32 +0000

So wait. Bizarro Stan Lee is into hookers and blow?

By: J.P.

J.P. — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 20:05:19 +0000

Apparently the folks who think the Caps are playing well are watching the ALTERNATE UNIVERSE CAPS – the universe where Stan Lee coaches the team by remote camera from a hidden room in the Pacific Northwest that’s filled with hookers and blow while team leader SuperCapitalGuardianThing puts pucks in the net at will with just a heroic look – lucky you. The rest of us are suffering thru a team that can’t find enough motivation to play one (one!!) solid hour of hockey, instead preferring to show up for few minutes, pretend to look like a team, collect a check, and, and, make comments after the game about how they don’t understand why they can’t quite seem to put a whole game’s worth of hard play together. Christ on a purple friggin’ crutch! I’m tired of watching the team mail it in (excepting the Hershey boys) night after night and then have to listen to all of the misty-eyed, soul-searching afterwards like it’s some great mystery that they can’t quite solve on why they can’t get it done.
Friend of mine drives a truck and listens to the games on XM/Sirius. Last night he listened to the Flyers feed and told me they made this statement sometime around the 2nd period (going from memory, so it’s not 100% accurate): “Folks, you’re watching a team that could/should dominate this division, just give up. They’re playing like they don’t care”.
Pretty spot-on assessment if you ask me. Ya know, I don’t expect them to win every game, I do, however expect them to compete/play hard every game. There’s no shame in losing to a better team, there is shame in not even making an effort to play hard and correct mistakes.
W/out a major trade/shake-up, I am starting to seriously doubt that this team will even make the playoffs.
To those of you watching the ALTERNATE UNIVERSE CAPS, please enjoy the heroics, the rest of us stuck watching the REAL UNIVERSE CAPS are hoping that Bruce rents an apartment hidden in the Pacific Northwest and starts coaching by remote camera while enjoying copious quantities of both hookers and blow. It could only improve things at this point….

By: Jason

Jason — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 20:01:22 +0000

I must have been watching a different game, because I thought the Caps came out working pretty damn hard in the first, and were for stretches quite dominant. That Carter wrap around should have never amounted to what it did. My brother was wondering how on Earth the Caps didn’t come out of the first with at least a 1 goal lead, and I was a bit in awe they didn’t score myself. The last time I saw them come out working this hard in the first was at the WC.

What was a bit disheartening about the game was that right after they scored two goals in 40 seconds, based pretty much on shear will powe,r that they basically posed zero offsensive threat over the rest of the game.

By: Peter

Peter — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 19:39:46 +0000

I’m glad you guys are passionate about it. I’m going to offer some context, and you can do with it what you want.

A team’s performance is measured against its expectations. The Capitals are miles behind where they were expected to be. Or are people still talking about Ovechkin hitting 50 goals in 50 games? The Capitals started the season as odds-on favorites to win the Cup, now that seems like fantasy.

The team is underperforming, and that is the reason for concern. That they’re still better than awful teams doesn’t comfort me. And the team isn’t successfully tackling the evident problems in the organization. That is what sends us into– not a panic attack, per se– but at least quiet reflection.