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Captain Filip Forsberg leads his team to a convincing victory over the Czechs. (Photo credit: Andrey Starostin/Scanpix)
On Wednesday, in his first World Juniors game as team captain, Washington Capitals top prospect Filip Forsberg scored a goal in Sweden’s 4-1 win over the Czech Republic. It was Forsberg’s first goal of his WJC career, after getting just one assist during Sweden’s championship run last year.
Video is below the jump.
“Owwie!” (Photo credit: championat.com)
Almost one year ago to the day, Calgary Flames’ winger Rene Bourque elbowed Nicklas Backstrom in the side of the head, forcing the Capitals number-one center to the sidelines for three months with a concussion. The Capitals struggled in his absence, but 40 games later, after being magically healed by Tiesto, Backstrom returned for the playoff push and suffered no apparent setbacks.
On Wednesday, Backstrom fans got another scare when Nicklas took an awkward second period hit from Milan Kytnár during Dynamo’s 2-1 (SO) win over Slovan.
Photo credit: dynamo.ru
After a two-game road swing that saw Dynamo Moscow travel multiple time-zones away, Alex Ovechkin and the rest of his teammates returned home for the Christmas holiday and took on Slovan Bratislava on Wednesday.
The Russian machine, who hasn’t been held off the scoresheet since the late 80′s, scored yet again, tallying a powerplay goal in the first period. Ovechkin now has a 14-game point streak and one very happy girlfriend in a #32 jersey. Dynamo won via the gimmick, 2-1 (SO).
Now let’s see this goal.
Ahead of Dynamo Moscow’s game against Slovan today, Alex Ovechkin’s perfect tennis superstar girlfriend, Maria Kirilenko, showed off her Christmas gift: a blue #32 Dynamo jersey with Kirilenko stitched on the back. A cute gesture, but as JP already pointed out, this is technically a jersey foul.
“I must break you… with my blue eyes.”
Last week, we told you how Washington Capitals captain Alex Ovechkin landed on the cover of ProSport Magazine’s December issue. Now comes the interview Ovechkin did with Alexander Lyutikov, and let’s just say it’s interesting.
In the interview, Ovechkin kvetches about Evgeny Kuzetsov’s decision to stay in Russia for the next two years. For the first time in the press, Ovechkin reveals just how strongly he opposed Kuznetsov’s choice and that he advised Kuznetsov against it. “I think he’s outgrown the KHL level,” Ovechkin said. “[He] needs to move on.”
Below, RMNB’s Fedor Fedin translates the interview.
Caps prospect Jaynen Rissling is a man of many talents. Not only is the Capitals 7th round pick on pace to have a career year with the Calgary Hitmen, the 6’4″, 223-pound defenseman is also a natural in front of the camera, as evidenced by the holiday video below.
On Sunday, the Russian television channel NTV published an in-depth feature on Alex Ovechkin, which included interviews from Tatiana Ovechkin (his mom), Mikail Ovechkin (his dad), Maria Kirilenko (his super-hot, super-talented girlfriend), and the man himself. While we haven’t had time to translate the Russian yet, you need to see this video featuring new footage of young Ovi. And warning: it’s dangerously adorable, so don’t operate any heavy machinery while viewing.
Coming into Sunday’s away game against Amur Khabarovsk, Alex Ovechkin was riding a 12-game point streak, which — after signing a month into the regular season — had finally put him amongst the KHL league-leaders in points. Well, let’s make that point streak 13 games.
Ovi scored a beautiful, unassisted goal in the second period. As the Russian machine turned the corner and watched a helpless Amur defenseman fall down, he took the puck strong to the net, avoided another collapsing defender, and shot the puck into the top right corner. Holy moly! Ovechkin’s tally, his 16th of the year, would stand as the game-winner. Dynamo would win 3-1.
Now let’s see this goal.
I have on good authority that fan-favorite Brooks Laich is sooper hawt. While he’s no Fabio, I guess I can see it. Anyways, on Friday after the Capitals’ scrimmage with local college players, Brooksie cooled down and stretched, leading to this provocative position that friend-of-the-blog Jen (@jlrpuck) captured. Enjoy!
On Saturday, several Washington Capitals players rented out Kettler Capitals IcePlex to scrimmage against local college kids. Two readers who attended, Lexi Martinez and Kate Hudson, share their experience below. Lexi did the write-up, and Kate snapped the photos. Enjoy!
Caps fans got a surprise Thursday night, when John Carlson took to Twitter to announce that he’d be joining a few teammates back on the ice at Kettler the following morning for something special. Along with Brooks Laich, Jason Chimera, Jay Beagle, Jeff Halpern, and former Capital Peter Bondra, John would be scrimmaging a team of college players from around the area. It was thrown together late and all for fun, but for me, it meant a little taste of the Caps hockey we’ve all been missing so much. Naturally, I was freaking out.
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