Illustration by Rachel Cohen

[Ed. note: Jason Rogers offers his final pregamer of the year. Follow @PuckBuddys if you dare.]

As Boston’s Samuel Adams proclaimed to the city as he read the first draft of the Declaration of Independence from Independence Hall: “King George is a fah-kin’ bastahd, Go Sawx.” And thus from these auspicious beginnings bloomed the blue-collarest, working-classiest, chowdah-guzzlingest town in the country. Boston is a city that spurns academia in favor of arm wrestling, subtlety in favor of soup, and charisma in favor of crème pies. On Saturday, the Goon Squad known as the Bruins lurches into DC like a particularly undeveloped ape.

Last game of the season, folks; let’s go for one more ride. 

Morning Skate

Chances of an Looch-Ersk fight tonight? Unlikely.

The Caps have already locked up the Southeast Division tighter than the door to Bruce Boudreau’s home gym, so why should you care? Well, because there are two ways a team can enter the playoffs. The Caps can ease gingerly into the postseason like an old man into a warm bath, nursing their injured groins like an overzealous teen. Or, they can roar hell-bent into the playoffs like a lion with a sinful streak. As we’ve seen time and time again, it’s not how you start the season (thank God), it’s how you finish. Witness the eight-seeded LA Kings last year, who made mince meat out of the western conference like so much veggie burger. If the Caps take their foot off the pedal now, they may never put it back down, and the city of DC will be stuck in the mire like so much sequestered legislation.

Further, the Bruins are a team that the Caps may have to go through to get to the Stanley Cup finals. They are a conglomeration of goons, a congress of cronies, a gathering of doofii. That said, they have hockey talent. Their forwards are quick and their defensemen are large, and despite having a face like an Easter Island head, Milan Lucic is an intimidating force on the ice. As the adage goes, “to be the best, you have to beat the best,” and there’s a good chance that to charm Lord Stanley out of his Cup, the Caps may have to sing Sweet Caroline to distract the club from Boston.

That gives us as good a chance as any to transition to the segment Mahatma Gandhi called “the only true peace I have found in the world,”

LIABLE TO LIBEL: A Baker’s Dozen Lies About Today’s Opponent

1. 

   Yeeesh

   Milan Lucic takes a special potion that keeps him from turning into a werewolf under the full moon, but as you can tell, it has stopped working.

2. Zdeno Chara returns to the hills whence he came after every season, coming down to visit the townspeople only when he needs to resupply on whole cows and the blood of Englishmen.
3. Tuukka Rask was named after the sound his father made when struck in the solar plexus.
4. In the Bruins’ annual Speed Competition at the start of the season, Brad Marchard crossed the finish line second, losing only to his nose, which beat him by several seconds.
5. Tyler Seguin is a talented hockey player and a handsome scholar. #yeshomo
6. Jaromir Jagr remembers the fear and uncertainty he felt during the War of 1812.
7. After each home victory, the sprinklers in TD Garden spray a fine mist of clam chowder down from the rafters. This seafood glop smells only just better than the city of Boston outside.
8. Ted Kennedy was allowed to drive the Zamboni once during intermission. Once.
9. Bruins fans actually boo the TD Garden organ player at home games, crying “What’re you, some kinda artsy know-it-all or somethin’? You think you’re BETTER than us?” And then the fighting starts.
10. Jaromir Jagr has a photo of himself giving life lessons to Moses.
11. Rich Peverley only faked a swing at Braden Holtby last year to send the message that it’s not okay to make Rich Peverley look like a complete asshole.
12. Boston fans call their sports teams the B’s and C’s after the highest grades Boston children ever aspire to.
13. Black and yellow are great colors for a team named after a brown bear.

Puck Drop

Erat-a-tat-tat – I said it at the time and I’ll say it again: The Forsberg-Erat trade was a good one for the Caps. First of all, Filly Forsberg is utterly unproven in any meaningful sense. Sure, he was dominating – in the second-tier Swedish league, which I only assume is called the Sekondtieeresleaga. Secondly, how long have we been crying in Washington for some talent in our top two lines? BOOM. Marty Erat, Mr. Bashful Nashville, is proven like good calculus. He’s more consistent than a thick stew and does the quiet, crucial things than just flat out win games. Keep your eye on Erat. He wins battles in the corner, makes smart entries into the zone, and almost never gives up the puck going the other way. And don’t look now, but even with Brooks Laich giving more attention to his groin than a prepubescent chimp, the Capitals can still field two top lines of Ovechkin-Backstrom-Johansson, Erat-Ribeiro-Brouwer. That, as we say in the business, is not too bad.

Gotta Have Hart  –  Alex Ovechkin is secretly a trained Russian bear in a costume, taught to play hockey in a bunker in Siberia. That’s the only explanation for the way this guy is skating. Ovi is leading the league in goals with 32 markers, is a mere four points behind the Littlest St. Louis for the lead in points, and has emerged as the frontrunner to win both the “Rocket” Richard Trophy for most goals and the Hart Trophy as the league’s most valuable player. When making diplomatic concessions to my Crosby-gumming friends earlier this year, I would propose that who wins the Hart should come down to whether the trophy should go to the most outstanding player, or truly the player most valuable to his team. Now, those two criteria describe one man: Alex Ovechkin. He’s getting more good eats in the circle than a buffet in the round, and he is once again making opposing goalies tremble in their cups. Gird your loins, gentlemen. The Russian Machine is lubed up and ready to roll.

Two Minutes in the Rib Cage: Mike Ribeiro’s Penalties  -  Look, Mikey, we get it. You’re tough. You’re scrappier than your 65-pound frame suggests, and you’re a damn fine hockey player. Nevermind that guys like John Erskine could hold you at one arms-length while you flailed wildly with your fists. Nevermind that your baffling insistence upon low-slung hats in intermission interviews makes you look like you dipped out of Verizon Center for a jif to “meet a guy about a thing.” I don’t care about any of that. I care that you won’t shut up when you need to. The Capitals lost their last game against the Ottawa Senators because Mike Ribeiro took nearly back-to-back minors, the latter of which was fatal and put them on the penalty kill on overtime because you were a little irked. Ribs is a dynamic playmaker who has made the Capitals a better team this season. But to put your need for Foghorn Leghorn-like satisfaction above the team is unacceptable. If you run around provoking referees and looking for duels, eventually you’re going to run into Aaron Burr.

That about wraps it up, family. I will be at Verizon on Saturday to watch the puck drop at 7pm from the nosebleeds with my buddy from college and his girlfriend from Boston. I hope she leaves in tears.

And one last time this regular season, Go Caps.

[Ed. note: Oh my. Here we are, once more, teetering on the precipice. Wisenheimers will tell you stat this and odds that. But the PuckBuddys roll different. Yes, PuckBuddy Jason Rogers is back again - you think you could scare him away? - with searing insights into the coming game. Which is, we all agree, big. As in... big. Like nobody frackin' breathe until we wrap this one up. It's a messy job, but someone has to do it. Even former Premier William MacKenzie King is watching. Here's Sperm Whale Jason.]

The Morning Skate: I don’t mean to rain, sleet, or snert on anyone’s victory parade, but the Capitals play in a garbage division. It’s a division so abysmal that next year it will be forever struck from the NHL pantheon, and utterance of its name will be forbade as heresy. But, I believe the Capitals are far and away the best team in the Southeast, the veritable creme d’ la crap, if you will. This game against a very good Habs team will provide a measuring stick for how far the Caps might go in the playoffs. So let’s hope that distance is measured in good ol’ American miles, and not kilometres (freakin’ socizlists.)

The Puck Drop: Secondly, this game matters because we mere mortals get to watch Alexander Ovechkin play hockey again. Now tied for the lead league in goals, OBESTkin is scoring all over the place like Maria ain’t watchin’ (BOOM.) Dale Hunter was content to use him like a tarp, lazily casting him across the penalty kill and hoping he made something happen… somehow. Adam Oates is using Ovi’s precision and power like a shotgun that shoots micro-scalpels.

What we say about Gretzky (bow your heads), we say about Sidney Crosby: he was always in the right place. And that, my friends, does not happen by accident, nor does it cheapen those goals. Good instincts are part of it, but so is having a smart coach who knows how to play his pieces. What we are watching right now is the sexy, sexy marriage of a brilliant coach with a prototypical weapon. Let’s see the Supreme Court disallow that! 

And that gives us a perfect opportunity to turn to the segment that the late Margaret Thatcher called “the last real chance Western civilization has” [like she knew]:

LIABLE TO LIBEL: A Baker’s Dozen Lies About Today’s Opponent

1. If you rearrange the letters in Carey Price’s name, it spells: Prairie Christ, Lord of the Land. [Ed note: Actually, Jason, it doesn't. Don't make us get all coal mine strike-breaky on you.]
2. The rest of the league finds Montreal’s insistence upon French-speaking coaches and players to be charming and not at all off-putting or absurd.
3. The main export of Quebec is an undeserved sense of superiority. And bad cheese.
   

   ummm….

4. When PK Subban joined the team as a rookie, veterans made him chug maple syrup and list every Canadian prime minister. He barely made it past William Lyon Mackenzie King. Rookie. [We choked at Sir Mackenzie Bowell.]
5. In the Habs locker room, sticks are called batons, players are called joueurs, and losses are called les petites morts. We call that: Hawhawhawhaw. Sic.
6. Every water bottle on the Montreal bench is actually filled with 1992 vintage Merlot, the lifeblood of the team. And their towels smell of brie.
7. Rene Bourque dares you to laugh at his first name. Come on, he dares you.
8. Similarly, Tomas Plekanac and David Desharnais will not acknowledge you until you pronounce their names exactly right. They rarely acknowledge anyone. Because… those names…
9. The Canadiens’ arena, the Bell Center, also lists its French name as Centre Bell. In case, you know, you weren’t sure.
10. The ice surface in Montreal is made out of frozen bottles of Evian, because, as Habs owner Geoff Molson puts it, “If you’re not skating on Evian, you may as well be skating in dirt.” We suggest LoKo.
11. 100% of proceeds from Canadiens home games go to providing cashmere sweaters for the city’s stray and under-dressed dog population.
12. When Samuel de Champlain first explored Quebec, he reportedly declared, “Bring me your stubborn masses yearning to speak French.” (Actually, guys, this is really funny.)
13. Before naming the team the Canadiens, Montreal ownership passed over more creative names like “The Hockey Team,” and “Dose Guys From Canada What Play Hockey.”

Here We Go Yo:

Health me health you! – Like Snooki’s biography, the Caps are not especially deep (spoiler alert: she smells like booze). But contrary to popular opinion, they’re not bereft of top-six talent, not by a long shot. Recent additions of Brooks Laich (from injury) and Martin Erat (from trade) lift the Caps, like a fine brassiere, from average to something to look at. [He can say that because he's a straight guy writing for a bunch of gay guys writing for a group of straight guys.]

Now of course, losing both of those gentlemen in the last two games makes things more difficult. It’s tricky, because the Caps need to stay healthy to win, but in order to win, they need to play the kind of high-intensity hockey that inherently puts you at risk for injury. As they say in hockey parlance, the Caps need to risk it to get the biscuit.

To Hillen Back Again – I was wrong about defenseman Jack Hillen. I may even be quoted on Twitter as having said:

@HeyJayJRogers: Jack Hillen sucks. Get him off the ice.

Deep, piercing analysis for sure. But what has Jacky shown us recently? How about shutting down the Islanders’ John Tavares and the Lightning’s Steven Stamkos like they were pimple-faced band geeks asking the popular girl to prom.

The Caps defense is spoken ill of more often than the Centers for Disease Control and more prone to injury than Kanye’s pride [look it up, kids!] Karl Alzner and John Erskine are consistent, reliable defenders. John “Towlie” Carlson and Mike “Groin Over” Green can be, and Jeff “Sargeant” Schultz is just awful (seriously, he plays like a nervous Weimeraner with strangers in the house).

That gives us Hillen, who subscribes to Pierre McGuire’ Advanced Theory of Hockey: To win a game of hockey, you must score more goals than your opponent. Jack understands that the fewer goals the other team scores, the fewer the Caps need to score to win. We all remember the Young Guns Caps teams that won games 5-4, 6-5 and so forth. This is not that team. This is a team that can win games 2-1. Jack Hillen is a big reason they are able to do that.

Swede and Sour – Nick Backstrom is a glorious Norse god. After quietly recording his 300^th career assist against Tampa, he now also quietly has 34 assists through 39 games, a pace that would leave him with 77 helpers in a full, idiot-proof season. Do not tell me the Capitals are not a better team when Backstrom plays. Don’t even tell me they aren’t a thousand times better. Nicky B is setting up guys left and right like an FBI informant, and you can bet he’ll be getting a lovely Christmas card from Alex Ovechkin.

On the other side of the Kroner you have Marcus Johansson, a tremendously talented forward who’s shown flashes of brilliance but has never found consistency. He roars across the blue line like a lion in a police line-up and can dangle like a Bush-Gore chad. He can’t seem to finish, however. Multiple times this year he’s been given a gift on the doorstep like an unexpected Amazon delivery, and like a hearse with a flat tire, failed to bury it. Great forwards score goals. If Johansson can figure out how to do that, we could have the best Swedish pair since Elin Nordegren. 

Which, yes we admit, is really mostly a hetero/homo test for y’all. You know how you passed.

The Late Line: That about sums it up. Now I, like you, will wait for puck drop at 7:30pm from Montreal. Play hard, play fast, and Allez les Capitals!

[Ed. note: Jason Rogers, Sperm Whale captain and hockey Hemingway, is back for your amuse bouche. But be warned: do not take his insights as mere foam on the web: so far, he's been more spot on than Vinnie "Legs" Baggodonnouts. You are warned. Follow him now here. Thus endeth the editor's finger-wagging.]

Sasha needs an image consultant.

This will be the fourth of five meetings this season between our Caps and the Tropical Depressions, and it is time for this Washington team to decide whether it wants to spend May playing hockey or golf. Watch and learn.

The Mourning Skate: What is the length of one point? Is it the width of one puck crossing or not crossing the goal line? Is it the size of one of John “Towelie” Carlson’s skate edges slipping and giving the other team a breakaway? Is it the distance between wherever the first round of the playoffs is held and Jeff “Sgt.” Schultz’s favorite local golf course?

Rhetorical queries aside, three points now separate the Capitals from the final playoff spot. Now, if we know the Caps, there’s plenty of room for them to implode in on themselves with the unfathomable mass of a thousand suns and persist only as a hockey singularity, a black hole of puck the likes of which are rarely seen outside of Scottsdale, AZ. (Really dorks? We looked it up and it happens. Or, at least, so says Stephen Hawking. And you gonna argue with Stephen Flipping Hawking? Thought not!)

But that is also enough for the Washington Capitals to make the postseason and win, to follow the model of the Habs and Kings of seasons’ past and make an unlikely eighth-seeded run…and to tell Mike Milbury to trade it where the sun don’t shine. (heh)

In its final season of existence, the Southeast Division is going out less with a bang and more with a “meh.” But right in the thick of this maze of malaise are the Carolina Hurricanes, one-time Stanley Cup champions and current financiers of Alex Semin.

Is it surprising the Canes are in the playoff hunt? Sure. Is it mind-boggling why there is a professional hockey team in North Carolina? A louder, stronger “yes, y’all!” But with the Caps and Canes tied in points and Carolina having played two fewer games, the Capitals not only need to win, but they need teams like Carolina to lose.

They can do both on Tuesday night and kill two mocking birds with one stone, two surfers with one shark, or two Staals with one team, whichever is easiest for Carolina to understand. (We imagine it’s something to do with “bacon.”)

With that, it’s time to turn to the segment that launched a thousand Facebook statuses:

LIABLE TO LIBEL – A Baker’s Dozen Lies About Today’s Opponent

• When asked how he felt about receiving a huge new contract, Alex Semin took a slow drag from a cigarette and wistfully replied, “Complex.”
• Tuomo Ruutu’s name has the most U’s per capita of any developed nation.
• The Hurricanes’ mascot is a humanoid pig. This makes marginally more sense than their previous mascot, a still-life oil painting of Cam Ward eating a basket of Toblerones. 
• Eric and Jordan Staal now have a secret handshake that Marc isn’t allowed to do. It is called the “HurriShake.”
• Forward Chad LaRose was named after the protagonist of his mother’s favorite romance novel, narrowly beating out “Skylar LeSex” and “Rodrigo Musclegaze.” [ed: we loved those books!]
• In its proposal to purchase the Hurricanes, the State of North Carolina spelled the sport “hawkkey,” being utterly unfamiliar with it and assuming it involved birds and locks.
• In an ill-fated PR attempt, the Hurricanes tried to replace their ice with frozen sea water. The water would not freeze, and this actually made it easier for Alex Semin to dive. GET IT?!
• Eric Staal’s brow is premiering this weekend in Dreamworks’ film “Meet the Croods.”
• Sasha’s new contract with the Hurricanes is for five years– or 1,314,000 two-minute hooking minors.
• Hurricanes owner Peter Karmanos is lobbying the National Weather Service to name the first storm of the next season “Corvo.” It will affect very little and quietly move up the coast to Boston before all but disappearing.
• Fans have nicknamed Carolina’s roster the “Storm Troopers,” for their tendency to be anonymous, and miss a lot of shots.
  
• The Hurricanes’ trifecta of Joni, Jiri and Jussi has garnered an official grievance from the “J-Pronouncers Union of America”. Or should have. 
• Hurricanes practice was cancelled on Friday because the NC State men’s basketball team refused to vacate RBC Arena, holding the puck over Cam Ward’s head and telling him if he wanted it so badly he could simply “jump and get it.”

The Puck Drop: Do You Binky Swear? I’ve said before that the only thing more lethal than Steven “Binky” Oleksy’s fists is his Soviet-era good looks. I’m just Putin that out there. And like the tips of the Christmas-bulbed spires of the Kremlin, Binky looks sharp at the point. Whether pulling the string and back-skating two steps to give himself a shooting lane, or cycling the puck like a well-maintained Maytag, the Pride of Chesterfield, Michigan gives us a fresh dynamism that is consistent with an Adam Oates system.

We’ve gotten used to watching Mike Green botch the zone and quarterback the point with the stability and steadfastness of a ligament in RG3’s knee. Now we can watch Oleksy operate there, and while this kid is younger and rougher around the edges than a prepubescent porcupine, we have reason to believe the future will be bright. Or at very least, less Green.

No Kvetchin’ ‘Bout Ovechkin – Look, we need to have at talk about Alexander Ovechkin. If his contract were up today, maybe I wouldn’t give him $130 million. Maybe I wouldn’t sign him for thirteen years. But there may not be a more dynamic player lacing them up anywhere in the world. He is pure kinetic energy, raw power, and emotion set in movement with a quick hop-step.

Alex Ovechkin is a tidal wave that smiles and says, “Sorry, Penguin” before crashing on the beach on destroying a village. He is the word POW! wearing ice skates. I don’t care about his even-strength goal production. You know why? Because when he scored 65 goals in a season, people said, “Yeah, but is he a team player?” So Ovechkin started passing more, and people said, “Well what about evolving his game? He’s getting older.”

So Ovechkin stopped trying to do everything and found his sweet spot low in the circle on the power play. And guess what? He has become the exact weapon we need him to be. He is not just a big gun. He is the big gun. He is a cannon packed with dynamite, cocked and loaded and waiting for artilleriet Sergeant Nicklas Backstrom to trip the hammer. This guy is a leader, he is a captain, and his numbers are proving it.

“Why am I still playing?”

The Safe Word is “Mojo”: The Rise of Role Players – Detractors will tell you the Capitals’ roster is about as deep as Bruce Boudreau’s salad bowl, and this season the numbers have supported that. Once you move beyond the usual suspects of Ovechkin, Brouwer, Ribeiro, and Backstrom, few players have really distinguished themselves with offensive production.

But in today’s NHL, you can win by committee. If tonight it’s Marcus Johansson making great entries into the zone, tomorrow it might be Joel Ward winning possession scrums in the corner. Hockey is an experiment in the inescapability of cause and effect. Goals are built like pyramids, not ladders. Every goal is the result of a hundred little battles that were absolutely necessary to win. It is not a game of pacing yourself. It is not a game of futures. Hockey is a game a million consequent nows, won or lost by tenths of seconds and widths of skate blades.

It’s life, agony, and ecstasy unable to be parceled out or separated but a few times each game. But that, itself, is the point. If you spend all your time looking for the punctuation marks, you’ll miss the sonnet. The Capitals have players who can do the unglamorous things than win teams games. The question is whether they want it badly enough to bleed and fight for it.

The Late Line: And so I, like you, will be anxiously awaiting the drop of the puck at 7 pm in Raleigh. Good luck, God speed, and Go Caps.

Early Morning Skate: So, the last time we were here, we were there. Filthy Philadelphia, needing a solid road win, and feeling optimistic to start. In fact, we were all, like, yay here we gowhattheflipwasthat?! and c’mon Holtbeast get it together and then yay Groooouuubsie and boooo Max Talbot grrr grrrr and ow that traffic-cone orange makes my soul weep and that was pretty much the best summary of that ugly mess of a game I can imagine.

Mmmm…tastes like Cheez Whiz

What exactly was it that happened that terrible, cold February night at the F-U Center? Where, exactly, were manimal Troy Brouwer and Captain 8 (despite being probably the best in Red on the ice that night) and John “Towelie” Carlson and the Millionaire and his wife and the nameless rest? Certainly not there to play hard, or at least battle back through a tough start. And why was it, exactly, the Lord Supreme in His wisdom didst create that dung-heap of a burg to begin with?

Now this is our idea of a hot Fly team. Really.

You see, I’d like to chalk up that bumbling bungle of a game simply to our visiting the giant spirit suck that is Philly and its moronic fans. Like to, but cannot. Yeah, there were a couple fluky puck bounces and what-not, but those things give as much as they take. No, what we saw was a failure to launch by the Capitals after a dis-spiriting start. It was not, in any possible permutation of the concept, ‘good.’

The Puck Drop: But it’s Spring, and Easter (for some) or Maru (for others) or Passover or Nowruz or we’re just going to stop this now. Traditionally, it’s a time for rebirth and renewal and rejuvenation and reloading and all that. For the Capitals’ flock, it’s once more the race to the playoffs.

For several years now, the Capitals have demonstrated fine mettle in April, much like the pale gossamer jonquils besotting the landscape, if those jonquils were angry, snarling, forechecking, glass-smashing monsters made of steel and laser beams.

In short, there’s two ways this ends. One: we leave Filthydelphia redolent of Whiz, covered in soot and chagrin; or two, you can eat me Peter Laviolette. No wait, that’s a given. Oh yes; or two, we bounce outta Barftown and kick it into grinder gear for the coming match-ups against the Canes and ugly Islanders (revenge want now) and be the team that showed up to rub Winnipeg’s nose in its own dark, dark shame. I know which one I’m hoping for.

So let’s git ‘er done.

Who’s Hot and Who’s Snot

• Let’s just get this out of the way: what is it with you and first names, Flyers? Maxime? Jody? Zac? Zac?! Fine if you’re a British boy band, but Zac? Ugh, sign two players named Herp and Derp and you’ve got a full house.
• There’s an old adage that goes ‘What comes up must come down’, which is patently untrue if you are helium or the Blackhawks or Lindsay Lohan’s legal bills. We prefer ‘What goes down stays down,’ which we just made up but will use to prove our point. The Flyers haven’t so much been stumbling of late as they have been losing, while the Capitals overall (let’s not quibble, shall we?) have been demonstrating real hockeytude across the squad. The Flyers must therefore lose, QED.
• The Flyers do have some genuine stand-outs – Jakub Voracek and Claude Giroux and a Schenn or something – who can be good deal sealers. But like we saw in their recent outings with cross-town rivals the Pittsburgh Flightless Stenchbirds, the energy and kick appears bottled up in just a few players, while the Pens (and oh how I hate myself for saying this) work well together across the squad, and that was before getting Iggy. We were suffering from this dread condition earlier in the season, too, but have at least mitigated it. Which is better: a few star talents and a bunch of mugs, or a more even distribution of skill? Capitalism or soshulizms? Hmmm?
• I have it on good authority that Jesus would particularly like a Capitals win today.
• To be “fair and balanced” – ha! – it is true that the Crapitals have some players who feel a little like large leaden weights tied around our ankles while we’re trying to swim. Marcus Johansson appears to be skating with one eye scanning for the door. Jeff Schultz (who is probably among the most decent people around, so, sorry) might as well be eating Doritos out on the ice, and Mike Green…oof, where to start. I’ve seen more spunk among members of the Whitehills Senior Center’s “Jeopardy!” fan club. (If you’re reading, Mr. Trebek, I love your show!) Is this a “Tale of Two Teams” moment? “It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times.”
• Conventional wisdom – which is never wrong I’ll have you know – has it that Adam Oates has at least one more good year here to show progress before GMGM hits the ejector button, while Coach Laviolette – which actually means “smelly cheese” in French, look it up – has but a few more games. Oooh, everyone’s getting a little snippy, aren’t they? I wonder what could be on people’s minds. I wonder…
• Rough trade. Is what’s on people’s minds, I mean. You know, like the trade deadlines? What…what did you think I meant? Ohhh…and on Easter Sunday, of all days. Hmmph. Oh, one last thing:
• JINX! Jinxjinxjinx. Doublejinx! There, you silly nannies, for those who believe in ‘jinxes’ we’ve just double-finger-crossed the jinx spirits and you can put your delicate little heads to rest now about the PuckBuddys curse, OK?

The Late Line:

While intubated in the emergency room following the Hinckley assassination attempt, President Reagan scrawled a note to one of his nurses. Cribbing from W.C. Fields, it read “All in all, I’d rather be in Philadelphia.” It was touch-and-go, but he survived.

On the whole, I’d rather we not have to be in Philadelphia. There should be a law against having to travel there on a High Holy Day, or a birthday, or any day with a “y”. But here we are. At least Jaromir Jagr isn’t around anymore (tee hee.)

Flyers lead early, Caps battle back, 4-3, but close, kids.

[Ed. note: Craig Brownstein, PuckBuddy and resident film scholar, provides this look at our dance with the Buffalo Slugs, as imagined through the lens of Ingmar Bergman. You expected different, maybe? Read, learn, and tweet his nose here.]

Cries and Whispers: I scored last-minute tickets to the Isles game courtesy of a lovely young lady, and we sat in the #415 Lounge, just one seat from Sam Wolk, a distinct pleasure in and of itself. (My left ear has finally stopped ringing). Down by two in the early going, I met some friends on the concourse during the first intermission. Cue the hand-wringing, nay-saying, and rending of garments. Third period hopes were soon dashed, slipping between Mike Green’s skates. It was like a bad movie. Make that a depressing movie, think Cassavetes, or in honor of our stoic Swedish players, Bergman may be more appropriate.

Danse Macabre: Maybe I jumped on the Caps bandwagon at the right time. In just four short years I’ve experienced both the dizzying highs and terrifying lows that this team can provide: President’s Cup, deep(ish) second season runs, arrivals & departures (e.g., love Ribz but still miss Cody Squeak), a lockout and white-knuckled, needle-threading, Bataan Death Marches to the playoffs.

After such poor play this season, it’s hard to be optimistic, even when looking at a game with those chumps from Buffalo. Are the next few weeks really a death march? How about a death spiral? Or more likely, as we watch the Caps fumble and stumble their way through these last 15 games, a painful and regretful dance of death.

Scenes from a marriage… of Caps fans

Scenes From A Marriage: My normally fragile emotions have been shredded this season. Maybe I’m not cut out for this game. Or given my undeniable allegiance to this team, perhaps I’m just the perfect mate. In this always-challenging hockey marriage, I’ve vowed to have and to hold, for better, for worse (it may only get worse), for richer, for poorer (cap space constraints), in sickness (groins especially) and in health. Where there’s love there’s suffering, and the suffering came to a head Tuesday evening.

Tuesday was a landmark day in DC. All of the good gays were closely following the Prop 8 arguments at the Supreme Court. The better gays were actually down there showing their support for the cause.  This bad gay, the one suffering through a troubled hockey marriage, had his mind elsewhere; the Isles tilt at the Booth that night. Marriage equality will happen sooner or later, but the Caps playoff prospects seemed like a far more pressing matter that day. Sure they broke my heart that night, but I just can’t quit them.

First Star, Seventh Seal: It’s hard to believe that the Caps PP is still ranked 2nd in the NHL after going 0-3 against the Isles on Tuesday, not to mention that 5-on-3 embarrassment. With 10 of his 16 goals on the PP this season, the Captain keeping the man-advantage on life support. Mazel tov to Ovi for his first star last week, much of that due to his standout games against the Jets, back-to-back blowouts, and his PP performance. One of the better quotes to come out of that Winnipeg trip was from Jets bench boss, Claude Noel. Asked to explain the Jets’ dismal performance after their 4-0 drubbing, he said, “They’re playing chess, we’re playing checkers.” The chess match continues Saturday night. but in the back of our minds, given the steep climb, we think we’re playing chess with this guy:

“This damned ranting about doom. Is that food for the minds of modern people?” Do they really expect us to take them seriously?  Jöns, The Seventh Seal (1957)

Look at where we are (15-17-1, 31 points), 11th in the East, and a humiliating 23rd overall. The chances we catch up and overcome Winnipeg in the Southeast, or the desperate clutch of teams vying for the 8th spot in the East, are somewhere between fat and slim. And Slim just left town on a northbound train for Long Island. We need to go 11-4, or according to Ted Starkey, grab 20 of the 30 available points. The smart money says no. We’ve squandered far too many opportunities. Each point we didn’t gain is another nail in the Caps’ coffin.

The next three games– before the April 3 trade deadline– are critical, but the general lack of faith in the Caps’ performance is leading many some scribes to war game the sell-off of assets and play armchair GMGM. It’s depressing as all hell to read, but I don’t blame them. If we’re not in the playoff hunt and expect to be golfing after April 27, let’s look ahead to the rebuild. I’ll look at this season as a bump along the road in an otherwise happy marriage. We have tickets to that last game at Verizon against the Bruins (going with a Habs fan actually), so don’t blame me if I go out and look for some strange during the playoffs. Ohai, Montreal!

“You find him disgusting with his thick mouth and ugly body and wet appealing eyes. You think he’s disgusting and you’re afraid.” Alma, Persona (1966)

This is the spot where I say the city of Buffalo smells. Niagara is a toilet, their players are delinquents and miscreants, and we all have a good laugh. That’s not so easy to do this time around; truth is, I’m from Rochester and Buffalo was a regular cosmopolitan jewel compared to the ROC. While we can’t let this be an insult-free zone, I’ll save my fire for the philistines who don’t appreciate Bergman, those who consider Tarantino a good director, and find WillFarrellBenStillerSteveCarellVinceVaughn films remotely entertaining. It’s you that suck. And you all probably live in Buffalo.

“No matter what sublime works you fabricate, they don’t shield you from the fateful knocking at the door that interrupted the knight and his friends at the end of “The Seventh Seal.” Woody Allen in 2007, on Bergman’s passing.

[Ed note: Hockey Hemingway Jason Rogers is back for you to love and adore. Talk to him via the Tweetaz at @HeyJayJRogers. Any and all credit goes to the PuckBuddys.]

15 minutes of ice time

Andy Warhol Says*: Everywhere you look, you see Pittsburgh fans. In Andy’s view, “…it’s all so beautiful.” Of course, he was hopped up on horse tranqs.

But this is Pittsburgh. And at the first insinuation of bandwagon chasing, they all claim family ties to the city. First of all, you cannot all be from there. It is just not a big enough city for every Yuengling-guzzling bar rat to crawl back to. And even if they did all somehow come from Pittsburgh, you know why they’re here now? Because they got the hell out of Pittsburgh as soon as they could. There’s even a website devoted to the phenomenon. And so with the sacred camaraderie of refugees from a land not worth returning to, the Penguins wander about the NHL landscape. On Tuesday the Capitals take the fight to them, and you can bet they’ve had their road Whites mustard-proofed.

The Morning Skate:

Besides giving you an occasion to air out your novelty #87 custom Capitals jersey with the name CRSBYSX, this game will be a barometer for the rest of the Caps’ season. [Nerd Alert!] Are the Penguins relatively on fire? Yes. Are the Capitals relatively on Hoth? You betcha. But the Caps need to win about 75% of their remaining games to make the playoffs, and like those valiant infantrymen of the Rebel Alliance, the Caps can’t expect every battle to be against hapless storm troopers or to get help from the Wampa-like Erskine.

Anyone can beat up on Florida. Hell, even the Supreme Court did it in 2000.(Look it up, noobs!) But Washington will have to beat the good teams, too. If the Caps want to be counted among the best eight teams in the conference come May, they’ll have to blaze a winning trail through cities like Pittsburgh, Montreal, and Boston. That trail will then be cordoned off and burned to prevent cross-contamination.

Secondly, the Caps could use a gut check to find out how bad they want it. Like mayonnaise left in the sun, the Capitals have a problem with consistency. Let’s start from the net out. Like a talented escort with low self-esteem, Braden Holtby can do remarkable things with this hands and legs, but lets in a lot of softies too. He keeps them in a lot games they don’t deserve, but has a bad habit of spotting opponents an easy goal or two in otherwise winnable games.

Holtby makes a lot of saves he shouldn’t, but not enough that he should. Add that to the streaky-deeky of crucial role players like Marcus Johansson and Mathieu Perreault and the Capitals’ odds of making the playoffs start to look like a random number generator. A random number generator that only cycles between “SLIM” and “NIL.” [Fake Ed Note: Slim just left town.] There are guys that contribute night-in and night-out, guys like Mike Ribeiro, Troy “Manimal” Brouwer and –yes—Alex Ovechkin. But with such a dearth of true talent, the Capitals need the rest of their roster to overachieve. Now is when we start to see how long this team really wants to keep playing.

And with that dazzling analysis complete, we now turn to the segment UNESCO designated a World Heritage site:

Fascinating

Liable to Libel: A Baker’s Dozen Lies About Today’s Opponent:

• Marc-Andre Fleury often stops people mid-sentence and says, “Please, ‘Marc-Andre’ is so formal. Call me Marc-Andy.”
• Matt Cooke was cast as Achilles in the Pittsburgh Players’ theatrical production of Troy, but dropped out when he couldn’t cut it. Get it?!
• Looking for a mascot to strike fear into the hearts of their opponents, Pittsburgh chose a docile flightless bird easily killed by seals, whales, and anything with thumbs.
• When asked his opinion of Crosby, Mike Milbury smiled and blushed and giggled, “Why, did he ask about me?
• In a recent survey, 94% of Pittsburgh residents shown Mario Lemieux’s name written out pronounced it “Luh-MEE-ucks.”
• The concession stands at Consol Energy Center now sell a “Pittsburger,” consisting of a beer-soaked Hines Ward jersey on a trash bag.
• Tomáš Vokoun was thrilled to move to Pittsburgh after so many years of living in boring, dreary Miami, and with so many strange thingees over his name.
• When asked whether he resents playing second fiddle to superstar Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin said, “No way, just like plenty of people like Luigi better than Mario….right?” (Really. PuckBuddys’ truth.)
• Marc-Andre Fleury has the best hyphen-to-soul-patch ratio of any starting goaltender in the eastern conference.
• Pittsburgh residents claim the Pirates, Penguins, and Steelers all wear the same colors for city identity. It’s really so residents don’t have do all that hard reading.
• Yuengling is releasing a limited-edition brew called “Crosby’s Tears.” When you pull the tap, it claims you hooked it and chirps to the ref.

Yup. Yup. Just that.

The Puck Drop:

• Fleury and the Beast: I mentioned earlier that the Caps need their goalie to not give away games. Well Marc-Andre Fleury could be honored by Toys For Tots for his generous donations. Le Fleur plays the puck about as well as Stephen Hawking plays the drums (heya!)  He’s less comfortable in the trapezoid than a geometry student with agoraphobia, and Captain Chrysanthemum can be counted on to generate one or two juicy chances a game. With scrappy boards men like Chimmer and Beagle, the Caps could really give Tulip some headaches. Oates should have his boys playing more Dump and Chase than a Taylor Swift album.
• The Best Defense Is a Good Defense: Though you wouldn’t know it to watch the Caps play, most NHL teams play with six defense-men on their bench. And typically, those six defense-men have played in the NHL before. Riddled with groinitis mayuer and DPS (Degenerative Poti Syndrome), the Capitals defense has been saved only by the rich chocolaty depths of the Hershey system. If not for whatever is in the water in the barn where they keep the Hersey goalies and defense-men, guys like Alzner, Carlson, Oleksy, and Orlov would not be able to step up so capably. The fairly seamless transition these AHL blue liners have made to the big leagues is not typical, and as deep as Hershey may be, eventually they’re going to run out of good defensemen to send up when we have injuries. And when that happens, the only blue line in Washington making stops will be the one that runs from Georgetown to U Street.
• Read Between the (Top) Lines: Much has been made about the Capitals’ lack of true top-six talent. I don’t necessarily buy all of it. I’ll take two lines of Ovechkin-Backstrom-Brouwer, Ribeiro-Laich-Fehr. Ribs is a center-man but he can’t win face offs, so move him outside and keep him on the ice. Brooks-and-Done has been hurt for a long time but will eventually recover, potentially soon. That gives the Capitals two pretty dynamic top lines, and like a good conga party, two solid grinding lines behind them. They may not win any President’s Trophies with this roster, but I don’t see the same barren offensive wasteland that some in the city seem to. I believe the Capitals are an average team in a terrible division that average is good enough to win. They have 20 games left to prove who’s averagest-est.

So that about does it. Puck drop is 7:30 in the Steel City. See you there, and Go Caps.

*Ed note: We really don’t really think Holtby is that remarkable with his hand and legs…or if we do, we’ll just not discuss it.

*”Don’t pay attention to what they write about you. Just measure it in inches.” — Andy Warhol.

AP Photo/Ted Richardson

[Doug Johnson of the PuckBuddys is back! And he has this preview. Yet another preview. Which, for the record, he doesn't need to do, he just chooses to do. He could stop at any time. Really. Just this one more. Go be co-dependent with him here.]

Morning Skate: Well fiddle-dee-dee. No sooner do we air out the Rangers’ stank from Verizon than the hillbillies from Hooterville return, bringing with them an undiscovered country of smell. Yes y’all, the Carolina Hurricanes are blowing back in, bringing with them their corn-pone, possum caps, crystal meth and Alex Semin, in something like that order.

Of course “stank” is something we all got a heapin’ helpin’ of this weekend. Must we really bring it up again – the juvenile penalties, the evaporating puck-management skills, John Tortorella’s stupid fat face? Apparently, yes.

Just what is happening in hockeyville? What is at the root of this existential struggle? I was contemplating this conundrum when a colleague at work asked me about the loud whooshing in the vent above my desk. “Is it blowing or sucking?” he asked.

Exactly.

Perhaps it’s just that the Capitals suck. Inconsistent play between and even within games, a superstar Captain who fans more than he shoots, and lines that seem more improvised than a John Cassavetes movie (ha!). Could it be that the 2013 incarnation of the Caps really aren’t that good across the board, and we should just focus on the 2014 rebuild?

Or maybe it’s blow. Yes, let’s stick with that one for a moment. As in blowing leads, blowing shots, and blowing opportunities, leading to the Caps faithful blowing chunks. I’m sure there’s an emoticon the kidz have come up with for that, but I can’t care.

Do you see the difference? Suck is what you are; blow is what you do. This dazzling insight, arrived at after at least, oh, a minute of thought, jibes with Peter’s ambitious analysis, though with much less of the word stuff and more of the… well I just don’t know how to finish that sentence. Ergo: the Capitals blow. And this is good news, because blow is fixable. Suck is forever.

The Puck Drop: Which, what a coincidence, brings us to Carolina. From its earliest days as South Carolina’s ugly little sister, North Carolina has remained one of the best reminders of why we might have been better to just walk away from that whole Civil War thing and leave good enough alone.

You would be hard pressed to find a place as simultaneously dull and ugly as North Carolina. Trust me on this: after spending just one week in Charlotte for the Democratic National Convention last year, it is one of the few spots on Earth that a tropical storm would improve.

Craig did this. The minx.

Sadly, the same cannot be said of the Hurricanes, née the Hartford Whalers, now residing in that pop-up book of a city, Raleigh. At 7-3 in the last ten games, they now seem to be pulling it together after a slow start, much like another team had been looking of late.

Of course, one of those losses was from us, here at home, when seemingly nobody came ready to play except Cam Ward, who — it must be noted– is performing better than any of our three current goalies and is infuriatingly cute. I would offer up performance comparisons here, but seeing as at least a few Hurricanes fans will have this read to them and mathematics is still legally considered “a demonye vice” in Carolina.

The Canes are simply playing better, and better as a team, than the Capitals right now. As are most teams in the Eastern Conference. And in other news, the Earth is still revolving around the sun. Moving on…

The Hot And The Not:

• Not – Missing, one Manimal; Answers to Troy. Early in the season, Troy Brouwer was performing exactly like we expected, tearing it up and generally playing like a robo-wolf wearing jetpacks and a katana. That said, he’s been weaker of late, adding just one goal in the last five despite logging serious ice time. We think we know the reason: Troy’s drought began at the same time he started started gassing it up about Alex Semin’s work ethic, right before our last game hosting the Canes. Coincidence, or something else, hmmm?! Did Sasha put the Evil Eye kabong on Troy? Is he so wracked with guilt about trash-talking a good player that he can’t perform? Am I just completely making crap up just for one more line of copy? I think you know the answer.
• Hot – The Sasha Line. Ugh, you know like when you break up, and you’re feeling pretty good about the whole thing, and a year later you run into each other on the street, and your hair is awful and your breath reeks and you’re wearing your “I just give up” stained sweats while they’ve lost 10 pounds and had their teeth whitened and smell like fresh peaches and are all like “Excuse me? Oh…oh Hi! Well just look at you!”? [ED: YOU'RE OVER-SHARING AGAIN]. That’s sorta what welcoming back Alex Semin once more feels like. 1/3 of the Canes top line, Sasha is scoaring, and even more assisting fellow line mates Eric Staal and the adorably named Jiri Tlusty do the same. We’ve faced some pretty good lines lately — see Pens and Islanders — but this may just be the best of them.
• Not -Ref You Cray!Is it possible that the NHL zebras have a thing against the Washington Capitals and are calling penalties on what other teams get away with? Hmmph. More possible is that some of the refs have their knickers knotted over a few Capitals players in particular, and I would rate it almost probable that one of those players is Alex Ovechkin. Let’s say that’s so, because why not. Then what? Do we think jawing the ref is really going to help him see the error of his ways? That puerile fan taunts help clear their souls? The PuckBuddys totally get the frustration, even letting fly with a few choice comments directed their way from time to time (read after three beers.) Boo hoo not fair fap fap, now just accept it and move on please.
• Hot – O Hai Nicky! We have a saying around our house. “You’re DUE, Nicky!” I guess it’s less a saying and more something we shriek at the TV. Anyway, Nicklas Backstrom remains one of the best all-around assets in the Capitals toolbox. Although not as good as last year, he’s good on the dot for us, he’s even better at landing assists, and was brilliant against Boston. Still, we’ve only seen 3 goals from him this season, way below where he wants to be and where we need him to be. It’s quite likely this is uninformed drivel, but Backstrom at 25 seems to be one of the most even-keeled guys in red out there.
• Not – Under Pressure. Even the Ecuadorian gas rats (look it up!) at the National Zoo can tell you that these next two games – Canes at home, Canes away – may well decide our playoff picture. Not so much in a point-counting way, although I’m told that’s still the way they do it. No, think spirit and energy. If this team believes they will defeat the Canes, and are able to do that, it’s going to be an enormous boost in esteem and confidence for this squad.
• Hot – Steve gOAleksy. What can be said about this miracle from Michigan hasn’t already been said? But let’s just bathe, for a moment, in the wonder that – at the moment – is Steven Oleksy.   …   There, bathed yet? Feelin’ fine? Because that is exactly what we need right now. Everyone feeling fine.

The Late Line: So here it is. Boston had it all over the Caps on paper, and what a thing of beauty that was. The Islanders should have been something approaching doable, until we were the ones that got did on. If I worked the book in Vegas, I wouldn’t be working the book anymore in Vegas. But be bold! Chaos is a ladder! And other Game of Thrones quotes I’m supposed to know!

Caps 3, Canes 2.

Sue me if I’m wrong. Or take it up with my bookie.

Photo credit: Jim McIsaac/Getty Images

[Ed note: PuckBuddy, and hockey's own Hemingway, Jason Rogers, is back to praise where it's earned and taunt where it's needed. Tweeter him now.]

Morning Skate: Don’t look now, but the Caps have won five of their last six, and eight of eleven over the last month. The good guys from DC sit within spitting distance of – dare I say it? – the playoffs. The Capitals, like a port-a-potty with a wayward push, have begun rolling downhill.

This Saturday afternoon, like a matinee at the movies, the Caps’ opponent will be a poorly directed, over-budget flop starring nobody. Yes, the Gortons Fishermen roll back into their harbor fresh from Long Island (Excuse me: Stron-Gisland) to welcome the Caps, and if Uncle Ted has any sense he’ll scotch-guard the locker room.

The Puck Drop: So really, why should you get up for a Caps-Islanders game? Besides getting to know your soon-to-be division rival, you ought to check out the conference standings, duh. Scroll all the way to the bottom. Now scroll back up a little. BOOM! No longer at the bottom of the food chain, the Caps are now at least a secondary consumer! Kelp no more, we have progressed to krill. But in more terrestrial terms, the Caps are currently five points behind the Rangers for the eighth playoff spot, and six points behind Carolina in the division, with a game-in-hand on the latter. That’s iron-sight range, people. That’s swinging distance, like a short gap under a long vine. We’re two games south of the season halfway point, and the fact of the matter is that there’s time to make this thing a race. Every game, Oates’ system is fitting them snugger and snugger, like an opportune Isotoner. The Caps have more track in front of them than behind them, and they’re trending in the right direction. So there’s that.

My second reason to watch is really less of a point and more of a stud. And that stud’s name is Eric Fehr. Our fehrweather friend is becoming before our eyes the guy we drafted him to be with our first pick in 2003, over Ryan Getlzlaf, Ryan Kessler and Corey Perry. Now, he’s not up there yet…but he’s a-climbin’. I was at the SIM Card on Tuesday when Fehrris Bueller played the hero in overtime, and my text conversation with PuckBuddys’ wunderkind Craig went a little like this:

Craig: Eric Fehr!
Me: F***. Yes. Eric. Fehr.
Craig: Ho-Lee F***!

Our Morgan Fehrchild is a real big man with some dirt nasty hands, and I’m loving watching him play hockey right now. OK, fehr enough. That’s the State of the Red as it currently rocks. Now, let’s move on to everyone’s favorite segment:

Liable to Libel: A Baker’s Dozen Lies About Today’s Opponent

Cry, Mike Milbury. Cry.

• Mike Milbury’s last words will be a whispered “DiPietro,” the name of his boyhood sled.
• Tim Thomas agreed to join the Islanders because Long Island was better zoned for his Unabomber-style shack.
• As per Long Island statute, Islanders players are paid in bulk-sized tubs of Ed Hardy t-shirts.
• Mike Milbury’s password on Instagram is “MikeyOvechkin8.”
• Like much of its trash, the city of New York is hoping to relocate the Islanders to a floating barge in the East River.
• Lubomir Visnovsky only decided to report to the Islanders after mistakenly believing Nassau Coliseum was in the Bahamas. He was sorely disappointed.
• The Islanders, much like the noble flounder, lurk around the bottom of the league standings each year to feed on the points missed by other more successful franchises. This is important to the NHL ecosystem.
• After every Islanders home victory, the Nassau Coliseum sprinkler system sprays a fine mist of bronzer down upon the home crowd.
• Much as the Montreal Canadiens require their coaches to speak French, the Islanders require their coaches to be named either Vinny, Mickey, or Legs.
  

  Long Island – Superfun(d)!

• The Islanders are one of the seven best pro hockey teams in the New York metropolitan area.
• Long Island’s official tourism slogan is “America’s Hangnail.”
• This replaced their previous official slogan: “We’re Just Awful.”
• In a recent promotion, the first one thousand fans to arrive at Nassau Coliseum got to go to a Rangers game instead.

Now let’s take a look at Saturday’s game. Like a bomb defuse code dropped under the fridge, here’s what you’re gonna wanna look for:

1. Self-Flagellation is So Passé: The Caps are whipping themselves by taking what I call “gotcha” penalties: hooks, trips, and holds that are the result of a forward just flat beating his check. Exhibit A: butch thespian John Carlson. When Johnny’s man gets past him, Johnny likes to little-bo-peep him back into reach with the toe of his stick, either around his waist or by his ankles. And then Johnny has to go to time out. But on Thursday night, a most remarkable thing happened: the Capitals played for nearly 50 minutes before taking a single penalty. And golly, would you look what happened? The Caps are still averaging nearly five penalties a game, which is five power play opportunities for their opponents. If they want to win for days, that has to stop.
   

   Handsome like Craig, lethal like Putin

2. Steven Oleksy is Vladimir Putin and Daniel Craig’s Love Child: Seriously, look at this kid. He’s a handsome son of a gun, and plays like a vodka-soaked Kalashnikov. He blew up one of Boston’s Thorntons behind the net on Tuesday and made a hipcheck on Thursday that would have made Shakira cry fraud. Some (*ahem*, Chris) wondered why Washington would call up a guy from Hershey who was, essentially, a bruiser. But no matter how he got it done, the kid held his own against Boston and shut down Florida. He needs a little more polish before he’s ready to be a full-time NHLer, but it’s nice to know he’s ready down there next time there’s a bit of the Groin Flu going around the Washington blue lines.
3. The Perks of Leaving the Gate Open – Somebody’s Got to Do It: Until Jack Skille scored a Ralph Nader for Florida late into the third period and already down by six, the Capitals had scored ten unanswered goals dating back to Tuesday. That would be a good run in basketball, let alone hockey. Adam Oates is in the Hall of Fame for being one of the greatest offensive set-up men of all time. The transition, then, from play maker to coach seems to me to be a natural one. Oates could see plays devloping while dodging 200-pound projectiles. Put him safely behind a bench and give him a clipboard, and he should make horse meat out of the likes of Kronwall, Hedman, and Öhlund. From “muffins,” to Ribsy to Oates, this balanced offensive diet sure looks sexy on the Caps.

And so, family, I leave you to wait for the drop of the puck at 1pm in New York. Go Caps.

Doug Johnson is back to amuse and torment. You know him as one-half of the PuckBuddys. The first one to get them to 3K Twitter follows probably wins a car or something.

The Morning Skate: Gentle readers, before we [CENSORED] all over our Bruins friends,  let us pause a moment, as you scramble in blind panic preparing for snow that will never, ever come again, to consider the hazards of making predictions. Especially about the Caps.

For example, if I predict no snow Wednesday, it’s gonna get all crazy 20″ up in here. Conversely, I stone cold guarantee that if I dash to the store today to buy a terror shovel, we will be mopping our brows and sipping Mint Juleps on our verandas by Friday. The point is: predictions can go so wrong. Britain’s Lord Kelvin (he of Downton Abbey, we guess?) said heavier-than-air machines could never fly. Harry Warner said no-one would pay for talkies. The Skipper predicted a three-hour tour. Boom.

Brad Marchand…stay classy, you devil-may-care lug!

Now before you get all Nate Silver-y on my behind with a lecture about the differences between prediction and guessing, let me remind all you smarty-pants that even that guy can be as wrong as a clam-juice birthday cake (who did he pick for the Superbowl? Hmmm?). Which brings us to Tuesday’s meeting of the Capitals and Bruins.

Heading into the vortex of despair we call Winnipeg last weekend, following as it did our emasculation by the Flyers, which itself followed our manhandling of Sasha and the Canes, and a bunch of other smart reasons articulated here, we did not have big expectations. Truly, given our flukey history with the Jets, we almost napped through the game. That would have been a shame, as it became a great display of what this team can do when they pull it together.

The real question here, the one I’ve been dithering around, wasting precious precious minutes of your life that you will never get back, is which Capitals team will show Tuesday? The bumblers that allow three points in the 1st period and just sorta of sleep-skate thereafter, or the gladiators that snap together like a Spartan phalanx and crush the will of their opponents? Flinging fate to the winds, I predict the latter, because that’s our roll.

OK, back to [NOPE, STILL CENSORED] on Boston.

The Puck Drop: Research suggests that the B’s are, in fact, chemically, the single worst concentration of terrible humankindism going back to, oh what, the cast of The Love Boat we reckon’. The bean team has been tearing it up against just about everyone in the Southeast recently, turning away teams that have done so to us, while holding their own in the Northeast. Even Sunday’s just-loss to the Habs demonstrated a squad willing, and mostly able, to take it to their foes on the ice.

And so for this, our first meeting this shortened season with the big bad Back Bay baboons, let’s conjure the spirits of our last meet-ups – specifically such sweet, juicy memories as:

• Mama June-clone Tim Thomas stumbling around apparently on horse tranqs and totally getting faked out of his cup by Matt “The Paralyzer” Hendricks, Braden Holtby, also known in our house as Braveman Holtbeast, staring down twerp Rich Peverley, and our favorite, Joel Ward‘s hero clutch shot and OT playoff game winner from game 7 last April. There now, isn’t that like better?

Who’s Hot And What’s Not:

• Lines of Death: Say what you may about the Bruins…for example, “I’d rather stick forks in my eyes than cheer them,” that’s a good one. Still, barf, they have several lines that act like a coherent…well, line. Lucic and Krejci up top, followed by a killer of Marchand, Seguin and Bergeron (“Patrice”? Rly?) And they’re working, while we can’t even get our first line settled. #sadface
• Who’s On First: In 19 out of 19 games this season, when the Bruins draw first blood, they win. In our 20 games, we can say that only 50% of the time; exactly 1/2 as good. Similarly, they trail at the end of the 1st, they win 50% of the time; for us, it’s 25%. This is NOT a team you want to chase down in the 3rd, as we have made a habit of doing. First shot, and especially a lead at the end of the first should suggest what the next 40 minutes will look like. So there.
• Man The Barricades: Overall, with last week’s Hurricane’s alpha-male performance, our Philly floppy fish imitation, and a don’t-give-up tightening in Satan’s playground Winnipeg, we had a good week. Capping a crapital month. Animal-man Troy Brouwer may have wondered which Sasha would show up last year, but we’re questioning which team shows up game to game. As I read wizard and competitor (so don’t click on the clicky) Peerless Prognosticator, perhaps our weakest two areas – continually this season – are defense and turnovers. Oh, and stoopid freaking penalties. Both of which speak to one basic idea: D-FND your Holtby, and keep your puck. Dépêchez-vous sur les barricades! Allez!
• Road Warriors: This is taking on a decided Hollywood-tinged theme. Still, we haven’t exactly been the model road team this year, eh? Ho ho, I’ll say! It’s like we’re flying non-stop to Kinshasa, playing on empty stomachs and typhoid water, and swimming back home – exhausting. We don’t really have a lot of time to figure this out. Easy for me to say: fat old man sitting in his jammies tapping out ill-informed hockey analysis. So we’ve got a home stand now until making the runs to Long Island… but it gets much worse after that. Two solid victories at home are what’s on the menu, boys.
  

  Red Rally Balloon > Kernkraft

• Red Rally Balloon: I’m totally ready for this plucky little latex friend to reappear. Although I’d do it with a Macklemore remix. Yuh-huh.
• O Captain! O Hai My Captain! OK, given one more poor performance, of which we’ve admittedly seen too much of this year (ahem), the media wombats will be all over Alex Ovechkin, bleating about this or that or the other. (Didja see wha I did there?) For three years your PuckBuddys have been hearing wha-wha-wha from who cares about our Captain’s inability to share and play nice. Pish. How many different Caps have gotten a piece of a winning puck in the last two weeks? And how many of them (other than, you know, that one game) have been Ovi? Yes, less curl-and-drag. They’re already doing that on RuPaul’s hot mess of a TV show, so please stop.
• Speaking of… I know he’s been prepping in a bunker in Idaho or doing shortwave radio shows from East Egg, Long Island or somewhere, but when was the last time I had a Chick-fil-A, and thought tender, juicy crispy thoughts about Mr. Thomas? Oh that’s right, in Hell.

Post Game: Spring is in the air, and we’re feeling a bit frisky. But so well-behaved! C’mon, an entire Bruins post and not one shirtless pic of Tyler. Or Dougie Hamilton? (You seen that guy?) So we’re casting our bread upon the water in this Easter season and putting together a PuckBuddys party in several weeks, likely hosted at Nellie’s, duh. We haven’t even run this past our RMNB overlords yet, but we tote want a huge turnout, so we’ll see what we see. [Ed. note: we're there. - Peter]

Prediction: I’m writing it down and sealing it in a dated envelope that I leave with my neighbor (serious.) I’ll let you know the results Wednesday. #predictionwin.

[Ed. note:Today, the latest member of the PuckBuddys team hits the ice. Jason Rogers currently hangs his hat in Virginia, has studied in Paris and worked in China (always one step ahead of Interpol). But where ever he is in the world he’s a Caps fan through and through. He knows the game and we're not holding that against him. Jason currently sports #8 – and the “C” – playing center for the Manassas Sperm Whales. Srsly. Give him a follow on twitter.]

Morning Skate: Well, Saturday’s game against the Devils sure was fun to watch, no? Alex Ovechkin bowled a Magician, and the whole team clearly ate their morning Oates with breakfast. It was a real big-boy win against the defending Eastern Conference champions for this Caps team, and like a really nice yard with an unmarked septic field, hopefully something they can build on. Today, Southeast Division rival Carolina Hurricanes blow into town like a hot, smelly belch from the South. I hope they brought illegal fireworks.

The unbearable lightness of being Sasha

The Puck Drop: There are a couple big plot points to this match-up for the Caps. The first, of course, is the Return of Sasha. Yes, the man who once shared a banner with Voldemort is coming back to Verizon. If I had to guess how Semin feels about this, I would play the averages and assume he doesn’t care.

But I predict the Verizon faithful are going to let him have it, with a few scattered apologists wailing, “Guys, but that wrister!” He’s been an alright pickup for the Hurricanes with three goals on the season. Or, differently, as many as Ovechkin had in his last game. And speaking of Ovechkin, my God, we might get to see Ovi absolutely train track Sasha in the open ice. Think about that, and salivate over it. I need to go change.

The second big plot point is that the Caps have a chance to take two more points off of a division rival’s plate and put it onto theirs. As Jeff Kleiman said on Twitter: “The Southeast Division has really ‘just become a dumpster fire’.” With no teams over .500 and the winner of the division likely to have fewer points than the eventual eighth seed, there’s not a reason in the world the Capitals shouldn’t rise from this trash pile like Rocky over the city of Philadelphia. If they keep playing like Saturday, we could well have a new banner to hang from the rafters at Verizon, even if we have to shake the coffee grounds and band-aid wrappers off it first.

So that’s about where we’re at, which brings me to where we’re going next, and a segment I call:

Liable to Libel: A Baker’s Dozen Lies About Today’s Opponent

• The Hurricanes have petitioned the NHL for permission to change their name twice: once to the Katrinas in 2005, and once to the Sandies in 2012. Let’s see what 2013 brings.
• Eric and Jordan Staal learned to possess the puck so well by being made to fight over scraps of meat tossed to them by their parents, unable to ween all 37 of their hockey-playing children.
• North Carolina ranks first in the US in occurrences of adorable children’s ice cream scoops falling off their cones and making them cry.
• @AlexSemin has blocked @tbrouwer20
• Raleigh, North Carolina was originally called Staalopolis, named for the dinosaur of the same name. It’s true.
  

  The Staal Family

• If you rearrange the letters in Cam Ward’s name, it spells Raw Clams.
• Alex Semin is actually trying really, really hard, guys.
• Passersby often stop the Carolina Hurricanes on the street and say, “Boy, it’s obvious you’ve won a Stanley Cup.”
• Seriously, Alex Semin wants this more than anybody.
• When approached by the league about the possibility of Raleigh hosting an NHL franchise, Mayor Tom Fetzer reportedly began foaming at the mouth and firing a pistol wildly into the air like Yosemite Sam.
• Jussi Jokinen prefers for his first name to be pronounced, “Juicy.”
• The entire cast of Les Mis were all Staals and performed under pseudonyms.
• South Carolina is really grateful the team chose to call themselves “Carolina,” and is totally gonna make it up to North Carolina.

Hot And Hotter: Here’s who and what I’ll be keeping an eye on in tonight’s game at the SIM Card:

1. Ain’t Eight Great? - Much like Hansel, Ovi is burning hot right now. And in DC we’re basking in this fairweather praise like cool whip from Katy Perry’s brassiere. In the home-and-still-home against the Devils, OBestkin played like a Russian with a fire lit under him, with a meteoric ‘See what I did there?’ rise that many would tell you was long in coming. In addition to finishing his checks with gusto and roaring into the zone on breakouts, finally – finally – his buckets and buckets of shots started to hit pay dirt. Whether playing the 1812 Overture from the top of the circle, or creating room for himself with a little dink-and-dunk puck play, the Russian Machine seems to be revving up. Woe unto the rest of the league if he is.
2. The Ebb and Flow of John Carlson - Once hailed by the Screen Actors Guild as the world’s greatest living actor, my jersey-sake #74 has been a sore subject for me this season. J.C. Superstar was once the roll bar on our Miata, keeping us secure when the cycle got rolling on us, pinning us to the boards sharply when we lost our way, and other shallowly extended metaphors. He made smart, lockdown plays in his own end, and was never the weak link going the other way on the rush. Early this season, Spike Strip was blowing tires nightly and leaving Holtby on islands like his name was Tattoo (children, go look it up.) Lockouts are tough on young players to whom acclaim has come quickly. Big things are expected from you, and accomplishment is no longer a pleasant surprise. It’s demanded from you, and Captain America now seems to be lifting himself up off the mat and coming out swinging. He’s keeping pucks in the zone, working the wheelhouse on the power play like Steamboat Willie, and winning footraces to the puck. Also, I bet if you stuck a fork into his hair, it would stand straight up. And that’s gross, but I respect it. [Ed note: Johnny cut his hair!]
3. “Now I ain’t sayin’ he a goaltender, but he ain’t messin’ with…” We’ve been a hot mess between the pipes, like the area rug of a crack house. We have a list of old boyfriends like an experimental trip through Europe: Cristobal, Jose, Semyon, Michal. But Holtby could be our guy; a just-inked, two-year deal underscores that. We all fell in love with Braden during last year’s playoff series against the Bruins when he stared down that little twerp Rich Peverley like a consummate boss and stood on his head so long he got CTE. Yes, Braden Holtby will give up goals if you don’t play defense in front of him. Just like that other guy – what’s his name? - Oh, everyone. But boy, if you give this kid a a demi-snowball’s chance to make a stop, 9.31 times out of 10 he makes the save over the last four games. He’s making quick decisions with the pads and ought to take that glove with him over to Nats spring training. We’ve had our share of streaky goalies, but Holtby could be our Windex man. He’s currently starting in the most consecutive games of his career, and we may be able to keep doing so thanks to the shortened season. I hope that in so doing, he can find his groove and keep doing his weird, Jedi thing.

And with that, I leave you to eagerly await the drop of the puck at 7pm tonight at Verizon. Let’s go get ‘em, boys.