Photo credit: AP

Adam Oates had lots to say during his breakdown-day interview at Ketler Capitals Iceplex on Wednesday, but the most interesting revelation was that he and star player Alex Ovechkin had an extended text-message chat after the team’s heartbreaking defeat in game seven of the quarterfinal round.

Upon hearing that, RMNB immediately sprung into action, contacting our sister publication across the pond, News of the World. Our brother-from-another-mother Jimmy Murdoch put us in touch with some folks, and voila!– we have recovered this conversation between Oates and Ovechkin.

Related: Adam Oates on Nickelodeon’s GUTS while wearing really high-waisted jeans

Photo credit: Bruce Bennett

Thursday night, the New York Rangers opened the scoring in game four after Braden Holtby made an aggressive play that ultimately backfired. Holtby fired a saucer pass up the center of the ice that was intercepted by Taylor Pyatt, who knocked the puck out of the air with his stick. Brad Richards ultimately scored on an empty net.

With three out of four games in the Caps/Rangers series having been decided by one goal, it was a play too risky for Holtby to try. Capitals’ head coach Adam Oates agreed with that sentiment Thursday after practice.

“Probably. Obviously in hindsight he could’ve made a better decision, gone up the wall,” Oates said to The Washington Post’s Katie Carrera. “But he saw something and we trust him.”

Holtby disagreed.

“I thought I made the right play,” the Lloydminster, Saskatchewan native said. “I just need to get that a foot higher in the air, make him take a high stick. He made a great play knocking that down. He doesn’t make that; that’s a breakaway the other way. That happens.”

No, that’s too risky. That kind of play shouldn’t happen.

One game earlier, Holtby iced the puck on a Capitals power play, which was equally as infuriating.

Playing the puck as a goaltender is a supplemental part of the game. When Holtby starts blurring the lines between easy plays and ones that could end up in the back of the net, he looks a bit too brazen. And really, he should leave that to Patrick Roy, who did stuff like this his whole career.

Boom. (Photo credit: Greg Fiume)

Whether he’s riding a Vespa on 66, sporting hair that doesn’t make sense, or scoring an overtime goal, Mike Green is always cool. Even in some of the game’s most heated moments, he retains his composure. After Saturday’s one-time blast to put the Capitals up 2-0 in the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals, he now has eight overtime goals in his career.

Because of his late-game abilities, his “Game Over Green” nickname is well known. But now, it seems, Greenie may have another one.

“He’s calm all the time with the puck in regulation, so when it gets to overtime and guys start to get the shakes a little bit, he’s still calm Mike Green,” defenseman Karl Alzner said. “We call him Casual Mike every now and then.”

For a guy with a hand tattoo and a orange white Lamborghini, Green is remarkably level-headed. He didn’t think his goal was anything special (“It was just a lucky one. It could have been any of us. … I just happened to be open”) and he was already looking towards Monday’s Game 3 in New York (“You can’t get too high or too low. It’s just about staying consistent.”)

Still, his late-game stats say enough. Saturday’s one-time blast was the 18th game-winning tally of his career. While his play dropped off the last couple seasons, Green was plagued by injury most of the time. He’s healthy under new head coach Adam Oates, and once again playing a system that suits goal-scoring, puck moving defensemen. But scoring or not, he’s always relaxed.

“You need guys out there that are calm and that’s one of his gifts,” said Oates.

Despite a painfully slow start, Alex Ovechkin has had one of the greatest seasons of his career. He scored more goals than any other player, earning his third Rocket Richard trophy in six seasons. He finished third in the league in points. He led his team to a division title after being mired in dead last a month into the season. Ovechkin’s play is the reason the Capitals are in the playoffs — without his success, this would have been a lost season for Washington.

Since he has been so crucial to the accomplishments of his team, he deserves consideration for the Hart Trophy, which is awarded to the guy “judged to be the most valuable to his team.” However, many of the writers who vote for the award are casting their ballots for somebody else — namely Sidney Crosby or John Tavares.

The Great One, Wayne Gretzky, disagrees with that.

Monday afternoon, Gretzky called in to Hockey Night in Canada’s afternoon radio show hosted by Rob Pizzo and Elliotte Friedman. Wayne talked about what teams he thinks will succeed in the playoffs and gave Ovechkin the ultimate endorsement, naming him and Jonathan Toews as the two people he’d like to see win the Hart trophy. He also praised the skills of first year head coach Adam Oates.

Gretzy on his MVP choice:

Listen, first of all, had Crosby not been hurt, I think he would have been a unanimous choice. And he still may win the award. He was so remarkable in the games he played. I don’t think anyone’s going to question it if Jonathan Toews wins [the Hart]. He takes faceoffs, he kills penalties. On the power play he’s an instrumental leader for that hockey club. He’s sorta the heartbeat of that team. He does it in a classy way. He’s just a wonderful player. So he’s going to get a lot of votes.

From my side of things, I look at Alexander Ovechkin. You look at the Hart trophy and what it means. And it means what player could you take away from that team and they wouldn’t have the success they had. And I think that people forget that he had three coaches in a 12 month period and I think that’s difficult for any player — especially an offensive-minded player. He struggled without question the first 20 games. And I think the final 28 games he finally got his confidence back. I don’t think there’s any coincidence that they were below .500, then as soon as he’s able to play at the level he’s capable of, they became a different team. I don’t think anybody’s going to be disappointed if either Toews or Ovechkin wins. Those would be my two guys that I would vote for. If Columbus made the playoffs, obviously that goaltender deserved a lot more attention than he would get.

Gretzky on how much credit Oates deserves:

What he’s done there is tremendous. And you have to make a decision as an organization, okay, “are we going to hang our hat on number eight” or are we going to say “time to move on, trade him” for two or three or four players that are a little bit more defensive minded. Adam Oates came in and said “he’s going to be my guy” and in fairness to Ovechkin, he’s boughten in to what Adam also wants. It’s been a good two-way street. Obviously, Ovechkin has loved playing for Oates and Oates has done a tremendous job coaching Ovechkin.

He’s a great player. He’s a superstar and it was just a matter of him getting his confidence back again and enjoying the game. I don’t care who you are. If you lose your confidence as a professional athlete, it’s very difficult to play. And so obviously he has it back and listen, the year he’s had and the finish he’s had, good for him and great for the city of Washington. It’s been exciting to watch.

Thanks to @nogoodtrying138 for first tweeting about the interview.

Photo credit: Greg Fiume

Saturday night revealed the Capitals’ playoff foe, and that foe is really, really familiar.

The New York Rangers locked up the 6-seed and will be headed to Washington early this week to begin the quarterfinal round. This will be the seventh time the teams have met and the third time RMNB will have written about a WSH-NYR series. The John Tortorella Rangers are a shot-blocking, workaday-type crew– but this year they’ve added convincing possession to the mix (they’re ranked sixth in unblocked shot attempts at even strength when the score is close). The Rangers may be a better match-up for the Caps than the Senators (whose Craig Anderson posted the best goalie stats this year) and the Isles (whose John Tavares is a convincing young star), but the Rags are no slouch either.

If you’re already anxious, you’re not alone. But this is the playoffs, where the gentle hum of anxiety is your stalwart dance partner.

Like I said above, NYR directs 53.81% of shots at the enemy’s net, whereas the Capitals tilt the ice against them with just 47.85% possession. That could be trouble in facing a goalie like Henrik Lundqvist, who can be trusted to stop 92% of shots with some regularity.

Montreal blog Habs Eyes on the Prize illustrated how that puck possession correlates with postseason success. The top-right quadrant are very low-possession teams, who never make the postseason. The top-left, where the Caps fit in, contains slightly stronger teams, but ones who rarely go far in the playoffs and have won just one Cup out of 70 attempts (and I’d put an asterisk on that winner if I could). The bottom-left quadrant is strong possession teams, who make the postseason with regularity and often make it far. And the bottom-right is full of the rare ice-tilting crazies, who are your perennial favorites to win. You might wanna zoom in on this one.

The Caps would be at top-left, and the Rangers at bottom-left.

This week will see Rick Nash return to postseason play for the first time since 2009. In his 10-year career, Nash has played just 4 playoff games. The Jackets got swept by the Wings that year. He’ll be eager to produce in a Game That Matters– though the raw shock of playing hockey in the month of May might be enough to confuse him into irrelevance, which will at least be fun to watch.

Unlike the Caps-Rangers series this year. As J.P. pointed out last night, the Caps couldn’t beat the Rangers this year except by the shootout. (Point of order: there are no shootouts in the postseason.) Those games were punishing to watch.

On February 1, the Caps got some excellent ‘tending from Braden Holtby (20 shots against in the first period alone), but the offense was MIA. The March 10th loss was one of the worst games of the season, possibly due to Mike Milbury’s inane jeremiad during intermission. The March 21st shootout win was the first time I was willing to consider the Caps making the postseason– although they did surrender a two-goal lead in that one.

That triad of games isn’t by itself encouraging for the Caps’ chances next week, but there are some reasons to feel bullish.

The Capitals’ magic bean, an extraordinarily effective power play, will be crucial to a win– but getting those penalties might be a problem. The Rangers were one of the least penalized teams in the league this year– going shorthanded just 148 times compared to the Caps’ 163. Once a man-down, the Rangers killed 81.1%– right around league average. The opposite (inverse? contrapositive?) is also important: Washington’s PK is in the league’s bottom-5 at 78%, although New York isn’t quite deadly on their own power play, converting just 15.7% of the time– the 8th worst conversion rate in the league.

Of course, the secret to the power play is getting them in the first place. Drawing penalties usually requires that your team has possession of the puck and is doing something scary with it. This will sound trite, but it’s true: the Capitals’ clearest path to victory is based on shot volume– putting as many shots a possible on Lundqvist with traffic up front fighting for rebounds and drawing penalties. Once penalties are drawn, the Caps need only feed on Adam Oates‘ magic trough of power play oats. Adam’s oats.

Speaking of Adam, though the Caps and Rags will be meeting for the third time in recent memory, this will be the third head coach we’ll see behind Washington’s bench. Bruce Boudreau’s trap-Caps made quick work of New York in 2011 when Jason Chimera delivered the fatal blow. And just one year ago, Dale Hunter’s coin-toss Caps lost their final toss in a taut, seven-game series. The 2013 Capitals may share some personnel with those earlier iterations, but this is not the same team.

The Oates Caps are still inchoate, still defining their identity. They’re dynamic on the breakout, deliberate in zone entry, and devastating on the power play– but those are conclusions drawn from the scant evidence of a 48-game season. If the Caps are overly reliant on their top line and the man-advantage to score, then this may be an un-fun series. If the Caps expect to score one goal for every ten shots on net, they may be disappointed.

You’ve probably heard this part before, but I’m certain the Caps can win this if they crash the net. It’ll take secondary scoring, a deluge of shots from Alex Ovechkin, Braden Holtby playing like we know he can, Mike Green at 100% health, and a whole lotta dirty goals from guys like the Wagon– unafraid to plant themselves in New York’s paint and scrap for the puck. It can be done.

Photo credit: Patrick McDermott

Sooooooooo… I was wrong about the Capitals. And I’m sorry.

Early in the season, I waved away the Caps’ struggles, citing some strong puck possession numbers. But as those numbers eroded and the Caps kept losing, I hedged my bets. The Capitals were giving up too many penalties, performing poorly on the kill, and were not really tilting the ice. By the middle of February, I became wary. Cut to early March, when my last ounce of pollyannaish pluck was depleted. I said the Capitals weren’t headed for the playoffs, that their possession was debilitating, and that a turn of good luck wouldn’t be enough to turn their fortunes around.

I was wrong all over. My bad.

Photo credit: Patrick McDermott

So how did I get it wrong? How did the Capitals make the playoffs?

I’ll tell you right now that it’s not possession. The Capitals are still in the bottom third at even-strength shot attempts when the score is close, but then again Toronto made the playoffs too– and they’re the second worst team in the league at that same statistic. So maybe puck possession is a scam and geeks should turn their gaze elsewhere.

No, that’s not it. Puck possession is still the best predictor of future success we’ve got, but a shortened season has given those deterministic factors less time to take effect. Instead, we’re seeing a lot more statistical noise than we might’ve thought.

If you add up a team’s shooting percentage and save percentage, you can get a decent idea how statistical variance has lifted or sunk that team. We call it PDO, a meaningless acronym that is sort of a proxy for dumb luck. Halfway into the season, the Capitals were the ninth most unlucky team in league. Now they’re the ninth most lucky. I think that a good chunk of that improvement isn’t due solely to regression, but rather to an improved team defense that helped Braden Holtby play like a stud  again. Holtby, who has taken the lion’s share of starts this season, deserves oodles of credit for pulling his team out of a deep hole.

And then there’s Ovi.

The best statistical projections estimated that Alex Ovechkin would score 31 goals and 68 points this season. But that was for a full 82-game season. We’re not even done 48 games yet and Ovi has already tied that goal total. He’s done that by way of a few factors, but the fastest way to explain it is this: Adam Oates.

Oates rescued Ovi from the possession charybdis that is Mike Ribeiro and reunited him with setup man Nick Backstrom. Oates moved Ovi to the right wing, where he was forced to modify his stale tactics. Oates reformulated the power play, positioning Ovechkin as a one-touch goal machine. And, perhaps most importantly, Oates convinced Ovechkin to trust his linemates to carry the puck more, freeing him to focus on finishing rather than playmaking. As I said the other day, the Caps’ fortunes improved exactly when Ovechkin’s performance did. And while I repeatedly spoke aspirationally about this exact thing happening, I never relied on it to make predictions. For a player that so many people said had been “solved” and had grown predictable, Ovechkin’s greatest trick was becoming unpredictable again. Heh.

There’s a lot of other factors that I underestimated, but none more than Marcus Johansson. On February 4th, I wrote a lengthy item detailing Johansson’s wretched season, blithely unaware that he was suffering from a concussion. Soon after, Johansson was benched, and when he returned, he was changed. Sure, he had better linemates, but Mojo should be applauded for transforming from a lowly 38% possession player into one that is decisively driving play.

But that’s kind of true for everyone. Robert Vollman’s indispensible player usage charts help us visualize how the Caps went from meh to whoa. The bottom-right quadrant means sheltered deployments and top-left means tough, two-way play. Red bubbles means negative possession, and blue means driving play. The bigger the circle the more positive or negative those possession stats are.

Capitals Usage, March 9th

Capitals Usage, April 19th

It’s pretty much global improvement. Again, Johansson is transformed from a liability to an asset. Alex Ovechkin is both more optimized and more productive. Joey Crabb is gone. And the team’s reliable role players– Fehr, Perreault, Backstrom, Carlson, and Alzner– continue to hold the team together. (Ribeiro is still a problem at even strength, but you probably already knew that.)

This isn’t the story of the team’s captain singlehandedly hoisting his team on his back and carrying them into the postseason. Ovechkin absolutely led the effort, but Adam Oates tended to the whole garden.

But there’s one more factor– one more thing I was wrong about, and it’s the big one. Exactly one month ago, I looked at the Capital’s chances of making the post season and I was not enthused. I predicted they’d lose a big chunk of these final games, and I was super duper wrong.

That was certainly a surprise– but even that is not why the Capitals made the playoffs.

Here is why the Capitals made the playoffs:

I wrote that playoff story around game 32. The Carolina Hurricanes were already 7 games into a pronounced losing streak at that time, but Winnipeg was still a few days out from their own implosion. The Jets then lost five games in a row– opening a window for the Capitals to take the division title.

The Capitals turned their season around by themselves, but that herculean effort would have been meaningless without the unimaginable incompetence of the Southeast Division.

While I wasn’t the rainiest of rainclouds this season, I wasn’t a ray of sunshine. And I was wrong. Errr… kind of. Each time I filed one of these miserable and under-read stories about the Caps’ woes, I mentioned how they might turn it around– how they might pull out of the tailspin and soar again.

And soar is exactly what the Capitals did. I’m filled with gratitude that I was around to watch it. Bravo to Alex Ovechkin, who reclaimed his title as the world’s best hockey player. Bravo to Adam Oates, who enlightened his team with a professorial eye for detail. And bravo to George McPhee, who built the playoff team he said he would.

Now onto the playoffs.

Tie Game. (Photo credit: Greg Fiume)

The Washington Capitals were leading the Tampa Bay Lightning 5-1 on Saturday night. They ended up winning 6-5 despite a pathetic third period collapse. Afterwards, the players were understandably upset, none moreso than Jason Chimera.

In response to an earnest question about how to mentally handle a late game blow up, Chimera got sassy.

“Sometimes you’re not your best at writing articles,” he said. “You gotta do better next game.”

After a quick back-and-forth, Chimera stormed off to the showers at Verizon Center. Ah, the joys of a winning locker room.

Photo credit: Patrick McDermott

Chimera was not the only one pissed after Washington’s overtime victory. All the players were, as they should be. This is becoming a pattern. The Capitals have collapsed in the third period of their last two Saturday games. Playing in Sunrise, Washington went from 4-0 blowout to a narrow 4-3 victory. Most recently, the Caps let the Bolts score four unanswered goals before Mike Green put a stop to it with his power-play, overtime game-winning goal.

The Caps have lost three games when leading after two periods, second only to the Boston Bruins — and that doesn’t include their recent close calls against struggling teams.

“We kinda sit back,” Green said of the third period. “We have to keep playing the way we do, play for a full 60, and we’ll be successful.”

“It sucks,” he added. “We can’t play like that. I don’t know what to do. I’m not the guy to look for an answer.”

After last week’s late-game blowup, players in the locker room called it a learning experience: they would be sure not to take their metaphorical foot off the metaphorical gas again. But seven days later, the same thing happened again– the Caps sat back with a big lead and nearly lost. Washington is a better team than Tampa, and they dominated most of the game. From the 400 level at Verizon Center, it looked like the Caps took the game for granted — and the team admitted that.

“I guess there is no really easy explanation,” head coach Adam Oates told reporters. “You lose a little bit of momentum because it was a little too easy, you get a little flat, and all of a sudden here they come.”

“It’s human nature,” he added. “I don’t ever talk to them after a game, but I don’t want to say something you might regret later.”

Big leads are not a bad thing, but Oates is right, it can lull you to sleep. The Caps are still wildly better than they were at the start of the year (10-13-1 in the first half, 13-4-1 since), and they’ve won seven in a row. But I worry how this team will fare in the playoffs. They may get a favorable first-round match-up with the Leafs, Senators, or Islanders. Conventional wisdom may say the opening round would come easy for them — which is why I think it won’t. For all the changes over the past few seasons, the Capitals are still the Capitals; they can blow their opponents out of the water, but they can drown just as quickly.

“They used to call us the Cardiac Kids for a reason and we showed that tonight,” Green said. “We can’t let that happen.”

Photo credit: Evan Vucci

Alex Ovechkin is doing well lately, in case you haven’t heard. Rejuvenated by his switch to right wing and the power play of new head coach Adam Oates, Ovi has the magic we saw a few years ago, something that had almost disappeared in the last two seasons. It looks like 2009 for someone else too: Mike Green. The 27-year-old defenseman insists, though, that the narrative du jour doesn’t apply to him — or Ovechkin. These are not the old days, but new ones.

“Everyone keeps asking us if we’re back to the old days, but I think we just matured and evolved,” Green told me. “We’ve had to kind of change our game and evolve as players. The other teams had figured out our little schemes before and we had to adapt to it — it just took time.”

The Calgary native scored just 11 goals his last two (oft-injured) years. He has nine this season, including six in his last eight games. The latter set of numbers, of course, are more fitting for guy making $6 million dollars a year. Green attributes his resurgence simply to being healthy — he’s missed tons of time the past few seasons with concussions and groin problems. While he’s been better this year, Green still was out of the the lineup for almost a month with yet another groin injury. Since, coming back towards the end of March, Green has been Washington’s best defenseman.

“When you’re healthy, it helps it a lot,” he said.

Thursday, he continued his recent hotness with a vintage goal: taking the pass at top of the circles, skating in, and unleashing a bullet past the netminder, in this case Justin Peters. Green’s second period tally against the Hurricanes gave Washington a 2-1 lead in a game that looked lost just 10 minutes in.

Despite missing 11 of the Capitals’ 38 games, Green is just one tally behind Montreal’s PK Subban for the NHL lead in goals by a defenseman, a title he held from 2008-10.

“We do expect that out of him,” Oates said of his success. “His health is a big part.”

If his scoring prowess is straight out of last decade, so is his hair. Early this month, Greenie went back to his ol’ not much on the sides and a whole bunch of stuff happening up top look after a long absence. The goals kept coming and so did the jokes on Twitter — it was the hair, the hair! Green thinks that’s stupid. But he does look better.

“Just to be a little more professional,” Green said of his reasoning for the chop. “My hair was getting a little too long.”

In Tuesday’s win over the Montreal Canadiens, Alex Ovechkin scored his 26th goal of the season. For about an hour, he was the sole occupant of the NHL goal-scoring lead– until Tampa’s Steven Stamkos recorded his 26th with a game-winner against the Senators. Stamkos are Ovechkin are now neck-and-neck in a race for the Rocket Richard Trophy, given each year to the player who scores the most goals. I’m wondering if we can figure out who has the edge here.

But first, on Wednesday afternoon Neil Greenberg observed that Ovechkin’s career is prone to streaks and slumps when it comes to shooting percentage.

[chart] Ovechkin Sh%, 20-game moving average over last three years twitpic.com/ciek2f. Won’t last forever so enjoy the ride.

— Neil Greenberg (@ngreenberg) April 10, 2013

He’s right. The rate of goals Ovechkin scores will almost certainly fall off from its current high, and we don’t know when it’ll happen. If Ovechkin can maintain his shooting percentage for the next 8 games, the Richard is his– but I doubt he can do that. Still, he still has a damn good chance, and that’s mostly due to his inhumanly high shot volume.

That chart shows how many shots Alex Ovechkin has fired per game over the last three seasons. Ovechkin’s lifetime average is a little over five shots a game, so notice how dramatically he dropped off during the Hunter era. For whatever reason, that’s when people-who-are-paid-to-have-people-talk-about-the-things-they-talk-about said that Ovechkin was washed-up. And now please direct your attention to the far right, the most recent block of games, where Ovi is once again generating shots nearly on par with the Boudreau era. If Ovi’s recent spike in shot output is more than just a fluctuation, then happy days are here again and Adam Oates is an evil genius. His pairing Ovechkin with Backstrom, moving him to the right wing, and prioritizing him on the power play have almost restored Ovechkin to the player he used to be.

But it’s early, and I don’t know if that’s true yet. So to figure out what’s happening with the Richard race, we’re gonna try it two ways. To estimate how many goals Stamkos and Ovechkin might score in the remainder of the season, we run a simple formula:

games remaining x shots per game x shooting percentage

First, here’s how that works out using each player’s career stats. That includes Ovi’s insane-o first couple of seasons and the drudgery of the Hunter grind.

Ovechkin comes out ahead by about a goal.

But Ovechkin today isn’t shooting like Ovechkin from 2008-09. The ravages of his old age (a creaky 27) and the Capitals’ shift from fun hockey to whatever last year was certainly slowed his output. So I’ll do the table again using just the last three seasons of data, when Ovechkin has shot less often and scored at a lower rate on those shots.

Stamkos is the winner.

So the real question is whether is Ovechkin truly back, or if we’re just seeing one of those glimpses I talked about the other week. But at this point, the Richard Trophy is just an 8-game sprint, and it will be probably decided by the natural variance of hockey.

As Neil’s chart showed above, shooting percentage fluctuates a lot– especially in small samples. We know both Stamkos and Ovechkin are elite scorers, so it’ll probably come down to who gets lucky, who gets more ice time against the Panthers, or who gets more power plays because some plug on the other team gives up a hooking penalty. And John Tavares is only two goals behind; it’d take just one bad night for a goalie to put him in the lead. This is a cop-out answer, but no one can accurately predict this race. And it doesn’t really matter in the long run.

Don’t get me wrong: the Rocket Richard Trophy is a big deal. Winning it would re-establish Alex Ovechkin as one of the pre-eminent stars of the sports world (and can I be the first the float the idea of an Ovi-Maria wedding in Las Vegas as he accepts the trophy?) But in the long run, what will truly matter for the Capitals is how Ovi performs next year– and the one after that.

The difference between an Alex Ovechkin who averages six shots a game and one who averages three is like 22 goals a season. Ovechkin is still going to slow down with age, but if Adam Oates can put that off for another year or two… well, then, is party now.

Photo credit: Patrick McDermott

At 7:30 PM, Jack Hillen was stepping onto the ice at an arena just outside Miami. He had chatted with his wife Caitlin, nine months pregnant with their second child, four hours earlier. She was doing well as the couple prepared for the birth of their second child, due on April 17. It was a pedestrian game for the 27-year-old defensemen, playing just under 17 minutes. He was on the ice for one goal in the Washington’s 4-3 win over the Panthers. Outside the visitor’s locker room at BB&T Center, though, Hillen got some news.

“Congratulations, you had a son,” Team Services Manager Ian Anderson told him.

“Oh, you mean she’s in labor?” Hillen responded.

“No, you had a son,” Anderson said.

“That came quickly,” replied Hillen.

“I didn’t know,” Hillen said Sunday night as he stood in front of Alex Ovechkin’s locker at Verizon Center. “I didn’t know.

“What can I say?” he continued. “Everything was fine. I had no idea. It was just a normal day.”

This season, to be trite, has been up-and-down for Hillen. Just minutes into the team’s first game, Hillen was shoved hard into the boards, injuring his shoulder. He didn’t return to the lineup for almost two months and when he did, he was part of a much changed Capitals blueline. Recently, however, Hillen has played great: he’s shutting down the opponent’s stars, getting time on the power play, and picking up points. Five days ago, he signed a two-year extension with the Capitals.

In the span of 26 hours this weekend, Hillen had a child, played a hockey game, played another hockey game, assisted on a goal, fell down, and assisted on another goal. What did you accomplish on your days off?

One thing Hillen didn’t do, however, was sleep well.

“A lot going on, a lot going on,” Hillen said. “I’m blessed.”

“I just need to get some sleep,” he added.

Saturday, Hillen’s night didn’t end until a few hours before sun up. The Capitals didn’t get back from Florida until the early hours of the morning and while his teammates went off to their beds, Hillen had some things to attend to: like seeing his son Knox for the first time. The problem was Hillen’s wife isn’t in Washington. With Hillen coming to the Caps on a one-year deal this offseason, she decided to stay in Minnesota with his parents.

“At 3:30 in the morning last night, she wasn’t sleeping so I sent her a text,” Hillen said. “We FaceTimed.”

This is Hillen’s second child, and the second birth he’s experienced in season. While with the New York Islanders in 2010, his first son Finn was born the day before an 11-day road trip.

If you’re wondering why the Hillens give their kids such weird names, it’s more than just a hockey player thing (i.e. Gunnar and Lennon Hendricks). Hillen explained that his family is really freaking big — “60, 70, I can’t even tell ya” — and he and his wife wanted their children to have names that stuck out.

“We didn’t want to name our kids after anybody,” said Hillen. “We just thought they were interesting.”

For all their millions and glorification, hockey players are still people, ones with jobs that sometimes require them to move across the continent every few years. They spend weeks at a time traveling, leaving their families at home or in back at their offseason residence. It’s a charmed life, but not without its hardships.

“It’s a tough business,” Adam Oates said. “That’s part of it. Not everybody agrees with that, but I do.”

“It sucks,” Hillen added. “I just want to hold them but I can’t.”