Photo was touched up to remove the NHL executive handshake-passing the ref a 100-dollar bill. (Photo credit: Greg Fiume)

With their 5-0 loss to the New York Rangers in game seven, the Washington Capitals have been ungently booted from the postseason again. A period of healing and reconciliation now begins (also probably some suntans), but first we need to take a look at the sadness. The infinite, infinite sadness.

Let’s just take it all in, mope around for the next day or two like red-rocking Eeyores, and wallow in the wah wah wah (that’s what a sad trombone sounds like). It’s not fun; no, but we need to give the grieving process time to do its thing.

A rare moment in which Ribeiro stank both literally and figuratively? (Photo credit: Greg Fiume)

Clockwise, starting from Ovi: Stunned, annoyed, yawning, guffawing, free agent-y, and totally over this crap. (Photo credit: USA Today)

Oh great, next time you wanna be super-depressed, you don’t have to watch Requiem For a Dream. You can just pop open this GIF and save yourself two hours. (GIF by SBNation.com)

“Boredom is the root of all evil, the despairing refusal to be oneself”. – Kierkegaard (Photo credit: @dcsportsbog)

Sad dad. Sad dad. Sad dad. (Photo credit: @recordsANDradio)

Oh criminy, now we are zooming in on sad dad? Have you no decency, cameraman? (Photo credit: @dcsportsbog)

“I know it was you, Henrik. You broke my heart. You broke my heart!” (Photo credit: Patrick McDermott)

“Well son, since you haven’t learned to respect your elders, it’s time you learn to respect your betters.” (Photo credit: Alex Brandon)

This handshake nearly caused a goals-versus-threshold singularity that would have swallowed Marc-Andre Fleury whole. (Photo credit: Patrick McDermott)

The Building of America’s Hockey Capital is running a bit late and over-budget. (Photo credit: Alex Brandon)

ARE YOU KIDDING. DUDE, THIS IS THE SADDEST THING EVER. CANNOT EVEN CAPTION THIS. WOW. WOW. (Photo credit: Alex Brandon)

Someone in the press corps just told Oates that Sun-In Hair Lightener is no longer in fashion. And that punk is dead. (Photo credit: Nick Wass)

How this guy got no points in seven games is a puzzle for the ages. (Screengrab via Monumental Network)

Karl Alzner forced to stand by silently while his beard conducts a lengthy interview. (Screengrab via Monumental Network)

Green looks like a tougher and only slightly sadder version of the singer from Brand New. Who sucks by the way. (Screengrab via Monumental Network)

Mama Backstrom is disappointed in her son’s play, sure. But his facial hair is an outright disgrace to the family name. (Screengrab via Monumental Network)

No snarky caption. This guy is boss. Plus: hands-down best neckbeard on the team. (Screengrab via Monumental Network)

The sadness will pass soon. Try to put a smile on your face. And keep your head up. <3 RMNB.

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.

Photo credit: Kathy Willens

In Braden Holtby‘s first full season in the NHL, he dominated, proving that his great play in years past wasn’t a flash in the pan. He may very well be the long-term solution in net for the Washington Capitals, and the first guy to carry the load in net since Olie Kolzig left nearly a decade ago. But there are parts of Holtby’s game that are still raw, and tonight, that may have cost the Capitals the game.

New York dominated the first period, but Washington almost got out unscathed. That is until Holtby played a loose puck at the left circle. Instead of going the safe route and dumping the puck up the boards to a teammate, Braden decided to sauce a pass through the middle of the ice. The puck did not reach its intended target. Instead, it was whacked down by Taylor Pyatt and eventually shot into an empty net by Brad Richards.

GIF by welshhockeyfan

Holtby’s skill at playing the puck is so strong that he is sometimes considered a seventh defenseman by his teammates, and he has even tallied primary assists on goals this season. But he needs to pick his spots better, and he needs to rid his game of stuff like this– just like he did that pokecheck that once gave Thomas Vanek an easy win in overtime.

On Wednesday, Holtby made 30 saves, good for a .882 save percentage, and made several ten-bell stops, including denying Derek Stepan on a breakaway.

To the splits! (GIF by welshhockeyfan)

The rest of this series will be decided by the team that makes fewer mistakes. If the Capitals can win this best-of-three series, they will need Holtby to not have any more breakdowns like tonight. Goals are hard to come by when Henrik Lundqvist is in the other net, and when the opponent can open the game with a layup, that’s more than just a one-goal hole to dig out of– it’s a blow to the team’s confidence.

Photo credit: Scott Levy

I don’t know how you guys are coping, but I am doing poorly. A playoff series between the Washington Capitals and New York Rangers seems constitutionally incapable of being stress-free. Game three’s penalty problems continued in game four, and the Caps struggled with special teams and other complex ideas such as shooting and passing. The Rangers seemed to be able to summon a lead on a whim, leaving the Caps to mount a comeback pretty much throughout.

Despite the Caps getting better (and more desperate) as the clock wound down, the Rangers won another game on home ice.

Rangers beat Caps 4-3. Series is tied 2-2.

• Braden Holtby dun goofed. Handling a loose puck, Holtby eyed a saucer pass to neutral, but instead found Pyatt Pree‘s stick hanging in the air. Brad Richards got on the puck and scored on a mostly vacant net to make it 1-0. Holtby’s been both lauded and criticized for his eagerness to play the puck, and he’s been burned more than once for it. This was the worst of al. This was worse than what Jonathan Quick did last week. Because it happened to real people.
• The Capitals’ first period power plays were rancid. The Caps allowed three shorthanded chances, the third one leading to total troublefunk in front of Braden Holtby. Martin Erat and Alex Ovechkin closed in on Derek Stepan– Erat reaching from behind while Ovi was picking up steam. The three collided in a tangle, with Erat landing wrist-first in the net and Ovechkin skating back to the bench before getting beckoned to the box. A hooking penalty for Erat was reasonable, but — inconceivably– Ovechkin was given the old wild-card penalty: charging. Pierre McGuire, who has yet to master the name Oleksy, proclaimed it an obvious headshot. It was not, but the Caps still had to kill a 5 on 3– which they did excellently, but the penalty was more fuel to the Gee willikers! These refs are atrocious! fire. Erat did not return to the game, replaced on the second line by the similarly awesome Eric Fehr.
• From the circle, Carl Hagelin got a knuckley puck past Holtby’s glove side halfway through the game– at which the Caps had just 5 shots on goal during even strength. D’oh.
• But thank goodness for Joel Ward and Mathieu Perreault, who teamed up to put the Caps on the board. Ward had some pretty moves to put the puck on net, and then Perreault crashed it like a tiny French Canadian Knuble.
• The Caps tied it before the end of the second period with a nifty Troy Brouwer backhand while the Rangers got a bit indolent on the breakout. Brouwer was due, and it was greatly appreciated.
• After the Caps improved their possession (as measured by even-strength shot attempts) through the last three games, the Rangers stole it back decisively on Wednesday. Even with a man-up, the Caps were unable to generate offense as the Rangers refused to take the bait of Washington’s fancy passes. The Caps were thus kept on the outskirts and generated no real power play chances.
• A Charmin soft interference penalty on Jason Chimera at the buzzer of the second period led to a Girardi PPG in the first minute of the third, putting Caps back in their one-goal hole, but only temporarily as Marcus Johansson’s inability to clear the zone gave NYR’s Stepan space and time to make it 4-2.
• Ovi was pretty much nullified. Most of his (scarce) shot attempts were blocked, and he — and this is weird– seemed to get hit more than he hit others. I’m not really used to that, but hats off to the Rags for sticking it to him. I’m not sure they’ll be able to do that back in Verizon Center, where the Caps will get last line change.
• Karl Alzner kept it close with an outside slapper (that have got a piece of Perry) with just a bit over 12 minutes left. Because apparently this series was too relaxing for some people.

Joe B suit of the night

Aaaalright, the Caps may have gotten a bit off their game there.

You can chalk some up to the refs, but we can’t pretend like this game was stolen from the Caps. Mysterious decisions on defense and some bad moves on the breakout sort of doomed the effort. The Rangers won the physical game and seemed to have figured out the Oates’ power play. That might make the rest of this series difficult. Or at least interesting. It’s as if the gauntlet has been thrown.

That doesn’t mean it’s undoable. The Rangers have no advantage whatsoever. All they have done is restored the series to neutral. The Caps own on home ice, and they’ll have to flaunt it to win this series.

Friday. Be ready.

Okay not the psyche-up song I wanted. I’ll try again later.

Photo credit: @davidb22307

Holtby leads the Caps on the ice for warmups prior to Game 2. (Photo credit: Chris Gordon)

It’s playoff time, which means we’re in for an inordinate amount of NBC coverage showing Braden Holtby getting all zen-like on the Capitals’ bench. But what, exactly, is going through the young goaltender’s mind in those moments?

“It’s just visualization techniques, breathing techniques,” Holtby, in a crisp suit with a purple pocket square, told me Sunday morning at Kettler Capitals Iceplex before the team’s flight to New York. “It’s just one of the things I do I try to do to get my mind in the same frame every night. It gets a lot of attention but a lot of guys do it, you just don’t see it.”

Holtby’s right about it being more widespread than some think.

“I came to the rink three hours early, I had a coffee, a stretch, and I did about 30 minutes of visualization,” Olie Kolzig told CSN Washington a few days ago. “That was the extent of my preparation.”

So we know Holtby’s visualizing; we’ve heard that a thousand times. But what does that actually mean? Well, Holtby says he almost playing a game in his head, imagining what the other team is doing and how he wants to react.

“You go over everything: certain plays, certain things you’ve been working on that you want to see yourself do correctly,” he said. “It’s just visualizing what you want to do. … Try to view yourself the way you want to be viewed.”

So there you have it: Braden Holtby spends his time before big games daydreaming.

Of course, Holtby’s pre-game contemplation isn’t his only idiosyncrasy. Braden’s Holtbyisms are well documented, but the goalie is rather terse when pressed on why, exactly, he does them. What he will concede, though, is that all his little moves (whether it’s spitting water through his teeth, tapping the posts, or flipping his water bottle into the air) help him stay focused on what’s happening on the ice in front of him and nothing more — especially during tight, stressful playoff games.

“It’s routines — everyone has them,” he said. “Everyone has their little things that they do in order to refocus and whatnot.”

“I try to approach every game the same no matter what the circumstances are,” Holtby added. “The biggest way to do that is just to focus on the task at hand and do my best to block everything out.”

Photo credit: Chris Gordon

The Washington Capitals’ 27th-ranked penalty kill was one reason the team could have missed the playoffs. Now it’s the reason they’re up 2-0 in the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals.

In a tight battle against the New York Rangers in game 2 on Saturday, the PK turned chances for crushing goals into momentum for themselves — especially while killing off Steve Oleksy’s delay of game early in overtime. Four minutes later, Mike Green literally shook Verizon Center.

During the game-saving work a man down, no player contributed more than Eric Fehr.

In his 34-second shift, Fehrsie nearly scored a goal on the rush, burning off valuable PK time in the process. Once the Rangers regained the puck, Fehr raced back, sticking to Brad Richards like glue. Once the puck was moved to Derick Brassard, Fehr sprawled on the ice to block the shot. With the puck under him, Brassard poked away at Fehr’s stomach, pushing him all the way to the boards. It probably should have been a penalty, and it probably hurt a lot. Fehr lay in pain along the wall for a few seconds, before making his way to the bench with a grimace. It was an awesome shift.

“It wasn’t so much the shot as the guy trying to get the puck out from underneath me,” Fehr said when asked about the pain he endured. “The block felt good.”

“That was a pretty aggressive spear,” he told me. “I thought it was borderline, could have been called. I guess the ref didn’t want to do that in overtime. I didn’t even know the puck was under me, and I got guys poking me.”

Either way, the Caps successfully stifled the third Rangers power play of the night.

Taken over a whole season, the Caps PK has been bad. But towards the end of the season, it ceased to be a total disaster. Fehr credited the pick-up to confidence in Braden Holtby. Knowing that he was able to make saves to bail the team out allowed the Caps to take more risks.

“Holts is obviously our number-one penalty killer,” Fehr said. “He’s making big stops for us. When we felt confident in him, we can really pressure the power play and really be aggressive on it.”

“We expect a lot of big things from our PK,” he added. “We don’t think we’re 27th in the league.”

Holtby, as always, refused to take credit for the success.

“I think that’s a big key to any PK, any game,” he said. “You have to trust everyone on your team. That’s probably a big thing both ways. The start of the year we didn’t really know where we were going to be, weren’t real sure. Now I know when there’s shots from the point the guys are going to be in the right position. We have a lot of trust in each other.”

“It wasn’t that they were doing a bad job to start with, it was just we were learning,” Holtby added. “Guys kept having faith in each other and that’s why we’re at where we’re at now.”

GIF by welshhockeyfan

Odd thing about low-scoring overtime wins: half the players mob the goal-scorer and the other half  (and I’m extending mucho kudos for this) mobs the other guy, the goaltender.

Way to go, Mike Green and Braden Holtby. And bravo to the guys who remembered how they got to OT in the first place. This lovely GIF is going right next to Joel Ward’s bench-clearer in Boston on our GIF mantel shelf.

It’s like what Nick Fury says to Robin Scherbatsky at the end of The Avengers. He comes through because we need him.

Get the Holtbeast shirt from the RMNB store.

Gorgeous pic by Greg Fiume

Hockey hypertension. The Washington Capitals and New York Rangers played a high-tension matinee game that had everyone watching in conniption fits. Superb performances by goalies Henrik Lundqvist and Braden Holtby kept the game scoreless through regulation despite some dazzling chances at both ends. I’m trying to think of a non-cliched way to say we were on the edge of our seats, but I’m way too wrapped up in this to be clever right now.

Braden Holtby refused all offers, and the Capitals dominated overtime until Mike Green ended it on the power play.

Caps beat Rangers 1-0 (Overtime). Caps lead the series 2-0.

• John Erskine did not play his best game. While he contributed a few muffins and cannons from the blue line, he looked overwhelmed in his own zone, particularly when playing below the goal line. Braden Holtby bailed him out at every turn, but Ersk could use a bit more confidence and deliberation with and without the puck.
• The Caps have a localized epidemic of Swedish Passing Disease. Nick Backstrom and especially Marcus Johansson had some prime chances to score squandered due to reticence to shoot. I think the feeling is that Henrik Lundqvist cannot be bested without some brilliant passing sequence, but he’s just mortal and will stop somewhere around 92% of shots over time. Gimme volume over quality, though crashing the net never hurts.
• John Carlson was everywhere, driving play more than any other player and leading the team in shot on net.
• Rick Nash had a semi-breakaway in the third period that went off the goalpost. We really owe that goalpost a thank you card. Someone get on that.
• Eric Fehr is good everyday, but today he was extra special good. His penalty killing in overtime nearly led to a SHOTGWG, and he immediately followed it up with a diving block. Unreal play by the Caps’ unsung hero.
• Mike Green, my baby. We’ve never seen Green play healthy in the playoffs until now. It’s a marvelous sight.
• Braden Holtby made 24 saves in his shutout, and he needed every one.

Exclusive Joe B suit of the afternoon

Holy shit, guys. We made it through this one. That was as tense as anything I’ve ever seen. I had to take off my shirt during OT because I didn’t know how to cope. I still don’t. These may not be sentences I’m writing right now– and my hands are shaking so bad my TYPOS REL/60 is probably off the charts.

The Caps really came through in this one. They owned the puck, played physically, and got their power play converting when it matters most. It wasn’t the team effort we saw on Thursday– this was a hero thing. The oft-maligned Mike Green had a very big day, and Braden Holtby did what we’ve come to expect from him– nigh perfection.

As far as I’m concerned, I’m houseruling Braden Holtby perfect through two games. That game-one goal against was a fluke. He’s been ideal– something of a postseason habit for Holtby.

The Caps now head to Manhattan to curbstomp the Rangers. I think they can do it. Every chump who picked Rangers in 4 or 5 is looking a bit silly right now. If the Caps stick to their game, they’re going deep.

Good game guys!

The camera zooming in on Pierre is how most nightmares start

— RMNB (@russianmachine) May 4, 2013

Steve Oleksy has never been considered a top prospect. In fact, before he made his NHL debut for the Washington Capitals in March, Oleksy played for seven different minor league teams in five years. It’s been a long and often painful road Oleksy has traveled, one that was made even longer because of Braden Holtby.

You see, earlier in the season when Holtby and Oleksy played together in AHL Hershey, the sassy goaltender from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan decided to play a prank on the new Bears defenseman.

I’ll let Oleksy explain.

“I asked him for a ride back [to my car],” Oleksy said to ABC7′s Britt McHenry. “And this was before I really knew who Holts was — and he said,’Yeah. No problem, man,’ So I came up from doing a little interview and I walk out the door just to see him driving away. So I had to lug all the way back to our regular rink which is close to a mile away with my bag on my shoulder. People probably thought I was homeless.”

Regardless, Holtby and Oleksy have become fast friends, as the two would hang out regularly in Hershey. The Holtbeast would even become one of the first in the organization to catch on to Oleksy’s childhood nickname.

“One time I was at his house and on his computer it said ‘Binky’s Computer’ or something like that,” Holtby told RMNB’s Chris Gordon. “I was like ‘Who is that?’ One of the guys told me. It’s one of those nicknames where it’d be pretty funny if it caught on.”

Holtby has also been one of the Oleksy’s biggest advocates in Washington, such as Thursday night after Binky’s first career playoff game. Oleksy would tally the game-winning assist, as well as block a shot with his face and return without missing a shift.

“He can make those skill plays,” Holtby told the media after the game. “It surprises people all the time just because of the role he plays. He’s worked as hard as anyone to improve the skill part of his game.”

Holtby added,”I don’t think I’ve ever seen him without scars, without stitches at some point.”

GIF by flawlessrussians

It all just proves, that pranks can sometimes be the biggest signs of endearment.