Photo credit: Harry How

The Washington Capitals have dealt Cody Eakin and their second round pick (54th overall) to the Dallas Stars for high-scoring center Mike Ribeiro. Ribeiro is 32-years-old, has a cap hit of $5 million, and is in the last year of his five-year contract.

It’s another shrewd deal by General Manager George McPhee, who adds a player who can fill one of the Capitals most glaring needs: second-line center, and for not an overwhelming price. If you recall, Buffalo’s Paul Gaustad fetched a first round pick from Nashville at the trade deadline and is nothing more than a third-line center.

The Hockey News describes the former Star as a player with patience and soft hands who also plays with a bit of a snarl. They also note his skill in the shootout — Ribeiro is 21 for 55 in his career.

Ribeiro scored 18 goals last year, and has scored 18 or more goals for the past five seasons. Since the 2003 season, Ribeiro has averaged 65 points per season, with a high of 83 in 2007.

Cody Eakin, who had 4 goals and 8 points in 30 games with Washington, had few flashes of brilliance during his first professional season, and was expendable with Nicklas Backstrom anchoring the first line, Brooks Laich entrenched as the third-line center, and Marcus Johansson still developing.

Eakin is currently out in Las Vegas for a road trip and just recently tweeted out the below picture. We hope he takes the news well. Farwell, dear ginger.

In a difficult season, it’s good to have someone like Cody Eakin around. He is young, filled with hope and enthusiasm. We gotta use that up quick before the real world inevitably crushes his spirit.

Cap Hit: $637,778. Eakin is signed through 2013-14 and will RFA following the expiration of that contract.

Milestones: First NHL goal, first NHL assist, first pie in the face in his NHL career.

Best Moment: The night of his first goal, though we also liked him freight-training Milan Lucic.

Things We Said About Cody Eakin: “Oh hey, Cody Eakin’s back!”

Alignment: Chaotic Good

First Irrelevant Google Images Result:

Media Consensus: “We are reasonably sure that Cody Eakin has the potential to be some kind of a hockey player in the future.”

Spirit Animal: Tibetan mastiff.

Alternate Universe Superhero Identity: Sean Cassidy, the amazing Banshee.

Team Role: Black ace, red shirt, occasional bottom-six center.

Execution of that Role: Though he definitely faded down the stretch, Cody saw a lot more time in the big club than we expected this year, and played with energy when he got a uniform. Four goals and eight points isn’t bad for a call-up seeing minimal ice time. Eakin was also good for 13 goals and 27 points for the Hershey Bears, despite how frequently he was moved between clubs.

Postseason Performance: Cody Eakin never made it into the lineup for a postseason game, but we hear his skill at eating popcorn is unparalleled.

Likeliness to Return: We realize that we should probably let Cody fly free to teams whose uniforms are not bright red, but we refuse. Six out of ten.

Usefulness in a Post-Apocalyptic Setting: We have to admit, that hair would make him pretty conspicuous in a dead, barren landscape. Also, he’d probably sunburn pretty easily. Three out of ten.

Other: Is Cody Eakin a lost member of the Weasley family? Discuss.

Credit: Eakin’s twitter.

Overall Year-End Rating: Five Good Sashas.

For statistical analysis of Eakin’s season, see Japer’s Rink or Peerless.

As of Thursday, the Washington Capitals are officially embarking on a quest for sixteen wins and a big, shiny trophy. There will be many obstacles along their way, the first of which is the scariest team in the entire world, the Boston Bruins. You may have heard stories, legends, even epic ballads about the infamy of the Bruins, especially their scary power forward, Milan Lucic.

Doubtless you have heard from many Boston fans and members of the media since Saturday that Milan Lucic is a pretty big deal, and that the Caps will need to watch out for him. We’re here to second that assessment, and to offer a profile that we hope can come close to touching the sheer awesome power that is the Bruins forward. Don’t eat us, Mr. Lucic.

Photo via: Sportress of Blogitude

Milan Lucic has been racking up many accomplishments this year in the National Hockey League — he’s injured Ryan Miller, fought Mike Komisarek, and even survived a dust-up with notorious goon Karl Alzner.

In fact, Lucic has not lost a fight this season, despite going toe to toe with heavyweights such as Paul Gaustad, Patrick Kaleta, and Matt Carkner. Luckily, the Caps can rely on tough guys such as Alzner and Cody Eakin to contain him.

The Caps will also have to be protective of young goalie Braden Holtby, given Milan Lucic’s reputation for impressively targeting the most immobile players on the ice. As we know, Holtby is a fragile blossom incapable of defending himself, and terribly susceptible to harm from aggressive forwards.

If you need even more reason to fear him, Milan Lucic once broke the glass at the TD Garden with a body check. Can you imagine that? Broke the glass! Why, only such comparable monsters as Jamie Benn, or Caps players casually shooting pucks at practice have ever done that! Truly chilling.

We wish the Capitals luck in dealing with this uncontrolled hockey monster. We can only hope they can find the courage to leave the locker room to face him.

Additional reporting by Ian Oland.

Lady Gaga and NYC Mayor Alex “the gr8″ Bloomberg orchestrate the dropping of the ball.

Caps’ players certainly seemed happy this past weekend. How can you tell? With a Twitter account and a pair of binoculars. The guys were ragging on each other, answering fan questions, posting pictures, the whole shabangabang. I guess that’s what happens when you win four of six games and get Sunday off. Now that our hangovers have finally subsided, here’s a sobering recollection of those tweets.

Join me if you will, RMNB readers, and let’s take a journey into the complex social (network) lives of our favorite players.

Karl Alzner — a dude who thinks getting a +1 is cooler than scoring goals, has Justin Bieber on his iPod, and owns the box set of Xena Warrior Princess — calls our taste into question. (I got your back, Peter.)

Alex Ovechkin, violating proper punctuation and first-grade capitalization rules, wishes Caps fans a gr8 2012. best!!))))))

Four minutes later, Ovechkin’s butler Alfred gets ahold of Ovi’s Blackberry and tweets something of his own.

Caps prospect Stan Galiev puts on his serious face.

Cody Eakin and John Carlson explain what Mathieu Perreault and a jellyfish have in common.

Karl Alzner has a new dog named Duncan and it’s almost as hairy as he is.

Mike Knuble, who is nearly the perfect person in every way, unsurprisingly has good taste in baseball teams too. Go O’s!

John Carlson reveals what Karl Alzner got him for Christmas and what he got for him in return

And then there were the tweets I failed to embed. Like one certain player’s love for a country song that would be NSFW. Or John Carlson’s explanation of how he got the #74.

Anyways, you should follow all of these guys if you’ve got a Twitter account — us too — and say hello. And if you don’t have a twitter account, you should get one today. Let’s hope the winning continues!

Haven’t seen many of these lately. (Photo credit: Greg Fiume)

"Nick, Dennis, you do know I like my job, right?" (Photo credit: Greg Fiume)

Lauri Korpikoski picked up the puck at center-ice after being awarded a penalty shot and skated in on Capitals goalie Tomas Vokoun. With a quick flick of the wrist the puck was in the back of the net, and the Caps down 2-0. Bruce Boudreau — possibly fighting for his coaching life — turned his back is disgust and slammed into the plexiglass to his left with fervor. It was a new low this year for the Caps, who were coming off a horrendous 7-1 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs Saturday night and in the mist of the skid that saw them lose six of seven and four straight. But after hitting rock bottom, the Caps finally got back up — with a lot of luck and maybe a little help from a certain red balloon.

It was a mere 53 seconds after Korpikoski’s short-handed goal when Washington got one back. The goal scorer was John Carlson, who unleashed a blast from the point that deflected off a Phoenix stick and past Coyotes netminder Jason Labarbera just as the Caps power-play expired. Three minutes later, child prodigy Cody Eakin got in on the action when his wrist shot dinged off yet another opposition skater and into the back on the net, tying the game.

For a team struggling to put anything together, finally seeing the red light go on and, maybe more importantly, hear the home fans behind them was what finally lit the fire.

“That’s what you need to kind of jump start us. You saw after that we had the spark and momentum, everyone seemed to be going,” Carlson said of Eakin’s marker.

Matt Hendricks, who tried to do his part late in the first period with a bout against Kyle Chipchura, agreed.

“We talked about it earlier yesterday and today about keeping the game a little more simple for us and getting pucks to the net. Look at what happened: Eakin’s goal off a couple sticks, it goes in the net; Carly’s goal off their D’s stick, it goes in the net. Just shooting the puck right now and eventually they’ll find the back of the net.”

The Caps searched for more, but for ten minutes the going was fruitless. Less than two minutes in the third frame, however, Nicklas Backstrom gave the Caps something they haven’t had in 114 minutes and one second: a lead.

With a Brooks Laich insurance tally (which, true to its name, protected against Korpikoski retaliatory strike in the remaining minutes) Washington held on for their first victory in 10 days. In case you haven’t heard, that’s more than a week.

The Caps were gleeful afterwards, breaking out their theme song for the good ol’ days of 2010, the esteemed DJ Pauly D’s “Beat Dat Beat.” The “song” was promptly cut off when reporters entered the locker room to the boos of players.

“I think there’s a little bit of sarcastic energy in this room,” Carlson said after the game. “But we know that tomorrow we got to get back to work and we got to continue what we’re doing, because as we’ve seen if we let off the gas peddle then teams are too good to [just let us] squeak by anymore.”

While the players were certainly relieved, there is no denying that no one needed this game more than Boudreau. It’s been four years to the day since he took over behind the bench after a period of listless play by an underachieving but talented team. Since then, Boudreau has racked up wins — well, at least regular season ones — at record pace, newly surpassing the docile Don Cherry to become the fastest head coach to reach 200 wins in NHL history, taking just 326 games. But with playoff failures and pathetic play lately, he was still managed to find himself on the hot seat lately in eery territory. And while the Caps 2011 are much different than their counterparts of 2007, it still doesn’t make for a comfortable comparison. But now — well at for the 48 hours until the Caps’ match-up against the Jets — the foul-mouthed general can put it off the talk of his departure.

“It’s one win,” Boudreau said. “I mean, it’s against a good team and I think they hard, but when you’re getting out — or hopefully getting out of a little funk — it doesn’t go from low to high, it takes little steps. Hopefully on Wednesday we’ll be better than we were today.”

He added: “I would have traded 199 of those for that one today.”

Before I let you go, I’ll give you one more quote. This one from our friend Matt Hendricks, the guy who stuck his face in front of Chipchura’s fists in an attempt to spark an inert team:

“We’ve got a lot of leaders in this room. A lot of guys say the right things, it’s about getting on the same page and doing the right things. You can talk about things as much as you want, but until we go out and execute we’re not going to get the results.”

That, more than anything, is what the Caps need to internalize. Because next time they might not get the bounces to go their way, and they have far too much talent to go on long losing streaks every year. It sounds cliche but it’s worth repeating.

Just win, dammit.

Friend of the blog Holly F. and King mug for the camera at a Movember event last year.

Vice President and General Manager George McPhee announced today that the Washington Capitals have sent forward D.J. King to the Hershey Bears of the American Hockey League. The 6’3”, 231-pound horse-lover played in a total of 18 games in Washington over the past two seasons, watching another 85 from the press box. King collected $660,823 during those 85 games he did not play, which should totally bum you out.

Last week King was made available on waivers, signaling his desire to see actual playing time. The move to Hershey may be a continuation of that.

Despite his limited impact on the ice, King was popular among fans, teammates, and media members alike. Here’s just a small sampling of the fan reaction on Twitter:

Here’s the backstory on why Clyde’s daughter loves D.J. so much.

When McPhee traded for King way back in the Summer of 2010, he told the media that D.J. “could play.” That was encouraging since we were already dubious on the value of adding an enforcer.

Unfortunately, D.J. never had a moment in Washington that inspired much confidence. He had the skating ability of Happy Gilmore, and when he did actually did drop the gloves, his fights were contrived and didn’t create momentum for the Capitals.

Let’s review. (And just a warning: this is a really, really sad walk down memory lane.)

October 13, 2010 – D.J. King vs. Trevor Gilles

King’s first fight as a Capital was promising. That is until two thundering left crosses from Gilles knocks him from a standing position to one knee. 79% of voters on HockeyFights.com viewed Gilles the winner of the fight.

November 3, 2010 – D.J. King vs. Colton Orr

Watch Colton Orr punch D.J. for about 70 seconds straight. The best comment on YouTube of the fight is from user zegermans750, a Blues’ fan. “Jesus, Kinger used to be better than this.” 82% of voters on HockeyFights.com viewed Orr the winner of the fight.

December 6, 2010 – D.J. King vs. Colton Orr

A month and three days later, King drops the mitts with Orr again this time to exact revenge on a dirty hit on Ovechkin. The fight however, is a snooze-fest as Orr spends a minute-plus throwing punches, while D.J. holds on for dear life. 85% of voters on HockeyFights.com viewed Orr the winner of the fight. Yikes.

January 18, 2011 – D.J. King vs. Jody Shelly

Here watch as King bruises Shelly’s left shoulder pad with punch after punch. 49% of voters on HockeyFights.com viewed this fight as a draw. Hey! Progress!

February 12, 2011 – D.J. King vs. Kevin Westgarth

Two days before Valentine’s Day, King and Westgarth show their love for each other by exchanging a bag full of knuckle sandwiches. No hugging for these love birds. However, King definitely takes a brunt of the shots. 51% of voters on HockeyFights.com viewed Westgarth the winner of this fight.

March 21, 2011 – D.J. King vs. Francis Lessard

In King’s final fight hopefully ever as a Capital, he and Lessard wrap each other up like a burrito and hug it out. Come on, guys. Get a room! 64% of voters on HockeyFights.com viewed this fight as a draw.

King will travel up I-83 to Hershey and try to establish himself on a team which already has a few heavyweight fighters in Joel Rechlicz and Patrick Weller. Where he fits in there is anyone’s guess. For now the Capitals can rely on Matt Hendricks, Jason Chimera, and Big John Erskine for pugilism. And maybe Cody Eakin sticks around for a little bit longer.

Thanks for all the hard work, Kinger. Good luck to you.

Erskine and Semin congratulate the ginger after his milestone goal. (Photo credit: Gregg Forwerck)

When I was twenty, I was a college senior. A few months from getting my Visual Arts degree from UMBC, I had a 1998 Toyota Camry, and I got paid $7.50 an hour to work for the school’s newspaper.

At twenty-years-old Cody Eakin is in the NHL. He plays on the league’s best team. With his entry-level contract, he makes almost $1 million a year. And tonight, November 4th, 2011, he notched his first NHL point and his first NHL goal against the Carolina Hurricanes.

Someone should knock him down a peg.

Alex Ovechkin, immediately after tonight’s 5-1 victory, did exactly that.

As Eakin was finishing his final remarks with the media, the Capitals captain found an opening and caught the young rookie in the face with a blue shaving cream pie. Awesome.

But hey, that’s okay. Maybe Eakin will have a chance to retaliate 14 games from now… when Ovechkin plays his 500th NHL game. Because we all know Ovi can dish it, but can’t take it.

Photos of Eakin Getting Pie’d In The Face

Photos via Capitals Overtime.

Photo credit: Gerry Broome

The Washington Capitals last met the Carolina Hurricanes at home for the first game of the season. That game established the 2011-12 Caps as the scoring force we’ve been waiting for. Tonight was more of the same. More delightful, delightful same.

Right after the faceoff, Anthony Stewart redirected a Jay Harrison shot that Neuvirth wasn’t ready for. Jeff Halpern dove for his goal in the second. Soon after, Marcus Johansson provided a gorgeous saucer to Troy Brouwer, who scored effortlessly. John Carlson slapped a big one home on the power play. Cody Eakin scoared his first NHL goal halfway through the third thanks to a smart pass from Alex Semin. Alex Ovechkin slid the puck gracefully to points-leader Nick Backstrom, who executed the layup. Caps beats Canes 5-1.

• Wings.
• The Canes actually scored on their second power play of the night, but the goal was waved off when the ref lost sight of the puck. Since this is the sort of thing we kvetch about endlessly, it seems right to acknowledge incompetent reffing working to our team’s favor for once.
• Per a scoring change, Cody Eakin recorded his first NHL point ever!

• And then… Alex Semin on a semi-breakaway, dropping to the carrot-topped noob. Eakin holds the puck, eyes the net, and releases with the hand dexterity that only a 20-year old has. That game puck is headed back to the Burrow. (Pic via @SergeyKocharov) Not bad for 8:45 of ice time.

• Your best line of the night might have been the sleeper bunch of Matt Hendricks, Jeff Halpern, and Mike Knuble. They are three guys with somewhat overlapping skill sets, the kind you’d expect not to have much synergy. But you’d be wrong. No one worked harder than this trio, and I’d bet one of these guys is wearing the hard hat tonight.
• With his holding penalty tonight, Roman Hamrlik is clearly challenging #BadSasha for the team’s PIM crown. Roman has 10, Semin has 12. This penalty competition is the cause of Bob Woods’ irritable bowel.
• Little known fact: Eric Staal absorbed his twin sister in the womb*. Also, he speared Big John Erskine in the peepee and bubbles. All around bad guy.
• The lead-up to John Carlson’s (awesome) goal was Tuomo Ruutu rolling dirty on Dennis Wideman. After the hit from behind, the guy standing up for his brother was Mike Knuble, who played the tough guy convincingly.
• Overlooked in the goal romp is Michal Neuvirth, who was solid in his first full game since the last Canes game. 25 shots, only one getting through (and that one via deflection.)

Joe B suit of the night

So Bruce Boudreau did his line shuffling trick again. We really gotta stop doubting this guy; he gets results. Every time he puts Hendricks in the shootout on a hunch, or sits Ovechkin for a couple shifts, or puts Eakin out with Mojo and Semin, we should just shut our big dumb yaps.

The Caps’ record right now is  a lot – a couple – none. The team is clicking in every way, so enjoy your Friday night and meet us back here tomorrow night for a date with the Isles. I won’t be covering the game (ten-year high school reunion for the win!), so please scrutinize Ian’s grammar in my place.

* NOTE: This is not actually true. You really shouldn’t trust us.

Pot roast. (Photo credit: Mitchell Layton)

The Washington Capitals had only one date with the Anaheim Ducks on the calendar this year, so they played it like two totally different teams. The Caps of the first half hour were disorganized and besieged. The Caps of the second half hour were focused and buzzing. A hole was dug by the former and filled in by the latter.

Saku Koivu siezed on bad communication between Wideman and Hamrlik to score the game’s first goal. Teemu Selanne took a pass from Koivu for a lay up goal to make it 2-0. Selanne notched another one in the second period, thanks for some more bad defense and a weak-side pass. Joel Ward got the Caps on board with a close wrister that went five-hole. Dennis Wideman capitalized (puns!) on a scrambling Hiller, slapping home a goal making it 3-2. Corey Perry took a couple swats at a loose puck in the paint to make it 4-2. Troy Brouwer’s shot gave Hiller trouble and kept the game interesting.  With six attackers and less than a minute remaining, Nick Backstrom made the net quiver. Tie game. 4-on-4 overtime, where Backstrom struck again by slapping a bouncing puck into a gaping net. Game over! Caps beat Ducks 5-4 (OT).

Teemu Selanne is intense. (Photo credit: Kyle Mace)

• Nicky GD Backstrom. Maybe it was facing the European pros on the Ducks, maybe it’s just Movember. But something certainly got stirred inside the team’s dominant Swede. Two goals– the tying and winning tallies, his third and fourth of the season. Backstrom is your team’s points leader with 14.
• Welcome to the National Hockey League, Cody Eakin. You are 20 years old, already a world famous snowboarder and skateboarder, a prop comic, and a Gryffindor stalwart. Now you are a Capital of Washington. 13:19 ice time, 3 shots, and a dandy chance at the game-tying goal. He’ll get it next time.
• Welcome back to the line-up, John Erskine. Your shoulder healed, your face shorn, your tree-trunk legs pumping furiously to move your mass. We missed you, ya big lug.
• The Caps are allowing an alarming number of shots against this season, a bunch of which can be laid at the feet of the struggling D-Corps. The new pairing of Dennis Wideman and Roman Hamrlik were on ice for the first two Ducks goals, looking bewildered and out of sync. A missed reverse-pass led to one goal; inability to read the offense’s passes led to the second. The duo was broken up for the second period. And there was much rejoicing.
• Roman Hamrlik was on ice for every Ducks goal. Every. One.
• What is the deal with Teemu Selanne? We don’t see the 41-year-old flash a lot over here in the East, but dayumn. Ain’t nobody covering that guy. Whether that’s our team’s fault or a testament to his speed is matter of debate. Either way, on a team with the depth problems that Anaheim has, Selanne is Finnish gold.
• How bad is Anaheim’s depth? Nick Bonino’s and Brandon McMillan’s lines gave up too many shots against and were not trusted with many shifts in the game’s back half– recording 8 and 5 fewer minutes than the Ducks’ top line.
• RMNB grad Neil Greenberg wrote a solid piece for WaPo today addressing the output problems with the meat’n'taters line of Ward-Laich-Chimera and celebrating its dissolution. Surely, the trio read the piece together and resolved to prove Neil wrong. The Caps’ two goals in the middle frame were thanks to their effort. Them and…
• Dennis Wideman, whose 10 points in 10 games is tied with Ovechkin for second best on the team. Backstrom has 12, obvs.
• #41 Andrew Gordon, now an Anaheim Duck, had 14:11 of ice time, 2:11 of it shorthanded. No offense to speak of. He’ll need to distinguish himself in the next 10 games lest he fall back on his blogging career.
• The Capitals were without a penalty (if you ignore Matt Hendricks’ fight, which we do) until Tomas Vokoun tripped Corey Perry. Perry scored on the ensuing power play. The Capitals PK still sucks.

Joe B suit of the night

The last offensive-zone possession of the Capitals’ last power play ended with Alex Ovechkin trying to move the puck between a defender’s legs. Once upon a time, this move worked. It does not any more. Now it is an infuriatingly selfish play that deprives the team of any chance at scoring. The puck-handling whiz version of Alex Ovechkin needs to retire. It’s time for Alex Ovechkin v2.0– a positionally savvy, cherry-picking deviant– to reign.

Fitting then, that Bruce Boudreau didn’t give Ovechkin a tap on the shoulder for that extra-man shift at the end of regulation. This is the Age of Accountability after all, and not even the Great Eight is beyond reproach.

But a win is a win. And for all the pathos of that first period, we look at the bright spots: Dennis Wideman is soaring and Nick Backstrom knows when to strike. The Capitals played a disciplined game, except for that one lapse by their goalie. It’s progress.

We’ll talk about the defensive goofs and the reconfigured line-ups, but for now– the Caps are still perfect at Verizon Center.

See you on Friday, when the Capitals will drive you crazy for a little while before turning into a totally different team.

Photo credit: Greg Fiume

The hard part is over. Mathieu Perreault led the Capitals with five points in four preseason games and snatched the final roster spot from favorites Cody Eakin and Mattias Sjogren.

Last season he showed the ability to drive puck possession, finishing with the fourth best Corsi relative to the competition on the team, behind only Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, and Alexander Semin.

Consistency, however, was a bigger issue. He earned all fourteen of his points in just nine of his 35 games played and wasn’t able to claim a center spot that was up for grabs.

But it’s a new year, and with Boudreau giving Matty P some time up top with Ovechkin and Troy Brouwer– plus hinting he may center the second line, it’s now time to turn our attention to what we can expect from him in his third NHL season.

Using Perreault’s NHL stats to match him with players who had comparable production at the same age, we can then use the development of those peers to generate a projection for 2011-12. Stats are normalized to the 2010-11 season, so they can be compared on a level playing field despite being in different eras.

Although he is frequently compared to Tampa Bay Lightning forward Martin St. Louis because of his size, Perreault’s statistical peer group includes Joel Lundqvist, Milan Kraft, Patrick Thoresen, and even Patrick Sharp, among others. As you can see, the group is a decent match for Perreault’s sophomore season:

The development curve of these similar players show Perreault will get better in year three. The peer group saw more ice time, took more shots and increased their scoring by 47 percent, mostly by doubling their assist count.

That would make sense. Skating on one of the top two lines, which is most likely where Perreault will see a majority of his time, would make him more of a set-up man to one of the Russian snipers.

In games played, the projection is a bit more optimistic. It is doubtful Perreault suits up for half the season, but if he does, expect him to produce seven goals and 14 assists over 44 games. An improvement, but not enough to claim a full time role with a Cup-caliber team.