Heading into their game against Ottawa on Tuesday, the Capitals had won only once in their first five games. But after getting their first win of the year against Buffalo Sunday, the boys were loose and confident after their morning skate. For example, watch as Mike Vogel interviews Mike Ribeiro and Alex Ovechkin crashes the interview.

Oh hai, Ovi. (GIF by cadetsandkings)

Unfortunately, that confidence didn’t translate on the ice, as the Caps lost their fifth game of the year and fell behind division-leading Tampa by seven standings points.

Ovechkin, who had two measly shots on net, managed to crash one other thing in Ottawa: Craig Anderson’s crease. After attempting The Move, Ovi falls down and bowls over the Ottawa netminder.

GIF by welshhockeyfan

Not shown: Anderson patting him on the tushie afterwards.

Since I’m a superstitious person, Ovi, you may no longer insert your lovely Russian face into your teammate’s interviews anymore.

Photo credit: Fred Chartrand

Alex Ovechkin’s had a tough year. He’s failed to find consistency in his game. He’s been benched, seen the coach that benched him get fired, and trails Jason Chimera in goals. He’s been criticized by almost every big-time NHL columnist in the country. Even future Hall of Famer Teemu Selanne has been asked what’s wrong with Ovechkin.

Tonight, however, we saw the first real flash of the old Ovi. You know– that creative, “you will not effing stop me from scoring even if you set up a brick wall in front of the goal and tie both hands behind my back” Ovechkin. In the third period against the Senators, with the game tied 2-2, the Caps started a breakout from behind their own net. And then Ovi decided he felt like scoring.

Let’s review.

After curling behind the net to build some speed, Ovi takes a drop pass from Nicklas Backstrom.

He goes for a skate.

Oh hey, Daniel Alfredsson!

See ya, Daniel Alfredsson!

Oh hey, Erik Karlsson! (NO RELATION TO JOHN CARLSON!)

The wraparound doesn’t look like an option…

Let’s try…

A DOUBLE SKATE STOP AT 30 MPH!

Snow!

Bye bye!

Okay, time to blast it past Craig Anderson.

I’ma serious.

Just kidding!)))))) Let’s do snap shot instead!

Kiss glove.

LKDS&$&#%$#EO#@!!!!

best!!!!!!

Video: http://youtu.be/Gw-m1n–W-E

Craig Anderson watches one go by. (Photo credit: Andre Ringuette)

Doug Johnson of Puck Buddys offers this pregame dispatch. Follow Puck Buddys on Twitter.

The Pre-Game: We hear through the Twitters that perhaps we went just a weee bit overboard with our preview of Saturday’s Ottawa game, and shameless self-promotion of teh PuckBuddy’s Big Gay Night Out. Whoops! Curiously: among the critics was Donald Trump, who should know a thing or two about the line between gleeful self-promotion and villainous sociopathy, so we take that to heart. So that, plus Peter’s epic stat-tastic data set analysis matrix (or whatever) have convinced us today we’re going to play it down the line.Yup, right… directly, down that… unbending line. Directly… forward, in a non-curvilinear fashion. And that’s as close as we’re ever going to come to saying it, so get over it.

The Naughty and Nice List, Part 1

Oh noes, it being the season of interminably pointless culture battles over decorated trees and shopping mall greetings, we’re compiling a list of who’s being good, and who isn’t, on the Caps bench. We know: all this is old and nobody cares.

But someone cares. And his name is Santa. Our Elfalicious list begins with:

Naughty: Toss up here. Michal Neuvirth, who we genuinely like, turned in a crap performance Monday. Yo it happens brah, we get it, but (at least if the numbers are to be believed) it’s happening a tad too much with you, and you canNOT blame the Sunrise mess only on lack of D. But then there’s two other guys we really like, who seemed to go out of their way to be idiots: John Erskine and Karl Alzner. Erskine’s punch-down of Bracken Kearns (which we swear is not something you studied in high school biology) seemed pointless – he’s a shrimp, nobody needed the up, and you got tossed out of the game for a butt-load of time. Not smart. Speaking of not smart…ugh, Alzner, we really really like you. But that last-minute boarding escapes us. Did you think ‘Gorsh, nobody’s a-lookin’!‘, or were you thinking at all? Lump of coal goes to: Neuvy.

Nice: Nicky’s clearly aiming for the Junior Red Ryder BB Gun, as he is just the utility fix-it down there. He’ll get his wish soon enough. Today, our candy cane goes to Coach Hunter, who had the balls to stick by Neuvy after a crap 1st period, and keep him from getting even more rattled. Teams like s**t like that.

The Puck Drop

Oy Gevalt, what, weren’t we just here? Like so much has changed, you need something said? Like a prophet I should be?

Look, we pretty much stand by everything we wrote last time. Go look it up for hot Sens pics and searingly brilliant analysis. Except we want to add a few thoughts:

Milan Michalek

• Taste of Honey: last time out we were singling out the players who counted – Alfredsson (son of Batman’s butler), Zach Smith (rly? Zach?! Nice parents) and Sergei Gonchar top among them. And these were the guys that figured…in Monday’s battle against Tampa Bay. Us? We got Erik Karlsson (or Karl Eriksson) who at 2G, 21A and -2 is helpful but not someone who should have been a top-line threat. Oh, and Milan Michalek, 16G, 6A and -2 is someone who actually did figure (and we warned about.) The point is that some of these kids were really sweet against us, while the “stars” (to the delusion that there are, actually, stars in Ottawa) weren’t so much. Perhaps we should watch for what we’re not expecting.
• Home Dull Home: Yes, we get to shamble on up to the Venice of the 50th parallel – Ottawa! Trust us, there’s not enough Molson in Canada to make Ottawa appealing. Still, we’re there, and they’re home. Which we generally don’t pay attention to, except while they’re 7-4-1 at home (compared to our whompin’ an’ a stompin’,) while we are 4-8-0 on the road. Only Anaheim (*coughJigglescough*) and the hilarious Blue Jackets stink worse. So there you go! Let’s beat the Ducks!  Hahah, oh wait, don’t.
• The “Bobby Brady” Effect: Yes, there’s actually a thing social psychologists measure called the “Bobby Brady Effect.”  Take our word for it.  Don’t get all stupid and start looking it up. Anyway, the third of a series can often be a little…well, Bobby Brady. Look, we’re sure that Mike Lookinland (we’re so confident we’re not even looking it up) is a perfectly nice fellow and not some meth-binging, butt-tatted loser living in a Reno trailer park. But “Bobby Brady”? Our point is that we’ve beaten up on the Sens twice, but both current stats and house odds say our number has to come up. Caps: do NOT count on showing up to play the third Brady (i.e., pushover) child Wednesday. Play like you’re playing Greg!

Erik Karlsson (Photo credit: Andre Ringuette)

The OT and Shoot Out: The entire NHL proposed re-alignment has us all in a muddle. It’s like moving into a new neighborhood where all the kids at school are a-holes. We can’t process.

But we can process what appears to be happening with Coach Hunter and the Caps. They’re building trust and confidence in each other. We’re no Pollyanna Princess Pony when it comes to reality: we get where we’re at exactly like everyone else does. But we’re just sayin…sorta like that tattoo you have and are embarrassed of, or that shite boyfriend (or two) you once had, or that can’t-lose Nigerian check transfer scheme, you probably feel worse about your mistakes than the rest of the world.

We’re thinking: we’re probably feeling a little worse about our season so far than the rest of the world. It’s not as bad as it seems. In fact, we think it might just be getting better. But perhaps not exactly just yet.

Doug Johnson of PuckBuddys writes for Russian Machine. Tweet tweet.

Anyone who’s had the misfortune to spend time in Ottawa has had the quintessential Canadian city experience: clean, cultured, and quietly disappointing. All the maple doughnuts and Labatt’s in the world can’t hide the fact that Ottawa is as appealing as lap dance from Marcus Bachmann. Puzzlingly, everyone seems mostly OK with this… albeit in a polite, deferential way. Ottawantarians seem to take civic pride in their shared, outstanding blahness. Just look the Senators.

First, there’s that name. Senators. Yeah, it’s a hat-tip to the first Senators to hit the ice way back when, winning a raft of Stanley Cups before moving down to St. Louis (we’d rather live in Ottawa, thank you) and disbanding after just a year. But then was then: how many teams have the word “Knickerbocker”, or “Stockings”, or “Amalgamated” in their names lately? Only in Ottawa (and tiny, deluded pockets of Washington) do people equate the word “Senator” with youthful male athleticism.

Senator

Second, when we think of the Senators, the first people who come to mind are those who aren’t with the team any more. Like the infuriatingly brilliant Jacques Martin, who arguably built up a new team from near scratch and got them Cup-ready, only to be heaved out on his ass by management. Hooray! How’d that work out for you, Sens? Or Mike Fisher, the aging center who, while decent when with Ottawa, we remember mostly for being dreamy. (We hear he’s living with some banjo player down south or something now.) We would continue *cough DanyHeatley cough*, but it’s tedious.

Which brings us back around to the Senators. Boring may be the nicest thing we can say about them. We get that they’re in a rebuilding phase, and that things can get– well– embarrassing. (Like the Detroit Lions for the last… three decades.) Whatever! Being our frosty neighbors to the north, we want to be respectful. But they’re not making it easy.

Daniel Alfredsson

The Senators are off to a slow start this year; rather like the year before, and the one before that. Their home opener had moments of good hockey, and got them a W, but it’s their only W so far. (And Thursday’s collapse to the Avalanche? Someone get me a bucket.)

38-year-old fossil Daniel Alfredsson (2G, 1A, minus-6) may be a short guy, but he’s solid, and turning in some solid performances so far this season. And what does it say about your team when the old man is the hot one – both on the ice, and off. (OK, not everyone gets the whole ‘ginger’ thing.) Newbie Craig Anderson may not be all that in the looks department, but he’s doing alright in the crease. He’s not posting Neuvy numbers, but they’re still at the low end of meh (.853 SV%, 5.07 GAA, 4 GP). And it seems his groin is holding up, unlike Neuvy’s.

Nikita Filatov

Czech winger Milan Michalek has tallied 3 goals and 2 assists so far this season, all the while maintaining his Bel Ami-inspired hair. Chris Neil‘s (1G, 1A) another player to watch during the game, as would have been Nikita Filatov (although for different reasons)until he received his bus ticket to Binghamton, to play on the Sens farm team. Former Caps D-man Sergei Gonchar is in the mix, but he’s done nothing notable since leaving Pittsburgh.

There’s more players we could go over, but why bother? The Senators have just not been able to make it happen offensively (maybe it’s a Canadian thing?) and– as the Avs debacle demonstrated– they’re hardly better on defense. But I dunno, you do just feel for these guys. Perhaps it’s all the crying we hear coming from their locker room? Sorry– make that stifled Canadian sobbing.

So let’s do something Washington has never done before, eh? Let’s just make a lazy, over-paid, over-nourished group of failures feel un-naturally welcome and self-entitled while we watch and laugh at their buffoonish antics, all while being fleeced for the privilege. Unless you get enough of that on C-SPAN. Anyhow – after our first three games (frenzies) of the new season, we’re certainly due to invoke some Senatorial privilege.