Ovi celebrates an early powerplay goal. (Photo credit: Patrick McDermott)

The Washington Capitals entered the new year with three wins in their rear-view and a convalesced Mike Green. Jarome Iginla and the Calgary Flames stopped in D.C. at the worst time.

Alex Ovechkin scored on the first shot of the night, a power play rocket one just 71 seconds in. Troy Brouwer crashed the net for number two, but Curtis Glencross got one back by snatching a behind-the-goal pass from Iginla. Nick Backstrom set up Dennis Wideman for the Caps’ third goal. Caps beat Flames 3-1.

Photo credit: Mitchell Layton

• The Capitals power play is a tremendous threat of late. They have converted 4 of their last 6 opportunities, including an admirable 2-for-3 tonight. The other 29 teams oughtta take heed.
• Centerpiece of that crackling PP unit is Alex Ovechkin, who has 9 points in the last 5 games. His last 4 have been multi-point games and he is riding a 7-game point streak. Ovi looks downright 2009-y right now, especially when he gets his shot total over 5 (just 3 tonight.)
• No slouch either is Nick Backstrom, with has 8 points in the last 5 games. He recorded assists on all 3 goals tonight and is quickly climbing the NHL point leader standings (42).
• Rene Bourque, the dick, hit Backstrom in the head and is totes gonna be suspended. [UPDATE: According to WP's Katie Carrera, Nicky is being evaluated by doctors tonight.]
• Sorry to bury the lede! Mike Green returned to action, clocking 15:43, committing a holding penalty and late-game interference penalty…
• But who cares!? Here’s all you should care about: The Caps with Mike Green are 9-0.
• Maybe Mike Knuble earned a promotion for being a good role player or maybe that’s just what happens when Alex Semin takes his regularly scheduled break from hockey. Knuble served on the second line, where he clocked 18:16. For contrast, he hadn’t peaked over 15 minutes since December 1st against Pittsburgh. His story tonight included 1 shot, a plus-1 rating, a forgivable slashing call during a breakaway, and a less understandable delay of game in the final minute. Kanoobs can do better.
• The Caps penalty kill was perfect again tonight on 4 shorthanded sessions. They have surrendered only 3 goals against in the last 10 games (23 opportunities).
• When he’s not bad, Tomas Vokoun is extremely good. Right now, he’s not bad. That’s all the goalie wisdom you’re gonna get out of me tonight.
• Sorry, Jarome Iginla. Goal number 500 will have to wait a little bit longer.

Joe B suit of the night

It wasn’t a dominating win– quite the opposite really, but it was more than enough to sate this horde of fans. We’ve been craving this consistency in winning since… well, since Mike Green got hurt in October.  Hey, did we mention he hasn’t played in a Caps loss so far this season?

Not bad. Now everybody flip on NHL Network and let’s watch Kuznetsov do his thing.

Crash the net.

Photo by Peter Robbio of Chirps from the Ledge

Doug Johnson writes for RMNB. He is a Puck Buddy, one of the dudes behind what Puck Daddy calls Blog of the Year 2011. Follow @PuckBuddys on Twitter.

[ring ring]

“Hello, Calgary Epicure Cigar and Pipe, may I help you?”

“Yeah, do you have Prince Alberta in a can? Bwahahahaha!!!”

[click.]

The Puck Drop: So OK, we’re not proud of how we began our New Year. I mean, sure,  it coulda been worse. We could’ve been busted by Johnny Law for something terrible and unimaginable like lighting off illegal fireworks. But, lol, who would do a dumb thing like that? Not us, that’s for sure!

Even though we did have cause to celebrate. Saturday night, when most sensible people were guzzling cheap booze and taking birth control, we were warming ourselves in the comforting glow of the Sony widescreen, watching as Ovi and Nicky and Wides and the rest shook off their end-of-year slumbers and handily downed the Blue Jackets in their own barn; ensuring that for at least the 18,000 gathered at Nationwide Arena it would be a crummy NYE. (Never, by the way, was there a more aptly named stadium for Columbus than Nation Wide.)

And this just after serving up some delicious, ice-cold Retribution Soup to the Sabres and the Winter Classic champion Rangers. Tee-hee, 2012 is starting to look pretty good after all!

But of course now we need to make it stick. 28 apparently cares after all, 19 never stopped, 25 has never been more alive, and 8 is starting to play great again. Which makes us nervous. Like Nicky said afterward, everybody basically needed to start working hard if they wanted to stick it. Just like a resolution, you gotta work at it if you want it.

Which brings us to our semi-ongoing series of self flagellation and improvement we like to call

New Year’s Resolutions

We have two today.

1. We resolve to spend more time talking hockey and less time littering our copy with  pop-culture references, like Alan Ginsberg or Justin Bieber or fat jokes. Prince Albert doesn’t count.
2. We’re going to try and give our opponent’s cities less of a face-washing in the coming weeks. Let’s see how long we last. So in keeping with #1, we come now to…

What Makes Them Hot

1: Class Act. We don’t write that enough, and may not even mean it when we do. But this time… we do. There’s a reason Jarome Iginla was a first round draft pick, and unlike some of his other firsty brethren, he’s proven his quality. 31 points (15G/16A) may not make him a league leader this season, but 40 games played does, which tells us this guy isn’t sitting on his 34-year-old laurels after breaking the 1,000 bar.  He’s a multi-season All-Star, a team goal leader, the first black captain of an NHL team, generous to a fault, and the sorta guy we want to be when we grow up. (Except we’re all growed up, and then some.) And just to prove that some people hit the cosmic lottery, he’s damn good-looking to boot.

Ed. note: Iginla could make this game interesting with another big milestone. Here’s RMNB graduate Neil Greenberg (currently of ESPN.com and The Washington Post) with details:

Olli Jokinen, ostensible human being

2: Jolly Olli. A 33-year-old center with a name that shrieks Suomi! (look it up), Olli Jokinen is the Flames’ point leader (12G/20A) and a much-needed threat for the squad. Generally speaking, Calgary isn’t front-loaded with snipers and hot-shoters (like, um, gosh who could we be thinking of?) and Jokinen is about as close as they come. While he seemed to really find his stride with the Panthers (boo!) and hit a bit of a slide over the last year, this may prove to be the Year of Yokinen. (Hey, it’s how you pronounce it, OK?)

3: Global Warming. The Flames, suitable to their name, ran a little hot this December. Yeah, they may only be 8 for 16, but that counts a slouch at the start and slumph at the end. Like Ohio, they were high in the middle while round at both ends. I’m not a stat-dog, but intuition and too much caffeine tell me that’s significantly different than teams that are hot/cold/ht/cld. Mm-hmmm? One suggests an ability to pull it together; the other, an inability to keep it so.

What Makes Them Not

Roman Horak

1: The Horak Nemisz Shuffle. So back in December Roman Horak was sent down to the Abbotsford Heat while Greg Nemisz was briefly called up. In keeping with our resolution, the nicest thing we’ll say about Nemo is, and we’re quoting, “he’s not a very civilized player.” No he isn’t…so what was really up with all that? Nemisz is gone, Horak is back, and while still nothing very special for the Flames (2G/7A), the whole affair seemed less about line needs and more about getting Horak’s head back in the game. Which is not a very good sign.

2: Road Trip! Tuesday the Flames will be in game 6 of a 7-game road trip. They popped their first two against the Canucks (nice) and the Blue Jackets (like who doesn’t?) but have dropped the last three. Badness for them started in Nassau with a 3-1 humbling by the Islanders. Yugh. Although we weren’t there (“Hey! Let’s all go to Long Island!” are never words that shall pass our lips) it’s safe to say the squad just seemed to give up, with only two who seemed to strap it on: Mikael Backlund (did I spell that rite?) and Tim Jackman. And they haven’t seemed to snap out of it yet, most recently falling 5-3 to the Preds. We proclaim them officially in funk-town.

3: History. We don’t meet up with Alberta’s second-best of two squad often. Our last two meetings, in late March 2010 ended with them topside 5-3, and then later in October with the Caps in the saddle, 7-2. Remember those days? Le sigh. And while basic numbers alone suggest we’re not really much better this season than they are, I sense we are. We’ve got more cannons to unleash, we’ve shown much greater spirit to come back and upend an opponent, and it just feels like the Flames’ hearts aren’t truly in it these days. We’re 3-0 in the last three, while they’re completely reversed at 0-3. Streaks are born to be broken, which is why we aren’t calling either of these a streak, just a trend.

What To Watch For

Up and down. Up and down. Awake and asleep. Fighting and dying. We’re watching for one thing only: are the Caps breaking out of their hot/not bipolar disorder, or no. It’s little things, like a hot check by Ovi, a rifle-shot from Sasha, a kick in the pants from Knooobs (or a kick in someone else’s by Chimmer) that suggest the answer. Nicky and Halpy and a few others we expect will continue to execute every moment, but will the rest of the team?

Today’s Post has been brought to you by the letter C. C for Calgary, and Caps. As in “Caps Can-Do Clobbers Catatonic Calgary.” Resolve to make that Wednesday’s headline. 

Meme of the Night

Additional reporting from  contributor emeritus Neil Greenberg. Read Neil’s work on ESPN.com.