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.

The Pre-Game: Oh Lordy, we hate being wrong. Especially if it involves Canada. What happened Saturday was nothing short of a national pantsing of the Caps on the equivalent of Canada’s national holiday (that admittedly comes once a week, and with lots of beer). We suspected it would be a high-scoring affair, but completely misread in which direction. Blah blah they were disconnected blither blather they weren’t moving their feet twiddle twaddle they weren’t chasing the pucks and so forth. Not my job to pick over Saturday night’s turkey carcass; others have done that far better. Let others pile on our Mustardy Coach. We’re looking forward to what’s being cooked up tonight.

The Puck Drop

There once was an old couple, well into their nineties. And they always disliked each other; never could stand the sight of each other, really. Finally one day, they got divorced. And people asked: “Why did you wait so long?” And the couple said: “Well, we wanted to wait until the children died.”

Arizona and hockey combine like tin foil in a filling; just caustically bad. I’ll never be convinced Phoenix ever really wanted the Coyotes, or the NHL thought it was a bright idea to move to the land of retirees and peyote. But here they are, locked in a loveless marriage, waiting until the children die to admit their mistake. And now we have to deal with them as they come over for dinner. Happy Holidays.

The Coyotes (“Cai-yotes?”) are one of those teams no-one expects much from, thus rarely disappoint. They do, however, at moments perform like…well, not so much a polished puck-dominating machine (think Red Wings, glory days) as more like decent fellows who nonetheless know how to take advantage of a weakened partner. The Coyotes are the guys in Mexico your mother always warned you about that would slip a roofie into your drink if you were stupid enough to take it.

What Makes Them Hot

Taylor Pyatt

1:Sparks. In any universe, Paul Bissonnette (1-0-1) would be a star. So would Taylor Pyatt (2-4-6). But in this particular universe, they’re really not, ceding the ground to Radim Vrbata (8-7-15), Lauri Korpikoski (3-4-7) and Martin Hanzal (3-8-11), names that would probably be more at home in a Grimm tale*. Still, these three guys are at home on the ice, supporting and boosting the Yotes principal drives (along with defender David Schlemko, more on him in a minute) and pushing them up to a respectable 10-5-3. Controlling them is key. That said, there is nobody who has dreamier eyes than Taylor Pyatt, and you can quote me on that. He should be outlawed.

2: Synergy. Netminder Mike Smith (2.16 GAA), at 6’4″ yet another in the growing trend (har har) of monsters in the twine, is lately sporting a .936%, which puts him in the NHL’s top ten. (OK, top third, if you want to be jerks about it.) Yet it’s not just Smitty’s work in the net, but his fellow defenders as well who can take credit. Rusty Klesla and David Schlemko don’t just have two of the best names in hockey, but they’re some of the best D-men today, meshing with Smith in batting away opponents trying to move pucks to goal. We could take a lesson.

3: Heart: These sections have taken on a strange, 80′s band theme, which we’re stopping now. Still, you have to admit: we didn’t look like we had much heart on the ice in Toronto. Slumps are; laziness happens. Like we said, Arizona is a team just waiting to capitalize on a stronger team that’s acting inconsistently. They’re getting second efforts. They’re playing like guys who aren’t just going to work.

What Makes Them Not

Paul Bissonnette, @biznasty2point0

1: Rage At The Machine: This, and the above item, are admittedly not based on digits and numbers and tables and spreadsheets and everything else people use to try and convince themselves they can understand our unpredictable world. I respect the number crunchers, but have spent enough time around horse tracks to know that everyone’s got a scheme, a formula, a magic something that will predict the outcome of any contest. And, most of the time, they’re wrong. Sometimes a horse just has heart to run hard – or that competitive drive to want to kick dirt in their opponents’ face (yes, horses really do this.) What I’m sensing is an anger, a hard drive, starting to emerge among the Caps unofficial leaders, to spray a little more ice in their opponents faces. Nurture that rage.

2: Crowded House: Smarties will know this better, but watching a few Yotes reviews, their talent (see above) looks like it can tend to chase and crowd the puck, not allowing for good play and transitions between forwards. Given the Caps’ weakness of late in our zone, this may be something we can exploit – to keep away from the net, swipe from their control, and move aggressively on their goal. Then again, what do I know? (Enough to not wear stripes and plaid – SNAP!)

Lauri Korpikoski

3: The Fixx: OK, now we’re just making it up. Except for this: Coach Boudreau – for whom we have great affection and enormous respect – is up against it. He’s tried nice coach; he’s tried hard coach. Now he needs to be Fix-It Coach. Sasha needs to stop his bad behavior and start performing up to his potential – period (Sorry Sasha!) Green’s recovery can’t be rushed, but as soon as he’s able he needs to be back on the ice. Brooks, Ward, Wideman, Halpy are all performing well; Brouwer and Knoobs need more time at the net. Ovie needs to start waking the hell up. None of these things happens without a coach to make it happen. Coach B: Make It So.

Prediction: Ha ha! This is where you all get to laugh at me, yet again. Whatever, chumps; at least I’m taking a line. My line: Caps 3, Coyotes 1.

The Shoot Out

Our benevolent overlords at RMNB have graciously allowed us to pimp the latest PuckBuddys joint: Caps Night Out! This December 3 – Caps v. Sens – the PuckBuddys are sponsoring (Instigating? Occupying?) the first official/unofficial Capitals Night Out, when the organization specifically welcomes GLBT fans to the Phone Booth. We, and TeamDC, are already sold out of tickets, but we’re encouraging everyone so inclined to buy up tix, come to the game, and be out loud and proud that night. Well, every night, but that one in particular. We can’t promise Taylor Pyatt, but there might be a surprise or two that night. Whatever; just come and party with us.

*We so had another joke here, but in interests of international harmony and not being jerks, we went with the lamer “Grimm” gag.