Capitals goalie Michal Neuvirth spoke to the Czech website iSport.Cz on Monday, and boy oh boy did he have some fascinating opinions to share. Talking with František Suchan, Neuvirth departed from the meek personality he’s cultivated since joining the Capitals in ’08-’09 and spoke with remarkable candor about a wide range of topics. We’d like to direct your attention to his quotes on the goalie situation in D.C.— both last season and in the future. Neuvy says he considers Braden Holtby his “weakest competition” since he’s been in D.C., expresses his frustration over always being the “bridesmaid” in net, and admits that he urged Tomas Vokoun to sign with the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Get ready to have your mind blown.

UPDATE: Read our statement on interpretation and translation.

Related: Read Part II of the interview.

From iSport.Cz:

On his position as starting goalie on the club

It’s true that until now, I have never been an official number one. But I have played just over a hundred games in NHL. That’s nothing. I’m starting the season sure that I want to play forty/fifty games and I am really sure that I have the weakest competition (Braden Holtby) I’ve ever had. I will try to be number one goalie this season. Finally!

They say you’ve always been a bridesmaid in the crease, not the bride. You are always the second. How do you see it?

But it’s important to look at which players always were in tandem with me. At first – the Russian [Semyon Varlamov] who was always in front of me because he was drafted higher and played in the NHL sooner. It was hard to get in front of him. But in the end I played much more than he did. Last year, I had Voky (Tomáš Vokoun) next to me and I guessed in advance that he would probably get more space in the goal than I would. I came to camp ready, but it the end the season was as it was… I left it behind and I’m starting the new one ready to fight for my spot. This is the turning-point year in my life; it will decide where will I go on with my career.

In the end, neither of you (he and Voky) started in the playoffs, although you were supposed to be the Czech tandem going for the Stanley Cup…

It ended the worst it could have. But they say everything bad is good for something, and that’s how I take it. At least I had great fun with Voky. I got to know him as a person, I got to see how he gets ready, how he practices, what he does before the game and that helped me a lot. Besides we got really close, we are still in touch, I and my girlfriend visited him on Florida for a few days. We became great friends.

In the end you both got replaced by Holtby thanks to injuries…

[Vokoun and I] were both really sorry about that. We were angry that neither of us started in the playoffs, there’s no doubt in that. But that’s the life, things like that happen in sports, and we can’t do anything else than to forget about that last season. Voky is going to fight in Pittsburgh and I in Washington.

You mentioned that Holtby is the weakest competition, but he was awesome in playoffs, don’t you think?

He sure is a great goalie. But I can’t compare him to Voky or Varlamov, that’s what I meant. In comparison to those two, he played nothing in the NHL and that’s why I take him as the weakest of them three. I’m definitely not saying that he is bad, not at all. I actually like the way he plays. But he is the worst of them three, that’s all.

I’m not afraid because of how he did in the playoffs. I think that a year ago I played in the playoffs the same as he did now. They always say that the second season is the turning point, I’m curious how he will do…

He is a friend, too, of course. I actually always try to be friends with the other goalie, I don’t like to start a fight. We get along with Holtby pretty well, we played together for two years on the farm club. He was my number two there, when we won the Calder Cup twice, so we have known each other for a long time, over four years. We are not such friends to go out for dinner with each other, but we sit next to each other in the locker room and we always chat. But we don’t do “dates.”

On injuries

I’m definitely doing things not to get injured again. That’s what I focused on during the summer, I’m trying to make stronger those parts of my body that hurt me before when there was a hard moment during the season. But last year it was different, I was well prepared the whole time and then a player fell on me when I was in a split. You can practice all you want, but you can’t stop getting injured in such a situation.

On Vokoun

I was the one who advised him to leave for Pittsburgh. I know he had many offers from Russia [Editor's note: Vokoun had been rumored to be considering joining the reformed Lokomotiv team], but I told him not to go there especially. Just when I was at his place, a few teams contacted him and I told him to go with the Pens. He has a big chance to win the Stanley Cup there. Besides, they told [Pens goalie Marc-Andre Fleury] he will play less, because his last playoffs didn’t really work out as well. Anyway, what’s written on paper in the summer doesn’t mean much, anything can happen during the season. That’s why I am glad Voky signed with Pittsburgh, I think he did the best thing he could. I’m sure his wife and other guys advised him as well, but maybe my opinion helped him decide as well.

That is some straight talk from the goalie who really has carried this team’s water for the past two seasons. You may not agree with his assessment of Braden Holtby, and you almost certainly find his tolerance of Pittsburgh detestable, but the kid has earned the right to speak.

Now stay tuned, ’cause the next part of this interview is even wilder.

Translated by the inestimable Karolina Martinková of hockey-on.blogspot.cz. Ian Oland contributed to this report.

We swear the puck went in.

We really want to talk to the person who gave their tickets to these guys. (Photo credit: Greg Fiume)

There was certainly a special buzz in the air today. With most schools shutdown and most work-places deserted for the upcoming Christmas holiday, Caps fans traveled in droves to Kettler Capitals Iceplex to cheer on their hometown team during their pre-game skate. Why? Because the Pittsburgh Penguins were in town.

The energy the Caps felt in the morning certainly translated to the game as one minute in, Alex Ovechkin laid out frenemy, Evgeny Malkin, with one of his biggest hits of the season. The crowd went wild. The Penguins lost their composure. And seconds later, as Evgeny Malkin looked for retribution, he took a two minute interference call. The Capitals get a powerplay!

Unfortunately for our heroes, there was too much standing around, and there wasn’t enough crashing of the net in their ensuing man advantage. The Penguins savvily killed off the powerplay and seized back momentum immediately on a beautiful deflection goal by Sidney Crosby at 3:21.

Thirty-one game minutes later, the Capitals tied it up at the tail end of a 5-on-3 powerplay. Mike Green, who had pinched-in to the top of the face-off circle, riffled a slapshot to the top corner of the net. The game stayed tied 1-1, until the beginning of the third, when Sidney Crosby challenged three Capitals players, flicked the puck towards the net, and found Chris Kunitz who backhanded a shot home.

Things looked dicey until team leader Mike Knuble converted on a crazy 2-on-1 goal while the Caps were shorthanded. The two teams then went to Overtime. Despite what looked to be another goal by Mike Green, the extra five minutes of 4-on-4 hockey could not decide a victor. After an exciting shootout, Pascal Dupuis scored at the bottom of the 7th round. Pens beat Caps 3-2 (SO).

One point is better than none.

• Mike Green was the hero tonight. He resembled a prized heavyweight fighter. Despite playing injured and absorbing big hit after big hit during the game, Greener gave absolutely everything he had and never faltered. He finished the night with a goal, six shots, eight hits, and 5 blocked shots in a staggering 34:03 of ice time. When Tom Poti took a friendly-fire high stick in the first period, the Caps were forced to go with five defenseman for the rest of the game. Green anchored the defense and his steady play was what kept the Capitals afloat.
• Mike Green Double Bullet! When Mike Green was asked if he thought his shot crossed the goal-line in Overtime, he told Katie Carrera, “100%. I’m not going to sleep tonight.” It’s pretty clear that Marc-André Fleury, took the puck over with his gloved hand. But when you don’t have a camera literally under the ice to show this, there’s nothing the referees can do. Just a bummer.
• Speaking of Marc-André Fleury, he was spectacular tonight, stopping 32 of 34 shots. His glove hand was unbeatable, and minus his unneeded flashiness with the simplest of saves, I can almost respect him as a player. He was your game’s number one star.
• Matt Cooke sure has been entertaining on 24/7. Tonight, he continued to be charming by accidentally rifling a clearing attempt during a Caps power-play 185 feet, and into the netting behind Michal Neuvirth. I have never seen this live in a game in my life, and I’ll be honest, I laughed. Hard. Cooke’s boneheaded mistake led to the Capitals first goal. Thanks, dude.
• Alex Ovechkin hit everything that moved and played with a fiery passion. He ended the game with five shots and five hits. Eventually, the goals will come with superior efforts like this.
• Michal Neuvirth was also superb tonight. He stopped Evgeny Malkin – by guessing backhand – on a penalty shot and had 25 saves.
• Look, sometimes I don’t understand Bruce Boudreau. Last year, when the team won, he wouldn’t touch his lines. This year, his lines seem to change every other period no matter how the team is playing. I was hoping tonight to see the 25-90-63 line stay together as they put up two of the Capitals five goals Tuesday night. Instead, Eric Fehr replaced Gordo on the right, and the third and fourth lines were unbearably unproductive.
• We noticed that someone tweeted that this was Scott Hannan‘s best game as a Cap. However, he was on ice for seven chances for, six against, including two more chances against during the PK. We don’t see it.
• Finally, the Penguins, whose dramatic playoff victories over the Capitals during my adolescence have scarred me for life, always seem to find a way to win – even if the Capitals outplay them. Tonight was another glaring example of this. The Capitals out-chanced the Penguins 48 to 32, outshot them 34 to 27, and generally outplayed them in every period except for a few minutes in the third. No matter if it’s a flittering Petr Nedved shot that somehow finds the back of the net in the fourth overtime, a frustrating Johan Hedberg save, or a 6-2 drubbing in a Game 7, that team and their [insert bad word here] fans annoy me. Sure, the Caps have not lost to the Penguins in regulation for nine straight games. But those kind of stats ignore the brutal history of the rivalry. I want to beat these [insert bad word here] every time we play them. And tonight, with the HBO cameras rolling, we must endure another what-could-have-been moment and then relive it epically produced next Wednesday. Dang it!

Joe B.'s suit of the night, featuring Locker clutching a bottle of wine and wearing his Winter Classic toque

BBBB summed it up best at the end of the night: “It was two really good teams going at it, and we lost at a skills competition.” Ugh. But we should consider ourselves lucky. We got to witness our sport at its best. 65 minutes of awesome, smash-mouth hockey. As Sidney Crosby said, “both teams make each other better.” And it’s hard to argue with that. Tonight, felt like a playoff game. It felt like two teams that really don’t like each other, who would do anything and everything to win. Players were getting high-sticked almost every shift. Guys were diving on the ice to block shots. Players were giving max effort at every moment. It was fun to watch.

This game should be the perfect prelude for the Winter Classic now only 8 days away. With games Sunday at Carolina and Tuesday at home against the Habs, the Capitals have two more tune-ups before one of the most exciting and hyped games in it’s franchise 46 year history. We cannot wait.

Additional reporting by Neil Greenberg

Thanks, Jack Reickel, for the amazing picture!

It seems the Caps of old are back. The last few weeks, really ever since the Olympic break, the team has lacked its luster. But in this fourth and final game against the Pittsburgh Penguins, the Washington Capitals brought a ton of heart and their signature roll-call scoring with them.

Thanks to goals from Alex Semin, Mike Knuble, Tomas Fleischmann, Matt Bradley, and then two more from some other guy, the Caps emerged victorious. Maybe it’s the Penguins are flagging late in the season, or maybe the Caps really are the better team. Watching the despondent faces of Pens fans trickling out of Mellon Arena, it doesn’t matter much to me; I’m just happy.

Let’s never go back to Pittsburgh. ‘Tis a silly place.

• Alex Ovechkin scored two hilarious goals. One was a quick wrister four seconds into the Caps’ first and only power play of the night. The second was an empty netter with one second left in the game. That ties OV up with Sidney Crosby in the Rocket Richard race. This is hilarious for many reasons, but that these cheap goals will infuriate Sidney’s acolytes is the one that makes me smile widest.
• Mike Wise in tomorrow’s Post: “The problem for rockin’-the-red Washington at the moment is, Sidney Crosby is at least two leaps ahead at the moment.”  Already out of date.  Sigh.  Mike, respectfully, please leave hockey to the real amateurs.  (Us.)
• The Penguins received one penalty one the night, the Caps four. If you think that this is because the Capitals are less disciplined than their foes, you have not been paying attention.
• Perhaps the parade of penalties was a deliberation on the Caps behalf; it gave the team many chances to practice their leaky penalty kill unit. 3-for-4 doesn’t change the team stat, but the PK made its way up to shut-down mode by the end of the third.
• Sidney Crosby‘s “goal” was totally deflected in by Bill Guerin and his spray-on tan. Fess up, NHL tallymen. You know I’m right.
• Nicky Backstrom wields ninja-like puck skills, but his intentions are transparent: do something ninja-like and then pass it to Ovie.  The best break in the world loses its surprise if the goalie knows you’re going to pass it to GR8.   Those 31 goals could be many, many more.
• Marc-Andre Fleury‘s temper tantrum on his way to the locker room tickles me in a place that is not oft-tickled.  It’s a physical manifestation of the Capitals setting up residence INSIDE HIS MIND!  See you in two weeks, MAF.
• Hey, let’s look at that empty net goal again. Hahahaha.

• How did Shaone Morrisonn manage to get a -2 rating in a game where his team wins 6-3? Do you have to try to get scored on? Was this a dare?
• Not-Center Tomas Fleischmann showed some fury tonight, but man, he is not doing the job on the faceoff. 3/13 = 23% = BrendanMorrisonComeBackToUs!
• Semyon Varlamov had 26 saves, many of which he had no business saving. Is he back? Don’t jinx it! (But yeah, he is.)
• Okay, last time. I promise. Let’s check out that empty netter.

Two games to go. Stay frosty, boys. It’s a long road.

Springtime was magical. Puck fans watched with rapt attention as the Capitals overcame a 3-game deficit to beat the Rangers, and we felt like we were living in charmed times. ”Could this be the year the Caps actually do it?”, we would whisper to ourselves in quiet corners.  The team never looked better than it did during those last four games against New York, and we wondered how far it could go.

We would gather at our friends’ houses, donned in red, and we would cheer the team from afar.  Tickets were just too darn expensive, so we’d need to pick our game well. Not attending wasn’t an option. The team was too good to miss. Semyon Varlamov had risen from obscurity to become the Kerri Strug of goalies (that is, lithe and successful). The trifecta of Semin, Ovechkin, and Backstrom had turned D.C. into a veritable hero city. Mike Green and his ever-shrinking mohawk was weaponeering his defense. And a young team rallied around its senior Russian, Sergei Federov.

So when the Caps moved up two games over the Pittsburgh Penguins in the conference playoffs, we knew it was our time. We would secure tickets to the Caps Stanley Cup finals. But everything started to go pear-shaped, and we began to worry if such a series would arrive at all. The Pens snatched the next two games, and we were in a pickle.    My friends and I advanced our schedule and procured tickets to the tentative game seven of the Pens-Caps series.

For a while, we wondered (half relieved) if those tickets might not be used at all. The Caps might seal the deal at Mellon Arena, and we’d have to wait to see them in the finals. Tiny anthropomorphic Cups named Stan began to dance in our dreams, but soon the boys began to slip. Malkin and Crosby no longer seemed immune to Semyon Varlamov’s goalie fu, and worse– the team began to drag on the ice. Even senior puck statesman Sergei Federov could no longer summon GWGs out of thin air. Washington had fought tooth and nail to get a game seven, and they only sealed the deal because David Steckel managed to find a lucky gap during OT of game six.

So we had a date with Verizon Center. And destiny. May 13th came upon us like a rabid badger laced up in dull ice skates– which means it was real tense. Leaving my capacious family estate (read: two-bedroom cape cod) in Frederick, I made my way to the Shady Grove Metro station. Covered I was– in red and anxiety alike.

Rock the red (line from Shady Grove to Chinatown.)

The red line to Chinatown was redder than it has ever been. I tell you this, my friends: you will never experience shared fraternity like among the passengers aboard that train. Solemn nods and fist bumps occupied us during our pilgrimage.

Exiting onto F Street, I was greeted by a marching band beating out syncopated tunes of glory. One bulky gentleman-fan chose to brave the brisk temperatures of May and go shirtless– his chest smothered in red paint save for a hairy white “8″ on his back. My repulsion was matched by an equal measure of excitement. This was my first Caps game since the lockout and the early, salad days of Jaromir Jagr’s tenure. I’ve seen many Redskins games, but the fanatacism at Landover was always tempered by a smattering of self-effacement. Here in Chinatown I was among true believers, folks who were genuinely inspired by the happy few we were about to watch. On the street walked only a few Penguins sweaters, the bodies therein keeping a cautious distance from packs of wild Caps fans running wild in the street.

Our seats were less than ideal, somewhere in Verizon Center’s 400 section, but they were not quite as high as our spirits. If the Capitals’ play could only match our verve, we’d be champions for sure. Little did we know that the fates and furies had been conspiring to collectively defecate on our victory parade.

Vantage point to disaster.

Twenty minutes in and the Capitals seemed to lost somewhere in the locker room. Sidney Crosby, the purse-lipped diva of the Penguins, had netted the first mark of the night during a power play. Surely, we thought to ourselves, the Caps could come back in the second period. Where was Mike Green’s slapper from the blue line? Where was Alexander Ovechkin’s bull rush offense? Where was Brooks Laich’s Unbearable Laichness of Being? Surely, these offensive secrets were hiding somewhere in the second period.  Right?

Reader, they were not. Inside the seemingly endless middle frame lived three more Penguin goals by three other players, as if they intended their goal summary to double as the team’s roster.

In those closing minutes of the second period, my friends and I breathlessly buttressed one another.  ”This is where epic comebacks are mounted.  The story you tell your grandchildren on your deathbed, the one about The Great Eight and his unpunctuated double-hat trick to beat the Penguins– it starts here and now.”  For a sixtieth of second, we almost believed it. The Caps offense might still have something for us.

And they did. It was this: the lamest goal ever.

That was the first time I saw Alexander Ovechkin score in person. The game summary says Alex was unassisted, but I clearly saw Marc-Andre Fleury PASS HIM THE PUCK. This was the man who brought us the superhuman athletics of The Goal, but now he brings such measly offerings– skating the puck into an empty net at the blistering speed of meh. But the suckers we were– we exploded into conniption fits like Japanese kids watching Pokemon. I’m sorry. I didn’t know any better.   I was just relieved to see some sign of life from the undead Caps.

I cannot accurately relate to you the mood at the Phone Booth during the second intermission.  I remember only fleeting feelings, confusion chief among them. Some fans adopted a familiar Washington defense mechanism (“the bums can’t play!”), and others were filled with bewilderment and sympathy. Everyone was sure of one thing: Something is wrong in the District of Columbia.

It would be another day or two before we knew the full story. Much of the team had the flu. Mike Green had a separated shoulder, which explained his erratic slapshot performance. Alexander Ovechkin was skating on a broken toe or somesuch pain. Jeff Schultz played with a broken rib. Semyon Varlamov, now pulled from the net, could not have been more mentally broken down if he were subjected to the Ludovico technique. The playoffs had deconstructed and destroyed the Capitals’ health. They were now playing hurt, running off fumes against the lubed-up hockey machine from Steeltown.

I don’t have the heart to detail for you the goings-on of the third period. I can tell you there was a double minor, another Crosby goal, and an arena full of despondent fans. Even TheHornGuy‘s emphatic fanfares could not bring back the magic.

But a curious thing happened in those final minutes of the Caps’ not-quite-Cinderella season: Applause. It started modestly– a few die-hards who wanted the bench to hear their commitment. Then it spread. By the final minute of play, Verizon Center erupted into standing ovation: an expression of gratitude and admiration for the season then ending. The Washington Capitals pushed themselves as far as they could go and found the brick wall at the worst possible time. It happens, but it doesn’t make them less heroic. The final buzzer was drowned out by a sea of redshirts congratulating their team. Final score: 6-2.

I have a confession to make. I’ve been to about  two dozen Caps games since my teens, and I’ve never seen them win. Not once. Not during the storied spring of ’98, not at the 2000 home opener, not at game five of the ’01 series against the Penguins, and during Jagr’s sentence in Washington. You can blame the Capitals’ collapse in May on a lot of things, but we can all agree that some blame falls on my shoulders. For this, my fellow fans, I apologize.

Hard to Stomach looking at this... again. (AP Photo)

But here we are, many months since May, facing off once again against the Pittsburgh Penguins. They who handed us our most humiliating defeat last year will likely try to do so again.    But we are a team renewed.  The 2010 Caps are made of concrete, a tightly knit unit that know how to face adversity.  We all know that every path to the championship goes through Pittsburgh. Without the absolutes of injury and exhaustion facing our favorite team, tomorrow’s decision resides entirely with the question of Character. Who’s got it, and who does not?

Alex, Alex, Nicky, Mikey, little Michael, Brooksy, Brandon, Nasty, Davey, the two Tommies, Tyler, Shoane, Theo and the rest are likely snug in their hotel beds by now. Maybe little Stanley Cups are dancing in their heads. When they wake up Thursday morning, Coach Bruce would do well to remind them of the lessons of May 13th.

Clear eyes. Full hearts. Can’t lose.