Photo credit: Nick Wass

Dale Hunter hoped to lead the Washington Capitals to victory in his first game as head coach. He’d have to go through Jaroslav Halak to get there, but more importantly he’d have to get a flagging Capitals offense moving.

Alex Ovechkin threaded the needle, setting up Nick Backstrom to record the first goal of the game. T.J. Oshie cleaned up a Alex Steen’s slapshot to tie the score at 1-1. Matt D’Agostini caught a lucky bounce and wrapped it around to give St. Louis the lead. Despite a late-game flurry, it ended like that. Blues beat Caps 2-1.

• Tomas Vokoun got his 20th career assist on the Backstrom goal. Also, 28 saves for the big guy, which should have been enough for a win.
• Matt Hendricks had a little scrap with Scott Nichol during the third period, perhaps just to give Alex Semin some company in the 30+ PIM club.
• 

  As seen on TV: Dave Prior, Olie Kolzig, Neil Greenberg

  Speaking of which, no penalties for Alex Semin. This is apparently worth a bullet now.
• The leadership of Jason Arnott has been dearly lacking among the Capitals this season. Off-season pick-up Troy Brouwer welcomed Jason back to Verizon Center with a stick in the face. Arnott bled, and the Caps had to kill a double minor.
• That 5-minute window of penalty killing in the second period doomed Washington’s offensive life. Natch.
• Alex Ovechkin‘s assist on the Backstrom goal was lovely and smart, but he otherwise continued to struggle with the puck. Ovechkin did not fire his first shot on goal until the third period. That could be expected as AO missed a big chunk of play during the 2nd period PK epoch. Total ice-time? 16:26, second lowest of the season.
• Catching a puck somewhere on his arm, Marcus Johansson left the ice at the tail end of the second period. He returned in the third period apparently unfazed.
• Jaroslav Halak had to stop hundreds of pucks to beat the Capitals in the 2010 playoffs. Tonight he needed only stop 18.
• The troubled Washington power play improved not even a little tonight. Apparently they don’t commit a lot of penalties in St. Louis.
• Here’s a link to the Corsi/Fenwick totals for this game. Even if you don’t understand the stats, just absorb all the negative numbers next to Caps players’ names and wallow in sadness.
• No goals against for Roman Hamrlik. This is apparently worth a bullet now.

With a marginally improved– or at least pleasantly masked– defensive performance, the Caps nonetheless struggled in the offensive zone. They got pushed to the margins, where they’d either cycle ineffectually or turn it over. More frequently, zone entries would be aborted by a St. Louis poke check or poor puck  control in general.

Joe B suit of the night

Those who expected Dale Hunter to be a panacea– an instant cure– deserve their disappointment. We must remain patient as this team tries to find itself. Installing a Capitals institution behind the bench might kick start the process, but we fans need to prepare ourselves for a month-long peyote-adled animal spirit journey.

We’ll need to wait a bit longer to see what kind of change Hunter can effect. Maybe all the way to Thursday, when Sidney Crosby and the Penguins bring their infuriatingly excellent brand of hockey to Chinatown.

But we can’t wait too long. This roster is packed to the salary cap, designed to win a championship soon. Scapegoating a coach might buy some time, but there is still a ticking clock for this team.

David Backes. (Photo credit: Jamie Sabau)

Doug Johnson of the PuckBuddys writes. Follow @PuckBuddys on Twitter.

The Unhappy and Unfunny Edition

The Pre-Game Practice

So. Anything happen over your holiday weekend?

Oof. Coach Juggles was jiggled out of the Caps hierarchy sometime late last week, so go the reports. But those who wielded the ax only announced it Monday morning. As if on Sunday we didn’t suspect our Regent would be decapitated; or that on Monday, after the quartering, they would all just expect us to blandly melt back into the blah-blah of our desperate little lives.

There’s been plenty of blah online in the last 36 hours, and in general on the Caps bench this season. Fine. But do not number us, your humble PuckBuddys, as among those celebrating the call for Boudreau’s head.

It is the right of every sovereign to decapitate those they wish…or at least was, in Elizabeth’s days. But who are we kidding? Today, it’s the unquestioned right of every sovereign owner of an NHL franchise – your Majesty – to chop off the head of any servant they see fit. Assuming they can buy out their contract.

Nobody’s Hot or Not Today

We just don’t care about our “clever” format tonight, listing players to watch for or conditions to be concerned about, all wrapped in a clever gumball cellophane. We now only have a growing list of worries, some of which we’ll enumerate, some you can fill in the blanks.

• Who’s #1? We saw plenty of juggling on the lines this season; and last, as Coach Mustard struggled to find the magic combination. We say: Caps, put your first line first: Semin, Backstrom and Ovechkin. Loose them on the ice and see what they can do. Do not hobble them with D-strategems they just haven’t adopted. Two games. See what they do. If they don’t do, you begin to have your larger answer.
• Confidence in the Net. We’ve not felt either Tomas Vokoun or Michal Neuvirth have performed to their abilities this season. Blame anything – just fix it. Vokoun is, without exception, an elite NHL goaltender in his prime. Neuvy has mad skills. Either of them is quality, but neither has performed well. Coach Hunter: pick one, give him a try, and let him and your entire team know you have confidence in them.
• D-Train. What’s been with the juggling on this line lately? Dennis Wideman and Roman Hamrlik? Are you trying to prove something to somebody (i.e., those who have written the checks?) Stop it. Tinker with the D a little, but not constantly. That’s, in part, how other teams capitalize on our flat-footed act – you need players who know how to read each other, and have been through this before. Repeat: Stop it. Pick a D and commit. That, or just go home.
• 8-10. Anyone waking up early and rubbing their eyes in an Ambien haze repeat after me: the Blues are 8 for 10 in the last 10 games. The Wings? Pittsburgh? Calgary? the Bolts? All falling before the Blues. And consider more: the Wings are on one of the hottest of hot streaks going. The Penguins (*barf*) are up to their old winning ways. Tampa is within one point of pwning us.
• The Stars Come Out. New coach, new era. Doesn’t mean new performance, but we do expect that every Capital who can draw laces on his skates will be performing at his very, very best on Tuesday. And Thursday. And Saturday. Coach Hunter, given his checkered past, we expect will not hesitate to put his boot in the ass of any underperforming Capital. And, for the moment, we expect his Most Gracious Monarch will consent to this treatment. But not, we expect, for long. For ultimately, many of the players hold serious money cards. Coaches are – tragically – expendable. Star players aren’t.
• Hello Friends, Old and New. Jason Arnott – who we said should NOT HAVE BEEN RELEASED- is doing just fine in St. Louis, thank you very much, at 4G, 6A and a +10. Jerk. Mind also that David Backes (9-16-+6) and consistent pest Matt D’Agonstini (5-4-+12) have been screwing things up for opponents of late. That and Jaroslav Halak (just 49 GA this season) in the net makes for a tough night. That and some guy who should be hosting his own restaurant, Pietrangelo or something, are making a muss of the ice lately.
• East St. Louis Toodle-Oo. We are ready to say Toodle-Oo to this last two week period, and ready to see the Blues in defeat in our rear-view mirror. New coach = new mirror. We’re looking ahead, and ready to put you this behind us.

The Shoot Out

We’ve actually read a fair amount of sane commentary about Coach Boudreau’s tenure of the Capitals…amid the tides of bile rushing in and out along our coastline. Was Bruce no longer what the squad respected? Did the ‘players coach’ become too close to effectively lower the boom? Do the problems lie with the coaching staff, the head office, or the players themselves? And who will we rush to blame when the Caps again fall into a slump, which inevitably, they will – precisely because every team does?

No. Nobody really wants to engage on this. It’s ‘Goodbye Bruce’, and ‘Hello Hunter!’

We welcome Coach Hunter, and wish him all the very best.

But Coach: beware the unanswered questions. It is precisely those that will devour you in the future. Just look at your predecessor.

Photo credit: Greg Fiume

The new-look Washington Capitals are certainly getting things done. And for the second time in as many games trade deadline pick-up Jason Arnott was the key to the Caps victory.

“They are great guys, experienced guys,” said Nicklas Backstrom, referring to the new acquisitions. “They have been in this league for a long time. They are great players too. I think that is what we need on this team. And hopefully we can just get as much advice and get together as a group before the playoff.”

The Capitals controlled the play early on, outshooting St. Louis five-to-one at the eight minute mark of the contest. However, it was the Blues who struck first as Alexander Steen converted on a three-on-two odd man rush at 11:25. Late in the first period, the teams began to ramp-up the physical play as Matt Bradley and Tyson Strachan dropped the gloves. Bradley ended the bout with a bang as he delivered three straight right hooks to Strachan’s noggin, sending him down to ice.

Washington evened things up early in the second period as Scott Hannan put home Alex Ovechkin’s pass from the corner at 3:08 — Hannan’s first goal as a Capital.

“He know how to find holes,” said Capitals head coach Bruce Boudreau. “He is very smart like that. He just doesn’t score that often.”

Just over two minutes after Hannan’s goal, however, the Blues jumped back out in front as B.J. Crombeen scored on another odd-man rush. The teams continued their back-and-fourth as Backstrom knocked home a game-tying line-drive up the middle just 1:34 after Crombeen’s goal.

Backstrom joked, “I have been working with Ryan Zimmerman [of the Nationals] this summer.”

For all the scoring early in the frame, goaltenders Ty Conklin and Michal Neuvirth shut the door in the remaining 13:12 of the period as the teams headed to the third noted up. Boudreau had particular praise for Neuvirth.

“I don’t know if he could have done anything on the goals,” he said. “I thought he made every save that he could see and that’s the qualities of a great goaltender.”

In the final frame, after Brooks Laich poke-checked the puck away from Roman Polak, Alexander Semin picked up the loose puck at center-ice and skated down the wing. Sasha Minor then delivered a perfect pass to Arnott, who put the puck home on the one-timer at 14:41 for his first goal in red, white and blue. It was the second tally of game for the second-line.

“I especially liked Arnott and Semin and Laich,” Boudreau said. “I think they like playing with each other and hopefully — who am I kidding, I am going to change it at one point — hopefully for a while I can keep them together.”

That’s it. Caps edge Blues, 3-2.

• With tonight’s victory, the Capitals have back-to-back home wins for the first time since November 26 and November 28 of 2010. For a team who dominated at home all of last year, what could have changed so much?
• For starters, maybe it’s the Capitals drive at the start of games. Washington, who led the League in first period goals last year, are last in the stat this year. They’ve managed to score just 39 goals in their 65 opening frames this season. Sequences like Steen’s three-on-two goal perfectly illustrate the problem. Both Ovechkin and Backstrom, who had just come on for a shift, lazily back-checked into the defensive zone, assuming someone else was covering Steen. Instead of hustling back into the play, both players glided along the ice and watched as Steen buried a one-timer past a helpless Neuvirth. Bruce Boudreau’s reaction? FURIOUSNESS.
• Hannan continued his stellar play tonight, blocking four shots in 21:37 of time on ice. His goal was the first Caps marker by a defenseman in 18 games. It was also Hannan’s first goal in 118 games but you wouldn’t have known it by the way he celebrated. He even trended on Twitter in U.S. midway through the second period. Nice catch, @DaveZeile09.
• Look at these rights! In the most one-sided fight of Bradley’s career, Strachan utilized the rarely used turn-your-back-to-your-combatant move and lost. Big Time. In regards to his actual play, Bradley also had a very solid all-around game, logging three shots, three hits, two takeaways along with one blocked shot.
• The Capitals new third line, or “The Marc Line™” as we like to call it, is so fast that no one can actually defend them except for themselves. If Mark (Jason Chimera’s new adopted first name), Marco, or Marcus had hands made out of anything but stone, the trio would have collected three goals alone.
• Neuvirth now has 21 wins this season, good for a team record for wins by a rookie netminder. Is it too late for him to be added to the Calder Trophy discussion?

Joe B's Suit of the Night

Washington has now won both their match-ups since the trade deadline, closing the gap on Southeast Division leader Tampa Bay — who they face-off against on Monday — to a single point.

“It is good for our confidence,” said Backstrom.

The Capitals face-off against the Panthers in sunny South Florida Sunday night. We’ll be here. Will you?

Additional reporting by Ian Oland.

Brads gets an entire post dedicated to this awesome first period knockout of Tyson Strachan because 90% of his fights he ends up looking like this. S/T to @ProffessorBrads.

Varlamov takes on all comers. (Photo credit: Tom Gannam)

[Ed. note: Peter has a fever and is kind of loopy. Go easy on him.]

Halak defeated thanks to Brooks Laich. (Photo credit: Tom Gannam)

Tonight the Washington Capitals had their first chance to exact vengeance on Jaroslav Halak since he shut the Caps down in the playoffs. Now suiting up with the St. Louis Blues, Halak is the most foreboding embodiment of the Capitals’ postseason woes besides perhaps the Caps themselves. In an uneven effort, the Caps managed to exorcise- at least partially- those Halak-faced demons. But the big story was Semyon Varlamov, who padded his highlight reel with some improbable, firecracker saves.

Brooks Laich scored a PPG on the Caps second shot of the night, a high puck right up in Halak’s face. Boyd Gordon recorded his first tally of the year by Jedi-mind-tricking Halak to bobble the puck in himself for the second time this year. The Blues woke up with a screened spin-shot from Alexander Steen that Varly never saw coming. In the third period, Knuble and Backstrom swapped roles: near the paint, 19 converted the rebound off 22′s high-slot slapshot. In the final minute, with the Blues net abdicated, Alex Ovechkin gave Nick Backstrom the empty-net goal layup. Caps beat Blues 4-1.

Bullets for the Blues.

• The Caps had a miserable time in their own zone, allowing many second and third and fourth and nth chances for the Blues. The blueliners lost fights in the corners, and the forwards couldn’t break out. Luckily, Semyon Varlamov was there to bail them out every time: 37 saves on 38 shots.
• The Blues led the Capitals in scoring chances 16 to 11.  The Capitals have the dubious distinction of having two chances both for and against while on powerplay. Varly, meanwhile, has improved his scoring chance save percentage to .895 (.850 is considered good).
• For the second game in a week, Varly was mousetrapped.
  Mousetrap (noun) – the act of pushing the net up and over the goalie’s head so that he becomes stuck under it not unlike in that popular Hasbro board game.
• Tomas Fleischmann was awfully quiet tonight. Too quiet…
• With faceoff specialist David Steckel out, Matt Hendricks (10 for 13) and Boyd Gordon (11 for 17) stepped it up while on the dot.
• Yeah, D.J. King got the secondary assist on that Boyd Gordon (read: Halak) goal, but does that really count? The oft-scratched brute recorded almost 8 minutes of ice time, but he didn’t get to fight his buddy Cam Janssen, who did not suit up tonight. Kind of makes Bruce looks like a chump for scratching Steckel, eh?
• Mike Green, who may or may not be injured, had 13 defensive zone starts tonight, but held his own in an otherwise quiet game.
• Did anyone feel cognitive dissonance when they played Katy Perry songs at a “Blues” game? St. Louis should play music only by people with nicknames like “Catfish” or “the Goose”.
• On Sunday we said the “playmaking, assist-taking team player” version of Alex Ovechkin may actually be the more exciting version. Is there any better of evidence of that than his selfless pass to Nicky for the empty-netter? An empty net is usually catnip to the Great 8. It’s invigorating to see this emerging maturity in the team’s captain. I don’t care if the goals ever come.
• Check out Matt Bradley’s face here. Just do it.

Joe B's suit of the night

It wasn’t a perfect game by any means. The defensive effort was shambolic, but Varlamov brought out his best goalie work of the year to counteract it. Jaroslav Halak, the goaltender haunting so many Caps forwards’ nightmares, had a little more Mr. Magoo in him than we remembered.  Does that mitigate the sense of relief in beating such a vaunted goalie? Not really, no.

Enjoy this first night of Hanukkah. Tomorrow night the Caps will do battle with the kinda-hot Dallas Stars. We’ll see you then.

Additional reporting by Neil Greenberg.

Conventional wisdom around the blogosphere was that the Capitals’ offseason needs included a second-line center and shutdown defenseman. So tonight it was a bit of a shock when it was announced that the Caps acquired rugged right wing D.J. King from the St. Louis Blues in exchange for prospect Stefan Della Rovere.

Yeah: WTF!?!

It’s a curious move, one that comes in response to coincidentally coincides with Max Talbot calling Alex Ovechkin a “real douche”.

It’s been reported that King recently signed a 2-year extension prior to the trade, so you have to wonder what GMGM’s plans are for the 4th line tough guy. Here’s our two guesses: send him down to Hershey, or use him as a healthy scratch almost every night.

Like most enforcers, his boxcar stats are – sparse. In fact, King only has 4 more NHL goals than I do and it took him 101 more NHL games to do it. Though his fighting skills are a bit more developed than mine:

DJ King is being brought to the Caps for one purpose: to punch an opposing player so hard that no one will even think about calling hitting one of their teammates a douche.

There are other “skills” DJ King brings to the table, like his amazing -4.45 GF/GA differential. Or his -7.7 Relative CORSI when he is on the ice.

With a whopping 67.6% of the time starting in the offensive zone, he managed to end there only 56.1 % of the time, so clearly he helps move the puck in the wrong direction.

Finally, there is his Penalty differential of -1.1, meaning he takes twice as many penalties as he draws and in hockey there is a clear positive correlation between penalty taking and losing.

Bah. Who am I fooling? He was brought here to kick ass. The real questions to ponder are:

1. Realistically, how often will he get a Caps sweater?
2. Whose spot does he take in the lineup?
3. (And yes, this question again.) Do the Caps really need an enforcer?

Let us know in the comments.