Photo credit: Jonathan Hayward

The Washington Capitals ended their expedition through Western Canadia with a game against the Vancouver Canucks. These being the two most offensively potent teams of the last two seasons, the Saturday night bout had the rapt attention of all of Canada and the five or six D.C.-area fans who didn’t get invited to Halloween parties (e.g. us).

Tomas Vokoun left the net to play the puck, but retreated back just in time for Maxim LaPierre to bank it off his skates and into the net. Alex Ovechkin returned fire with a swat that rolled behind Roberto Loungo’s tuchas. On the power play, Christopher Higgins had all night to shoot, grab a rebound, and shoot again. Alexander Edler zeroed in on the net early into a power play to make it 3-1. Alex Ovechkin fired a laser pew pew pew on the power play. Mike Knuble put enough stank on his penalty shot for it to wobble past the goalie– tie game.. Edler struck again, one-timing from wide open after a pass from one of the Sedin twins. Marcus Johansson seized on a bad Canucks line change to beat Luongo and tie the game.

Then Alex Ovechkin committed interference, and it all went to hell.

Relief goalie Michal Neuvirth bobbled the  puck to give Henrik Sedin for an easy tip-in. Soon after, Chris Higgins skated past a wiped-out Sean Collins to give Canucks a two-goal lead. Maxim LaPierre’s semi-breakaway made it a three-goal lead. Canucks beat Caps 7-4.

• 

  @MilyVanilly invades Vancouver

  At the beginning of the second period, Michal Neuvirth made his return to the ice– his first since the first game of the season. Don’t blame it on Tomas Vokoun, who has been pulled only 45 times in 614 games according to Joe Beninati. The first intermission demanded a change, and Bruce gave Mikey a chance. Let’s just say Neuvy was getting the rust off and leave it there. Between him and Vokoun, they faced well above 40 shots, which tells us that problem on the ice was somewhere in front of the G spot.
• The Capitals of the first period played their worst 20 minutes of hockey so far this season. The Canucks owned the puck, played more physically, and exploited their powerplay opportunities. Meanwhile, the Capitals couldn’t enter the offensive zone, kept getting smacked around, and got outmaneuvered while on penalty kill.
• Sean Collins is a good hockey player, and he’s pretty quick for a defender. But he only shows up when someone’s hurt and he was plainly outmatched against the Canucks forecheck and quick pace. One could argue that two goals against could be put on his shoulders.
• The Canucks are a good hockey team partially due to their fantastically aggressive forecheck. In much the same manner that Tampa Bay pwned our Capitals, Vancouver kept pressure on defenders, turning over breakout attempts and creating way too many secondary chances. Is Washington particularly susceptible to this strategy because of their offensive eagerness? Does goal-scoring zeal lead to defensive lapses? Food for thought once you sober up.
• Alex Semin‘s hooking penalty (at least in the defensive zone this time) puts him at 12 PIMs on the season. Team leader!
• Alex Ovechkin loves Hockey Night in Canada, and he loves multi-goal games. He has now regained the team lead from Jason Chimera and dear god is that actually true? Alex’s eagerness for a hat trick probably led to his interference call, which would’ve been understandable were it not in the offensive zone during the third period of a tied game. The ensuing power play yielded the game-winning goal.
• We should be grateful for the coverage that CSN provides. Replaying two Caps penalties after the whistle, CSN revealed bad calls: It was Ryan Kesler’s stick (not Joel Ward’s) that was high, and Troy Brouwer’s delay of game was actually a deflection off a Vancouver stick. We hear that other hockey fans around the league don’t get that kind of competence, so here’s us saying thanks, dudes.
• Mike Knuble drew a penalty shot, only the second of his 273-year-long career. At first we were worried that he might not know what to do– that he might skate the wrong way or hold the blade end of the stick. These fears were unfounded. Then we were worried he would need a break skating from center ice to the net– perhaps taking a breather around the blue line while asking the linesman why they’re not making new episodes of Monk anymore. That didn’t happen either. Instead, Kanoobs barreled towards Luongo with enough oomph to score. It was a typically ugly goal for the old man, which is to say– it was beautiful.

Let’s get the hell out of Canada. It’s a stupid place, full of stupid people and stupid poutine. All the cool Canadian people had to come to America before they did anything cool: Trebek, Moranis, J. Fox, that’s it– end of list. The Capitals’ northern exposure gave us two losses in two games, and we didn’t even get to see Mike Green squinting on the bench looking all cool. Aside from a fun second period, this game was a total bummer.

Joe B suit of the night

It’s after midnight on the Saturday before Halloween. No one is reading this thing except for drunk people dressed like sexy nurses and Steve Jobs. So here’s a bunch of things that have nothing to do with hockey: A puppy sitting on another puppy, Anamanaguchi’s “Helix Nebula”, a picture of a baby ferret to placate Ian, insane speculation/spoilers for A Game of Thrones that you SHOULD NOT READ, a picture of my bulldog Georgia, Wikipedia list of people killed by their own inventions, aaaaaand animals being dicks.

Back to hockey. Nevermind; this game sucked. Let’s just end it.

Ian informs me that our t-shirt store is offering free shipping until midnight on Sunday.  Now is the perfect time to buy your mother-in-law that IN-SEMIN-ATION shirt. Use the coupon code WITCHINGHOUR.

Anaheim comes to town on Tuesday, along with our boy Andrew Gordon. We’re gonna rip him to shreds.

Have a happy Halloween everyone. Send us your hockey-themed pumpkin pics and look out for razor blades in your candy apples.

You know the deal: Doug Johnson. Puck Buddys. Twitter.

The Puck Drop: Well, that was unpleasant, Caps.

That “nervous feeling” we had?  A little too much rest, a little too little regard for the opponent? That, combining with a too many penalties, snapped our garters and our streak. Lookie here, Canada: we tried being nice, and you had to go and dump all over our parade. We obviously need to approach this in a different way.

The Set Up: If you’re anything like us – and frankly, what are the chances of that? – you’ve always had a secret crush on Vancouver. It’s like Portland, but with less smug. And more Olympics. So we were seriously pulling for the Canucks to smear Boston’s smelly faces all over the ice last June, which they didn’t. (They did sort of try to riot, however, which was really very cute.) But now it’s different. City-crush be darned; we want the Canucks, and we want to break them, especially after that Edmonton nonsense with the Jonas Brothers Line, and that brick-wall Japanese netminder of theirs, Kabuki something.

And we just might get them. From last year’s highs the Canucks have fallen… well, not to new lows, but certainly somewhere in the mid-level yawns. 4-5-1 is not the start of a championship season. Pucks on net seems to be the biggest problem; in only 10 games so far they’ve been shut out three times. So….

What Makes Them Hot

1: Duh. We cannot get enough Ryan Kesler. Nor can his fans. Or even Kesler himself, it seems. Did you see the latest loving video of him, “Heart of a Canuck”, rambling around his old home town, getting all weepy about what it means to play in the NHL, blah blah? Cue the Diane Sawyer-soft focus and slo-mo home-movie clips. At least he dressed the part, sporting a t-shirt so tight that we guess it came from the “Childrens” section of Kmart.

2: Twins Lounge. We would like to propose a rule, right now: identical twins shall not be allowed to play on the same hockey team. Or at least, creepy twins. (Maybe if they’re hot… we could go for that.) Seriously, there’s just something not quite right about Henrik Sedin and Daniel Sedin. They share everything: the same beady eyes, same scraggly beards, and unfortunately for us practically the same performance on the ice – 3 or 4 goals (depending on which Sedin you’re talking about) and 8 assists so far. That, and they’re totally using their special Wonder Twin powers of telepathy during games, which we consider cheating. As long as they’re on the ice, they’re a threat.

3:  They Don’t Have a #3. They’re that bad. However, previously we did write about some of their prettier players. Click here if you want to sigh longingly while at your desk.

What Makes Them Not

1: Roberto LOLongo. And we thought we’ve had goalie drama… All the glass groins in the league couldn’t add up to the conflama (conflict + drama) that has swirled around the Canucks #2 netminder. One day you’re a hero, the next you’re a goat. Just ask Lou. His numbers have genuinely been awful this year; he stunk up Rexall Place so badly that Alain Vigneault pulled him after 26 in the second period. Arguably it’s not all his fault – even his teammates say as much when they talk about needing to get more offensive and defensive support. Still, that hasn’t stopped him from becoming a punchline. “Hey Roberto – why the Luongo face?”, that sort of thing.

Over on the Twitter he’s getting a virtual pantsing, which really isn’t that uncommon for any player these days, but we’re just piling on. And as long as we’re piling on, Roberto’s long term contract (Zillions (CAN) through 2018) may be the only thing that could make the federal budget deficit look reasonable and manageable.

2: Under Over: The geniuses over at Nucks Misconduct write: “The “combined” plus/minus of Kevin Bieksa and Keith Ballard, good for #646 and #647 in the entire National Hockey League, out of 649 players.” Now admittedly, we’ve never really payed much attention to +/- rankings, especially in sentences that don’t seem to have any active verbs. But it gave us a chance to look a little more closely at these two. Bieksa and Ballard each have exactly 1 point this entire season (an assist for Bieksa and goal for Ballard) which, even for defensemen on a sputtering team, is sad.

Crash the Net: We’re still pissed at Timmy Thomas and company for making Ryan Kesler cry.  Hey – Ryan doesn’t care. Maybe Ryan didn’t want your stupidy, stinky Stanley Cup anyway. So there. But say what you will about RK, he was responsible for the biggest traffic day ever over on PB. And we can’t mention the Canucks without a stick tap to two pals who follow the team: our pal Tom who covers them for our humble little site (and who was responsible for the monster RK traffic), and Thom (note the adorable Canadian spelling), one of the sharpies who manages Canucks Army.

As Seen on TV:  For your viewing pleasure, our freinds at CSN, and their spiffy suits, will bring you the game in living color at 10:00pmET. So let’s have a sleepover and giggle the night away on the twitters. We’ll make popcorn, build pillow forts, tell spooky stories (“The call is coming from upstairs!  And it’s Zdeno Chara!!!!), We’ll dish about boys compare notes on PIM, ATOI, S%, and OMG.

For readers with access to the CBC, the game is featured on Hockey Night in Canada, and that could mean Grapes and Milbury. Consider yourselves warned:  Dangerous mold has been known to spontaneously grow on TV screens, so you may want to consider outfitting your sleepover guests in hazmat suits / PJs.

Update: Nick Kypreos of Rogers Sportsnet reports that Matt Cooke has been suspended by the NHL for the rest of regular season and the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs.

During Sunday’s Penguins vs. Rangers game, Matt Cooke was up to his old tricks. The 32 year-old former Capital delivered an elbow to the head of a defenseless Ryan McDonagh. The Ranger player went down like a sack of potatoes but fortunately was uninjured. Cooke received a five minute major for elbowing on the play and a game misconduct. As Daniel Tolensky points out, Cooke has played in 881 NHL games yet has only been suspended a total of ten matches in his career. The League obviously deserves some of the blame for allowing Cooke’s dirty play to continue without significant consequences for his actions.

A month ago, Pens owner Mario Lemieux criticized the NHL for being too soft on the Islanders’ players that participated in the mega-brawl between New York and Pittsburgh. Just a week ago, Sidney Crosby said the NHL needed to fight deliberate head-shots. But now their own player, Matt Cooke, is once again under Colin Campbell’s review. Below, we’ve chronicled Cookie’s dirty deeds throughout the years.

NHL Supplemental Discipline: Four-game suspension
Penalties called on the ice: Five minute major for charging, five minute major for fighting

Two days after getting national attention for his dirty knee-on-knee collision with Alex Ovechkin, Cooke boarded Fedor Tyutin head-first. Cooke received a five minute major for charging and a five minute major for fighting after being engaged by Derick Brassard.

From the Columbus Dispatch after the game:

“It was the worst hit I’ve ever had from behind,” said Tyutin, who had an ice pack on his shoulder. “I wasn’t surprised, not when you see (Cooke) in the highlights all the time for dirty hits.”

Penguins coach Dan Bylsma said that Tyutin looked Cooke “right in the eyes” and knew the hit was coming.

Sure, Dan.

NHL Supplemental Discipline: None
Penalties called on the ice: Two-minute minor for tripping

With 3:45 left in the third period of a 2-0 game, Matt Cooke hit Alex Ovechkin hard knee-on-knee. Cooke was accessed a minor penalty on the play and angrily confronted by Ovi. Luckily for the Capitals, the Russian Machine never breaks and he didn’t miss a game due to injury.

The Washington Post had reaction from both locker-rooms after the game:

Ovechkin played another shift before the contest expired and appeared fine afterward, but Coach Bruce Boudreau didn’t mince words when asked about the hit in his post-game press conference.

“It was Matt Cooke. Need we say more? It’s not like it’s his first rodeo,” Boudreau said. “He’s done it to everybody and then he goes to the ref and says: ‘What did I do?’ He knows damn well what he did. There’s no doubt in my mind that he’s good at it and he knows how to do it. He knows how to pick this stuff. We as a league, we still buy into this [idea] that, ‘Oh it was an accidental thing.’”

…

Both Cooke and Coach Dan Bylsma downplayed the contact.

“I just tracked the puck and he tried to cut back on me,” Cooke said. “We clipped skates.”

Said Bylsma: “I didn’t think much contact was made. Maybe their skates get wound up together. But, you know, Ovechkin was out on the ensuing power play.”

Someone seems like an enabler here.

NHL Supplemental Discipline: None
Penalties called on the ice: Two minutes for roughing, 10 minute misconduct

In this incident, Cooke does a few gutless things. First, he cross-checks Jordan Leopold from behind after Leopold takes down one of his teammates. Next, after Steve Montador engages him, Cooke lands an overhand right punch to an unsuspecting Montador after the linesmen separate the two.

Classy.

NHL Supplemental Discipline: None
Penalties called on the ice: None

As both players go for a puck along the boards, Cooke raises his elbow and strikes an unaware Kane in the jaw. No penalty would be called on the play, however later in the period, Cooke would be whistled for kneeing. Go figure.

NHL Supplemental Discipline: None
Penalties called on the ice: Two-minute minor for roughing

As both Phoenix defenseman Keith Yandle and Cooke go for a puck in the corner, Cooke delivers an elbow to the back of Yandle’s head. It certainly appears that the Phoenix defenseman was woozy afterwards. The announcer describes Cooke as “[getting] the arms up a little bit.” A little bit?

NESN had reaction in Phoenix’s locker-room after the game:

“It’s just a dirty hit,” Yandle said after the 6-1 Penguins win, according to the McKeesport Daily News. “Dirty player. He’s got no respect. … His only intent was to hurt me with his hands high like that, and I hope [league officials] review it.”

What had the Coyotes fired up — aside from getting demolished on the scoreboard — was that Cooke wouldn’t answer the bell after laying the questionable hit.

“The fact that Matt Cooke comes at Keith Yandle in a 5-0 game and elbows him in the head, obviously we took it as a personal challenge,” captain Shane Doan told the newspaper.

“They’re up 5-0, and he cowers away from all our guys,” Yandle said. “I mean, every guy on our team tried to fight him.”

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette quoted Bylsma as saying:

“We encourage our players not to finish checks on the penalty-kill, so from that standpoint we didn’t like putting ourselves in that situation,” Bylsma said Tuesday after the Penguins practiced at Consol Energy Center.

NHL Supplemental Discipline: None
Penalties called on the ice: Two-minute minor for boarding

After Max Talbot cleanly checks Erik Karlsson into the boards, Cooke follows-up a half second later with a hit of his own. Cooke drives Karlsson’s head into the boards and knocks him out. Cooke would recieve a two-minute minor penalty for boarding.

NHL Supplemental Discipline: None
Penalties called on the ice: Cooke was given three separate minor penalties for goalie interference.

I won’t offer a description on the series of events above because there are no words satisfactory enough for how idiotic Cooke is being.

These hits however, would spark bad blood between the two teams and ignite two separate brawls a year later. The first brawl was on February 2, 2011 and it started after DePietro clotheslined Cooke. Brent Johnson would come to his teammate’s aid and knock DePietro out, injuring him for six weeks. The Islanders then sought immediate retribution during the teams’ rematch nine days later. In the end, 346 penalty minutes were doled out, and several players were later suspended by the league including Eric Godard (ten games), Trevor Gillies (nine games), and Matt Martin (four games). In addition to the suspensions, NHL disciplinarians fined the Islanders $100,000 for “their failure to control their players.”

NHL Supplemental Discipline: None
Penalties called on the ice: None

This is the play that would change the NHL rulebooks forever. As Marc Savard entered the offensive zone, he took a shot on net and then was greeted by a blindside elbow from Cooke. Savard was left motionless and unconscious on the ice. The Bruins best offensive weapon then missed the rest of the season with a concussion, and has not been the same player since.

Bruins blog captured Claude Julien’s reaction after the game:

“A guy like that has to be suspended,” the Bruins coach said. “That’s the way I see it, because it’s an elbow to the head from the blind side. That’s exactly the examples they show of what we’ve got to get out of this game. We have a guy who’s got a concussion. Our best player. He’s going to be out for a while. He was [unconscious] on the ice for a bit. That’s unacceptable.”

Not suspending Cooke was, in my opinion, a disgrace to the league and the biggest mistake of Colin Campbell’s career. Those e-mails about Savard made the whole thing even harder to swallow, too.

NHL Supplemental Discipline: None
Penalties called on the ice: None

As Andrei Markov looks to cycle the puck behind the net, Cooke delivers a cross-check to Markov’s left side, leaving him writhing in pain on the ice. There was no penalty called on the play.

NHL Supplemental Discipline: Two-game suspension
Penalties called on the ice: Two-minute minor for interference.

This hit, which seems like a carbon-copy of the one he laid Marc Savard out on, resulted in Cooke being suspended for two games.

Larry Brooks of the New York Post wrote this about the hit:

Cooke was somehow accessed only a two-minute minor for interference on the play by the officiating tandem of David Banfield and Stephen Walkom, the latter of whom served as the NHL VP of Officiating the past several seasons before returning to the ice this season.

Donald Brashear sought retribution upon Cooke’s release from the penalty box, but was prevented from doing so by an over-eager linesman. As a result, Brashear was issued a double minor for roughing while Cooke escaped unscathed. The Penguins then scored on both ends of the power play.

Of course they did.

NHL Supplemental Discipline: None
Penalties called on the ice: None

Just a hockey play, right?

Pensburgh had this to say about the incident:

One of the questions Coach Babcock was asked in yesterday’s presser was whether or not he saw Matt Cooke “kick” Chris Osgood. He admitted he wasn’t sure, but also made a face as if to say, “Oh. Matt Cooke. Right, that guy.” With Cooke you never really can tell.

Well, if that’s not blatant homerism, I don’t know what is.

NHL Supplemental Discipline: None
Penalties called on the ice: None

In Game One of the 2009 Eastern Conference Finals, the Hurricanes lost Erik Cole midway through the third period. Why? Well, Matt Cooke caught him knee-on-knee in front of the Pittsburgh net. Cole managed to play only one shift after the hit.

Canes Now had the reaction from both locker-rooms:

Asked if he thought it was a knee-on-knee hit, with the implication that it was an illegal one, a curt [Carolina coach Paul] Maurice said, “Yes, I did. I felt that was, yeah.”

Cole officially has a “lower body” injury, but he clearly hurt his left knee in the collision. Cooke said the contact was accidental.

“He was cutting across the middle,” Cooke said. “I turned sideways to hit him, and he turned the other way. I almost fell over, too.”

Totally.

NHL Supplemental Discipline: None
Penalties called on the ice: Two-minute minor for tripping

After absorbing this knee-on-knee hit from Matt Cooke, Zach Bogosian left the game in the 2nd period and did not return. A Pens fan says in the comments on YouTube that this was a clean hit. His assessment is incorrect.

NHL Supplemental Discipline: None
Penalties called on the ice: Two-minute minor for roughing

In the above video, Cooke drives Zach Parise into the Devils bench several seconds after Parise dumps the puck into the offensive zone. Yes, he chose to still hit him even though the bench door was open. Hey, at least the Penguins announcers dubbed it the “Subway Sandwich of the Game.”

NHL Supplemental Discipline: None
Penalties called on the ice: None

Here Cooke drives a defenseless Mathieu Roy head-first into the boards after chasing the puck in the corner. The game featured 14 fighting majors, eight misconduct penalties and 193 penalty minutes. Oilers Coach Craig MacTavish had this to say afterwards:

“I didn’t see anything dirty in the game,” said Oilers coach Craig MacTavish, who only took exception to an uncalled hit from behind by Matt Cooke on defenseman Mathieu Roy. “There was no back stabbing, there were eyeball to eyeball altercations and fights, and that’s part of hockey.”

“There are times,” Cole says, “when I think he just doesn’t care if a guy is in a vulnerable position.”

“Matt Cooke has found his niche and [plays] his role very effectively,” says Mike Keane, who played 16 NHL seasons, including one as Cooke’s teammate on the Canucks in 2003-04. “He goes out and hits Ovechkin, hits guys from behind. If he hurts Ovechkin, who cares? The Washington Capitals won’t win the Stanley Cup. He did his job. For Matt Cooke, that’s perfect.”

And that’s the point of our post.

The NHL has to protect their assets on the ice. All they’ve done is constantly enable Cooke’s dangerous behavior over the years. They are the ones responsible for the monster he’s become. At some point you have to hand him a lengthy suspension, otherwise the message won’t get through. And — so far — the league is unwilling to do that.

Until then, let’s all get enraged by how few games Campbell suspends Cooke for his latest hit. And we’ll gladly eat our words if the NHL gets it right.

Additional reporting by Chris Gordon and Fedor Fedin.

“We need a blueliner” is a typical Caps Fan’s lament this offseason (second only to DAMMIT!) and recently unrestricted free agent defenseman Willie Mitchell has been rumored to be in the Capital’s cross-hairs. Mitchell has been training and skating for 18 days and is finally symptom-free after his latest concussion – all fueling speculation that his signing is imminent.

But would Wilie Mitchell a good fit on the Capitals’ blueline?

No conversation on Mitchell can start without first addressing his health and the risks that come with signing him. Willie’s latest concussion, his third, caused him to miss almost 6 months – which is much more than the 9 games he missed in 2006 and the 8 games he lost in 2002. Mitchell is also more likely to have a relapse, which calls into question: How will it affect his physical play? If this question was an easy one to answer, the 10 year veteran would have been signed on the first day of free agency this year.

If healthy, Willie Mitchell is one of the better shutdown defensemen in the league and most analysts would quickly pencil him in as a top 4 pairing on the Caps’ Blueline. The problem is: Would it be an upgrade that’s worth the risk?

Behind The Net had an interesting post that tried to solve Defensive Contribution. Essentially, if we subtract Goals Against when the player is off the ice (per 60 minutes) from Goals Against when the player is on the ice (per 60 minutes) we can get an approximation of their defensive contribution after adjusting for Even Strength playing time.

Using this method would put Mitchell (-1.12) behind only current Caps’ defensemen Jeff Schultz (14.68), John Erskine (7.93) and Tom Poti (6.78).

When we analyze the puck possession stat (via CORSI), we notice that Willie Mitchell (-.71) would be in the bottom three in regards to all Caps’s defenseman. Mitchell would only be ahead of Karl Alzner (-2.81) and Tyler Sloan (-3.73). To be fair, Willie started only 43% of the time in the Offensive Zone against the toughest competition VAN opponents had to offer. But even after adjusting his Shot Differential for Quality of Competition and Quality of Teammates he would still only be ahead of Sloan and Alzner.

Looking at the Penalty Kill shows us a totally different picture however. Mitchell would be second in Defensive Contribution (2.53) to only Jeff Schultz (7.63) and slightly ahead of recently departed Shaone Morrisonn (2.40). Adjust PK CORSI numbers for Quality of Competition and Quality of Teammates and Mitchell would lead all Caps blueliners that played 40+ games last year.

Which brings us back to the issue: Do three concussions (or the risk of a 4th) affect Mitchell’s game to the point where he ceases to be an effective Top 4 blueliner? Or is a shutdown defenseman who could upgrade an already weak Penalty Kill unit worth the risk? It’s a tough question to answer.

(Editor’s note: Michael Russo reports:

The former Wild defenseman, I’m told, actually could sign a contract with performance bonuses because he spent 100 days on injured reserve last year — including the playoffs.

Certainly this would help lessen the risk of signing him.)

With the regular season winding down it’s only fitting we should start seeing opinions on who should win the Hart Trophy, “given to the player judged to be the most valuable to his team.”

Edward Fraser feels there are a quintet of contenders while Ken Campbell argues Henrik Sedin deserves to be included in the conversation but doesn’t deserve to win it. Tim Morgan thinks both Gaborik and Lundqvist deserve nominations but when it comes down to it, based on previous voting, it is shaping up to be a two-horse race: Alex Ovechkin and Henrik Sedin.  (Sorry Sidney, maybe next year?)

Since 1998-9 (the first year of the Maurice Richard Trophy) the voters seem to reward players that rank 1st or 2nd in Points for the regular season. Only G Jose Theodore (2001-2002) and D Chris Pronger (1999-2000) are the exceptions during this time frame.

That leads me to believe it will come down to Ovechkin and Sedin despite the outcome as they battle for the Art Ross Trophy.

So lets look at the contenders:

Henrik Sedin

Henrik has really decoupled himself from his twin brother this season, and showed he is the driving force behind Vancouver’s success this season. And while he may not be as dynamic as Ovechkin (or Crosby for that matter) Henrik has quietly shown the ability to be the exact type of player Vancouver has needed: Never going longer than four games without a point this season.

Alex Ovechkin

If you ignore the suspensions and Russia’s let-down in the Olympics, the biggest knock on the reigning Hart winner’s chances to threepeat (something which only two other players have ever done: Bobby Orr and Wayne Gretzky) seems to be that the Caps went 7-2-1 without him in the lineup this season. But as Ed Frankovic correctly points out 4 of those wins came against Florida and the two losses were to New Jersey, a team the Caps could potentially see in the playoffs. With Ovechkin in the lineup the Caps went 1-0-1 against those same Devils. And Nate Ewell reminded us last night, Caps have a better record with Ovi as captain (.821) than they did when he was out of the lineup (.750)

Plus, Sedin is only close to Ovechkin in Total Points because he has played in 10(!) more games than Ovechkin. If we adjust Ovechkin’s stats to an 82 game season, the point totals look much different:

1. Alexander Ovechkin, 124
2. Henrik Sedin, 109

And then we aren’t even having a debate. So look for Ovechkin to become the NHL’s third threepeat Hart Trophy winner.

With only 12 games to go the Washington Capitals are within striking distance of another franchise first: The Presidents’ Trophy.

Along with the cash bonuses to the organization it ensures home ice advantage throughout the playoffs – a huge plus to a team with a 26-4-4 record at the Phone Booth and PK issues away.

It is a five horse race (Washington, Chicago, Phoenix, Vancouver and San Jose) and the Caps have the easiest road to the prize.

The Caps play their remaining games against teams with an average .464 Win %. The other four contenders all play teams that average .507 or above:

• WSH .464
• CHI  .507
• SJS .520
• VAN .528
• PHX .538

Looking at the Simple Rating System (SRS) of each team’s remaining schedule once again shows the Caps have the easy road:

• PHX .20 SRS for remaining opponents
• VAN .16
• SJS .13
• CHI  .02
• WSH -.21

An average team will have a rating of zero. An above average team will have a positive rating while a below average team will have a negative rating. Every team will have a rating that is the equal to their average point margin plus the average of their opponent’s ratings, so the teams’ ratings are all interdependent: the Caps’ rating depends upon the ratings of all their opponents, which depends upon the ratings of all their opponents (some of which are the Caps), and so on.

And finally, if we look at the Goals For and against for the remaining teams, the Caps play teams that give up an average of 2.94 Goals per game while only scoring 2.77, giving them the best Pythagorean Win % of the finalists at .527. Next best is Chicago with an expected win % of .505 with the rest sub-.500.

So to sum up: The Washington Caps should lead all NHL teams with 119 points and have all roads for the Cup run through DC.

This week we look at Alex Ovechkin’s chances of going down as the greatest goal-scorer in NHL history, a break-down of last week’s big Kovalchuk trade, a look at the change in average shift length for today’s players versus those from 10 years ago (with a certain Capital being a rare exception), and busting a few common myths using the Vancouver Canucks as an example.

I had to wrangle these links up quickly, since I forgot what day it was. That’s when happens when you’re snowed in for almost a week without seeing the outside world. At least I had my spreadsheets to keep me busy.

http://www.behindthenethockey.com/2010/2/4/1291994/alex-ovechkin-will-he-be-the-all

If you project things out about as well as they can go, Ovie might finish with as many as 1,009 goals. Hawerchuk isn’t quite buying that though (nor should he):

“Let’s look at that progression in another way – where Ovechkin’s annual goal total would rank all time at each age: (projections bolded and highlighted in blue)

So Ovechkin, whose seasonal goal total has ranked an average of 10th at ages 20-24, will post totals in the top three by age in 12 of the next 16 seasons…

I believe that there is presently no significant likelihood that Alex Ovechkin finishes his career with 894 goals.  He needs to display an uncommon level of durability for the next decade, and not just lead the league in goal-scoring, but do so by such a wide margin that he scores as much as Gretzky, Hull or Lemieux did in an era with vastly higher offensive levels.  No player has ever dominated the NHL in that way – even Gretzky’s peak lasted only six years, and by age 27, he was no longer durable, and he was no longer guaranteed to lead the league in scoring.  Clearly 650 goals is not out-of-the-question – just not 900.”

And 650 goals is nothing to sneeze at.

http://www.puckprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=455

A nice analysis of the trade between the Thrashers and the Devils. The conclusion seems to be that Atlanta did fine on getting back equal total value, but didn’t get that one big piece that would have made it a win for them.

http://www.behindthenethockey.com/2010/2/10/1270271/shift-length-change-since-1997-98

“The NHL has been collecting detailed ice time statistics since the 1997-98 season.  One interesting thing that we can see is a shift in individual shift lengths:

This is the distribution of year-long average shift lengths by player, not the distribution of all shift lengths – the average shift length has dropped 7% over the last decade, from a 50-second average to 46.5 seconds.”

Ovie is actually a bit of an outlier, in that his shift lengths have been up over 65 seconds the last couple years.

http://www.puckprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=452

“Myth No. 1: Teams play worse as a road trip lengthens.

There is no tendency for teams to play worse as a road trip lengthens. Yes, it is true that road teams are less successful than home teams, but that is only exacerbated when a team plays back-to-back games.

On average, road teams have been outscored by 0.3 goals per game this season. But road teams playing for the second night in a row are outscored by 0.55 goals. Luckily for the Canucks, only three of their 16 games are back-to-back.

In addition, over the last four seasons, teams playing in their fourth, fifth or sixth consecutive road game have fared no worse than those playing in their first three games. And oddly enough, teams seem to fare better in the fourth game of a road trip than the third.”

• edmorgans: @russianmachine Can you “lose” Poti in a snow drift somewhere between Vancouver and Edmonton? No one would suspect you!!!
• jdb820: @russianmachine Can you do to Poti what you did to Nylander?

While it’s still unclear to me what Ovechkin did to Nylander (give him vodka and an ikea gift card?), I don’t get the anger towards Tom Poti. Yes, Tom Poti took a tremendously ill-timed third period penalty for cross-checking. Yes, as he skated over to the penalty box, he completely showed up the referee, slammed the penalty box door and got awarded another penalty – making his costly 2 minute minor an even more terrible double minor. Yes, the Canucks scored during the first penalty, took a 3-2 lead they’d never relinquish, and then used the second minor penalty to erase another 2 minutes of valuable comeback time. Alright so I get it. His penalty is what allowed the Canucks to win the game.

But I’m not going to throw him under the bus. Poti is a key veteran on this team, and the penalty he took last night was at best a questionable call by the referee. He shouldn’t of cross-checked Canucks agitator Alex Burrows so high, but it was painfully clear to me that Burrows dove. If you’re going to take a penalty though, an aggressive play in the defensive zone is alright by me. Now the hooking and holding penalties Alex Semin has taken in the third period of other games – in the offensive zone – is another story.

But last night, I was more peeved with Jeff Schultz’s ill-timed own goal in the first period. Take a look Below:

Jose Theodore stopped a hooked Ryan Kesler breakaway attempt after Mike Green tried to obstruct the star winger. Schultz, who trailed on the play, came up to the stopped puck, tried to kick it from skate to stick, and then watched the goal slowly enter the yawning net in horror. Because there was a penalty in the process of being called, Bruce Boudreau begged the officials to take away the tally, because he believed Schultz demonstrated possession of the puck. I completely disagree however, because if Schultz had possession, he wouldn’t of kicked the freakin puck in the net.

So as I start reading Tarik El-Bashir’s recap in his blog, this is what I read in his introduction:

Take your pick for what went wrong tonight. Alex Ovechkin finishing without a point in a performance Coach Bruce Boudreau called “average”. Tom Poti taking a questionable cross checking penalty late, then losing his cool. Or Alexander Semin whiffing on his penalty shot attempt with 5 minutes 45 seconds left.

No mention of Schultz. I had to go all the way to the bottom of his post to find this juicy nugget:

*Jeff Schultz, who inadvertently kicked in the Canucks’ first goal, was limping pretty good after the game. He said he was struck by a shot on the heel in the first period, but thinks he’ll be okay.

Really? We don’t get a quote from Schultz saying “my bad” or “oops!?”

I think I summed it up on Twitter best:

• russianmachine:@jeffschultz55 – When you try to do imitation of me, make sure you shoot puck at opposing goalie. This is why your Awareness a 23 in NHL2K10
• russianmachine: I very happy we respond to friendly-fire goal by @jeffschultz55 – It happen to every d-man at one time. I’m kidding. Who kick in breakaway?

Anyways, The Caps take on the Edmonton Oilers tonight at 10pm ET. I hope they can put together a solid 60 minute effort and try to help Neuvy get some confidence back, after his atrocious game a week ago. Here’s hoping!