Sports stars appear in local commercials all the time, but this D.C. area Capital One ad featuring Alex Ovechkin and Donovan McNabb seems a little derivative — A local ad where the athletes each deliver one line horribly, causing you to wonder why they didn’t just hire actors for one one-thousandth the cost and have the commercial be much less ridiculous? That is OUR turf, dammit.
(via Puck Daddy)
Before we get to a couple quick points about Olympic Hockey so far, check out ( / rewatch) this clip of Pavol Demitra’s shootout winning goal in Slovakia’s 2-1 win over Russia last night (click on the pic below to watch – Demitra comes on at 1:55, but be sure to check out the amazing super slo-mo at 2:41):
Some thoughts on the first few Olympic games:
– During NBC’s postgame of Canada’s shootout win over Switzerland, one of the analysts (forget who) waxed poetic that Mike Babcock’s decision to re-use Crosby in the shootout was his statement to Crosby that “you’re gonna be the one who has to carry us to Gold.” I understand that Crosby’s become the personification of Canada’s ravenous Gold medal addiction, but the idea that Crosby or anyone else has to carry the goddamn Canadian Olympic Team — a squad comprised of 15 or so of the world’s top 25 players — is hilarious, and foreshadows exactly how bad the anti-Crosby firestorm is gonna be if this team loses in the Elimination Round.
For this reason, while I’d love to see the U.S. go all the way, I’m thinking it’d just be a lot easier on all of us if Canada wins so we don’t have to deal with a 3.8 million square mile chunk of land pissed off at the Penguin captain for the rest of eternity. The East Coast of the U.S. is plenty big enough.
Moving along…
The NHL has suspended Alex Ovechkin two games for his knee-on-knee hit on Carolina’s Tim Gleason on Monday night…
The suspension, which is without pay, is the first of Ovechkin’s career and means he’ll miss Thursday’s game against Florida and Saturday’s game in Philadelphia. He will forfeit $98,844.16 of his salary for the two games.
“I regret that this has happened,” Ovechkin said in a statement. “I’m glad that Tim wasn’t injured because I never ever want to see anyone get hurt. I am disappointed to miss these games and I can’t wait to get back on the ice next week to help my team.”
He added, “And by ‘help,’ I mean, continue playing the exact same way, taking runs at dudes non-stop and dealing with a meaningless two-game suspension for every three potentially injury-inducing cheap shots I dish out. I mean, Gonchar missed two playoff games after I kneed him, and that was only one of the three hits, so I’m really coming out in the black here. The more I think about it, I’d be crazy not to continue doing the exact same crap.”
It’s probably a fair punishment, given that Gleason wasn’t injured and that the suspension had to be assessed independently of the unrelated, non-suspended hits on Gonchar last year and Kaleta last week, but it’s hard to argue that Ovechkin is deserving of a light punishment because it’s his first suspension, even though that’s semantically true. Plus taking two games to rest his injured knee is probably a smart move for him and the Capitals anyway, so, whatever. Way to send a message, NHL.
Remember the Eastern Conference Semifinals last year when Alexander Ovechkin kneed Sergei Gonchar, got a two-minute tripping penalty even though Gonchar was injured, missed two games and never appeared 100% the rest of the Playoffs, and nearly every announcer — Pittsburgh and Washington alike, and even the highly biased author of this blog — argued that Ovechkin probably had the hit lined up, stuck his leg out as a last-second thoughtless reaction, and had no intention of actually kneeing Gonchar and injuring him?
Guess what? We were wrong. Turns out, Ovechkin actually is a big fan of the knee-to-knee hit, and he pulled off another stellar one last night on Carolina’s Tim Gleason, earning himself a 5-minute major penalty and his SECOND game misconduct in three games, and karmically injuring himself in the process:
If you’re keeping score at home, that’s three suspension-worthy hits by Ovechkin in a span of less than 30 games, going back to last year’s playoffs. It’s now not even debatable anymore: Alex Ovechkin is, by any possible definition, a deliberate cheap-shot artist. We all knew his reputation for taking wild charges at defensemen after they dish outlet passes and are off-balance so they fall down and announcers talk about how hard he plays, but those can at least usually be defended as message-sending collisions, if irrelevant to the play, and the actual hits themselves usually aren’t illegal (because the NHL stopped calling Charging some 12 years ago).
Not sure how many times I can repeat the same things, but here goes:
– The Pens have outplayed the Caps for the majority of the series, and deserve their 3-2 lead.
– That being said, the Pens still make it too easy for the Capitals to score, too often. The Caps’ entire offense has been based on random, isolated rushes up the ice; they haven’t managed more than a shift or two of sustained forechecking pressure ( / dumbass Penguins keeping it in their own zone when one foot from the blue line) at a time in the past couple games, and if the Pens can just grab an additional unexpected Fleury save or lucky offensive bounce, there’s no reason to believe they shouldn’t close this thing out Monday night. Remember how well they played at home against Philly when they had a chance to finish them off?? Wait, um…I mean……… rabbits are fuzzy. Teeheeheeee rabbits.
– I did quickly rush to rip on Tom Poti for his game-winning effort, but my brother correctly pointed out, if he hadn’t made a play on the puck it would’ve gone to a wide-open Crosby for a tap-in. The real blame on the goal goes to Bruce Boudreau for inexplicably leaving Sergei Federov in at defense while shorthanded to take on Crosby and Malkin. Watch the clip again – Malkin goes right around Federov untouched. I understand throwing him on D late in the game when you’re trailing, but in overtime? Mind-boggling.
– Marc-Andre Fleury was drafted with the first overall pick six years ago. We shouldn’t still be worrying on a game-by-game basis whether or not he’ll just randomly let a long-distance, untipped wrist shot in, essentially spotting the other team a goal every night. I almost get angry at him now when he follows his spastic mishaps with awesome redemption saves; I don’t like to be confused while complaining.
– In Fleury’s defense (or lack of defense…heyo!!!), Brooks Orpik was playing some serious Washington Generals caliber D on that first Ovechkin goal. Could he possibly be that afraid of challenging Ovechkin one-on-one? He doesn’t have to line up Ovechkin and run him, he just has to get a stick on him or some body position or anything other than letting him set up for his nine hundredth predictable-ass high glove side wrister of the series.
– I’m not quite pushing the panic button about Sergei Gonchar’s injury. Maybe it’s the homer/optimist in me, but we’ve gotta remember, he was probably the Pens’ weakest defensive defenseman in the playoffs to this point, and calling him the “quarterback of the power play” is like calling someone the “anchor of the Detroit Lions’ defense.” Do you really think the Pens will be that much worse on the man advantage with Alex Goligoski at the point instead of Gonchar, the way they’ve been going? Are they going to score negative times? Is Goligoski gonna turn around and throw a puck past Fleury when he’s not looking, then slash Crosby’s Achilles? I realize it’s a lot of ice time to redistribute, and Phillippe Boucher makes me nervous as hell, but I don’t think Gonchar-to-Goligoski is quite the chasm-like dropoff that some fans appear to fear, especially with the way Gonchar had been playing.
– Alexander Semin has to be injured; every time he gets the puck, he’s peeling back and looking to pass immediately, and every time he’s shot the puck, his release has been uncharacteristically slow and everything’s been blocked or wide.
– Viktor Kozlov sucks. He doesn’t hustle, doesn’t play physically, and is good for usually one or two five-second bursts of tallness-using puck possession per game, and if he doesn’t score during that span, he’s invisible.
– Caps fans apparently wanted an interference call on Phillippe Boucher in overtime just prior to the Malkin tripup. I will respond to all complaints about officiating in this series by linking this clip.
– On the FSN Pittsburgh coverage, just prior to overtime, the announcers agreed “you get the feeling that Chris Kunitz has been saving his best for that big moment…” Which is a kind way of saying “Chris Kunitz does not know what a net is anymore.”
– Think Jordan Staal and Ruslan Fedotenko recently watched the video of their 7-6 overtime win against the Red Wings from earlier this season and were like “oh wow, we’re talented, professional hockey players! Let’s do that some more!” When was the last time a Penguin just buried a puck into the upper corner the way Fedotenko did on that second goal? Maybe Malkin in like, February?
– And last, but definitely not least: Two legitimate assists for Miro Satan now in consecutive games?? Why didn’t Ray Shero sign this guy to a five-year deal when he had the chance??
Police were notified after someone posted the following threat on a Penguins fan message board:
“I’m killing Ovechkin. I’ll go to jail. I don’t care anymore.”
The police have since traced the threat to a seventeen-year-old kid in Chambersburg, though no charges have been filed yet against the minor.
I certainly respect the police for doing their jobs in this situation and agree that threats like this are solidly beyond any line of decorum, but that being said, this is an online message board we’re talking about. It’s anonymous sports fans leaving comments about sports on the internet (automatic Angryville) with total anonymity; you throw those elements into a bell curve, skip to the extreme end, and you’re gonna have some death threats. I mean, Christ, I’ve received death threats on BWE.tv for misspelling the names of Lost characters. It’s the internet, it’s sports, it’s anonymity — people are gonna make over-the-line comments all the time.
I also love that the perpetrator was, in fact, just some random angry kid in Central PA — as though the cops were gonna trace the threat to some mastermind assassin who answers the phone “It’s your decision whether or not to back off, Chief, but it’d be a shame to get blood all over your wife’s nice white dress that I’m looking at right now…” “You stay away from her you SON OF A BITCH!!!” etc. etc. Nope! Just an A-hole on a message board, being stupid and creating a story, because that’s what the internet is.
Also, not to nitpick, but I enjoy the addition of “I don’t even care anymore” in the threat, as if to imply that the kid once DID care too much about his life to murder Alexander Ovechkin, but something happened recently to push him over the edge. “Once I saw Sally MacPherson in the arms of that damn senior, I thought to myself, ‘my life is over – now nothing’s gonna stop me from murdering that Washington Capitals winger that I’ve always wanted to murder…’”
For the record, how many of us have watched a Penguins power play this year and not also thought about dishing out some death threats? Glass houses, people.
The Pens dominated Game 3 from beginning to end far more convincingly than the Capitals ever controlled Games 1 or 2; Washington came out flat, appeared to lack effort, managed no sustained offensive pressure outside maybe three or four isolated shifts, and genuinely looked like a less talented, less deep team than the Penguins (though it doesn’t take them 35 shots to score one goal). Don’t expect to see the same Caps team on Friday. My general rambly thoughts:
- Crap games by Staal, Cooke, Kunitz, Dupuis, Gonchar (again), and especially Kris Letang prior to the goal, who appeared unable to shoot the puck or control it in even the most basic fashion (the box score claims Letang notched 6 shots on goal – his game-winner apparently counted as 4). The fact that Letang scored the game winner off a faceoff win was just about the most unlikely capper imaginable, short of Satan plowing through two defensemen and scoring an effortful garbage goal while being bloodied by a cross-check, or even less likely, Chris Kunitz hitting the net.
- Varlamov again deserves credit for a solid game, but so many of the Pens’ failed chances were exactly that — failed chances — and not superhuman game-stealing saves. Kunitz failed to one-time the puck into a wide open net off a Crosby pass, and Dupuis and Fedotenko both missed pucks sitting by the goal line with Varlamov in no position to recover, among many other excruciating near-misses. This was definitely one of those “subtract one year from your countdown to a heart attack in your life” games.
- After all the missed chances, too, the Pens’ first goal ended up being fantastically lucky; if Fedotenko’s pathetic pass attempt had been blocked LESS TOTALLY, they never wouldn’t have gotten a shot off. I’ll take the lucky bounce, though, especially after that opening Capitals goal that would have been disallowed in a street hockey game because everyone would agree “the puck would never bounce like that in a real game.”
- That fluky first goal seems like weeks ago, but man, what a spastic play by Fleury. I realize the puck took a freakish bounce off the boards, but that doesn’t cause you to immediately throw your stick into the corner and not be able to recover and barely rush to get back into the net. Three games into this series, it’s tough to argue Fleury is having a “good” series, let alone the “great” series everyone predicted he’d need to have to topple the Capitals.
- How come every time the Capitals get a 3-on-2 in this series, they make one move with the puck and suddenly two dudes are wide open and bearing down the slot untouched, whereas when the Pens get a 3-on-2, they either immediately turn the puck over, spread too far out and allow all three backcheckers to get back, or keep gliding until they’re all two millimeters from the net then try a play and a harmless shot/pass is just absorbed into Varlamov’s body?
- Malkin returned to being Malkin. 29:38 of ice time, 9 shots on goal, skating through people at will. Absolutely ridiculous.
- I don’t recall hearing any mentions of Alexander Semin’s infamous Crosby quote during any of the coverage in this series; the only possible explanation I can think of is that everyone simply forgot Semin was still on the Capitals and playing in this series.
- It’s hard to blame the officiating in a game where the team missed countless opportunities to put the game away and ended up on 7 man advantages, but the interference call on Dupuis that allowed the Capitals to tie the game (and almost put the series away) was absolute garbage. We rewound it on DVR after the Caps’ tying goal, and everyone in the room’s mouth simultanously flopped to the ground like a shocked Looney Tunes character. Dupuis stopped at the blue line to avoid being offside, Tom Poti couldn’t skate through him in a straight line, threw his arms up in protest, and the ref blew the whistle. Is Dupuis supposed to intentionally hurry up to go offsides there because otherwise his physical body happens to be in Poti’s way and it’s some weird form of interference? If someone is going towards the net, stops so they don’t ram the goalie, then someone runs into them because of their new position, is that interference too? It wasn’t even “New NHL” BS where you’re like “man, he didn’t do much but I guess they call that now,” Dupuis just literally did nothing.
- Ovechkin seemed to have some trouble controlling the puck, strangely; a couple developing plays that looked like they’d result in a token across-the-slot wrister unexpectedly fizzled a few times, sometimes because a defenseman got a stick on the puck and sometimes because Ovechkin just lost it. I wouldn’t expect more of this or any of the Caps’ play in Game 3 to carry over to Game 4 — it’s difficult to imagine another lopsided shooting affair, and if the Pens don’t start burying their chances in Game 4, they’re not gonna escape with another win like last night’s.
- The Pens’ Power Play: We had it as a “Don’t Buy” but after this game, we’re gonna bump it up to a RISKY!!!!!!!
Hockey Quiz Time! And you don’t even have to go to Ask.com for the answer (or Google it after you don’t find it on Ask.com).
Q: If you make sure to cover one player in the NHL during one specific situation, which of the following should you choose?
A) Alexander Ovechkin one-timing the puck from the left hash.
B) Joe Thornton behind the net.
C) Mike Richards during your power play.
D) Mark Eaton always.
If you said “A”, you’re wrong! The correct answer is “OBVIOUSLY IT’S FRICKIN’ A DO YOU HONESTLY NEED TO BE TOLD TO COVER GODDAMN ALEXANDER OVECHKIN ONE-TIMING THE PUCK ON THE GODDAMN OFF-WING???” That was the answer we were looking for, caps included.
Sure enough, the Pens twice failed to cover an Alexander Ovechkin one-timer, the first coming on a spontaneous 3-on-2 in which no forwards got back and the defense gravitated towards Viktor “I’m Big And Try For About Nine Seconds A Game” Kozlov instead of the guy who’s scored 121 goals over the past two seasons, and the second coming on one of about 75,000 perfectly clean Capitals special teams face-off wins that resulted in a power play goal an embarrassing FOUR SECONDS into a man advantage.
Penguins, if we really need to go over whether or not you need to watch out for Alex Ovechkin one-timing a puck from the left side when you play against the Washington Capitals, then we might as well just save some time and skip directly to working on your golf swings. Golf swing tip #1: Do not jump into the water hazard with a plugged-in radio. Sounds self-explanatory? Yeah – so is keeping an eye on Alexander Ovechkin when you play the Washington Capitals. Jesus Christ.
– Sweet dive by Ovechkin on the Kunitz penalty though, huh? If Crosby had gone down like that and they showed the replay in the Verizon Center, all of D.C. would still be booing, plus more Caps fans would jump on the bandwagon to join in the booing, and Flyers fans would have reconvened in Wachovia to continue booing as well, and Crosby would be getting ripped on every blog on the internet right now including financial blogs, tech blogs, and this website. The refs barely impacted the game, though; a lot of the penalties for both sides just weren’t replayed on Versus at all and I never saw them, plus the Pens’ power play is bad (anyone else noticed this? I feel like I’m really alone on this one), and Kunitz got away with a really bad cross-check on Varlamov on the Pens’ third goal – “If you can’t score,” Badger Bob once never said, “at least cross-check the goalie in the head when it’s too late for the refs to care.”
– And that brings me to the power play…I feel like mentioning the power play in these recaps is like when someone during a roast finally gets around to the guest of honor, and everyone knows what’s coming… Yes, they scored twice tonight, but the second goal was a semi-irrelevant 6-on-4 goal following that missed cross-check to the Caps’ goalie, and until Dan Byslma stops leaving 4/5 of the power play unit on the ice for the full two minutes (Letang was getting 2-minute shifts tonight too – whoopeee!! Everyone is early-2000s Chris Pronger!!), we’re going to have to continue to put up with man advantages like the jamboree of failure following the Jurcina interference call. Then, the cherry on that shit sundae, Evgeni Malkin took the penalty that led to the go-ahead goal while at the end of an extended power play shift, presumably tired from watching Sergei Gonchar chase the puck behind his net a bunch of times.
– I’ve always felt that commentators overrate the importance of faceoffs to the outcome of a game, unless a team is absolutely, noticeably dominated on them. Tonight, the Penguins were indeed absolutely, noticeably dominated on them, losing 38 of 61 draws (61%) with no individual Penguin winning more than 42% of his draws. The Capitals’ faceoff wins also averaged 9.77 Clean-and-Easy points per draw, which is a stat I made up just now to emphasize how cleanly and easily the Caps won every single faceoff in every single remotely important situation.
– As much as I’ve complained about the Pens’ D, the Capitals did leave Crosby basically untouched on his first two goals. If the Pens had won this game, we’d likely be hearing more about the Caps missing John Erskine’s presence in front of their net. On the TSN coverage, at least, I’m pretty sure ESPN’s 30-second wrapup might focus on Ovechkin a bit more.
– Simeon Varlamov essentially outplayed Fleury for the second straight game (not a slight to Fleury so much as a credit to Varlamov); I don’t wish to revisit this argument here, as we’ll have plenty of time to fill during the offseason, but Varlamov’s success continues to taunt teams who draft goalies really highly or overpay for free agent netminders. Varlamov was a #23 overall pick; I’m not sure what Rick DiPietro, Kari Lehtonen, and Al Montoya are up to right this minute, but they’re not currently playing in the NHL Playoffs, and Marc-Andre Fleury won’t be for much longer barring a Pens defensive surge over four of their next five games. Tim Thomas (217th overall pick), Jonas Hiller (undrafted; international free agent), Cam Ward (25th overall), Nikolai Khabiboulin (thought to be washed-up) and Chris Osgood (was definitely washed up) are all still playing in the playoffs, for the record (and yes, Roberto Luongo, a 4th overall pick who was traded twice). But I digress.
– Was something going on with Max Talbot’s stick? He seemed to be hustling, positioning himself well, and blocking shots, but any time he tried to pass or stickhandle the puck would immediately, spastically turn itself over to the Caps, often in an impossible ‘Talbot just kept it in the Pens’ own zone when the Caps weren’t even trying to” way. Talbot also blocked two shots on the same penalty kill and neither one left the zone or went to a Penguin player. That sequence plus the weird bounce on the Steckel goal (who’s living up to his poster billing, by the way) had me scratching my head, at least in between fits of swearing at Gonchar and Orpik.
– Petr Sykora remains useless, injured or not, and is probably costing himself millions in free agent dollars with his noticable irrelavence.
– My pick of Pens in Six is still extremely mathematically possible. Yep…just call me “Nostradamus.” Seriously, call me on the phone right now and refer to me as “Nostradamus,” because I can foresee the future like Nostradamus claimed to have been able to, as evidenced by my ability to predict this series. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go plug in my radio and go golfing.
– And for good measure, the Pirates also blew a lead in the 8th inning and another one in the 9th to lose to the Brewers tonight. And the Steelers traded Troy Polamalu to the Cowboys for a fifth round pick in 2012. C’est la vie.
The Comcast announcers cannot believe a penalty wasn’t called on the garage door here:
(via With Leather)
