Caps Can't Be Finished

Well folks, we've been spending too much time playing Poker online (not for real money, we're using our real names on Facebook) to do much blogging but after the signing of Brendan Morrrissonn yesterday, we felt as though we needed to chime in.

First of all, backing up to the first of the month, the signing of Mike Knuble looks to be a dangerous move for us. While CW says that the Caps need somebody willing to go to the net, is a 37 year old the right guy for that job? Sure he says he's "a young 37" and "a low mileage player" but he plays a high mileage style. Secondly, signing him for two years is a little much in our book. While it isn't as long as Michael "Meadowlark" Nylander's contract, we still haven't seemed to learn the lesson yet. Of the "sensible" free agents we've brought in since the lockout, Tom Poti is the only one even remotely close to providing us with what we expected and even then, Poti could still be classified as a disappointment.

Now adding Morrrissonn to the mix (not to be confused with and no relation to Shaone Morrrissonnn) is real a head scratcher. Yes the Caps lost Viktor Kozlov and Sergei (#3) Fedorov but will Knuble and Morrrissonn really replace those two? General Manager George McPhee certainly thinks so as he climbed to the top rope and dropped a Randy Savagesque elbow on Kozlov with his statement of “We replaced a 13 goal scorer with a 20 goal scorer.”

OUCH!

You don't see McPhee do that everyday though it should be noted that two years ago, we weren’t so much concerned about scoring “dirty goals” or “playoff goals” if you will as we were about just simply making the playoffs. We got Kozlov to get those extra gimmick points we had been leaving on the table to help get us into 8th place in the Conference.

Kozlov never really provided that and now he's gone. So the Caps turned to the reject bin again to try to fix a hole.

Getting back to Morrrissonn, we wonder what the second line is going to look like because we've seen time and again here in D.C., European wingers play better with European centers. Alexander "Slappy" Semin on the first line with A.O. and Nicklas Backstrom is something we've seen plenty of and we've had success with it. But is it really a long term solution? A second line of Morrrissonn, Eric Fehr, and Mike Knuble could work. But Tomas Fleischmann looks to be the odd man out and Meadowlark is just going to occupy roster and salary cap space.

But there has to be more moves to come. First of all Brent Johnson doesn't have a contract, from anybody, right now. It isn't as if there weren't teams looking for backups. We think Jose "Alvin, Simon," Theodore is going to be traded and McPhee has asked Johnson to cool his jets and wait for the trade to be finalized. Furthermore it has been noted that the Caps think that Karl "Malden" Alzner has done all he can do in Hershey, with seven defensemen already on the roster, the Caps need to make space for Alzner. We think Poti, Morrrissonnn, Brian Pothier, and/or Milan Jurcina (only because he could hit a home run in arbitration) could be traded. And this doesn't even take into account John Carlson, a defenseman the Caps would like to get into the NHL for a little bit next year.

So if you're one of those who cringe every time a UFA defenseman signs elsewhere, please understand, McPhee has more work to do before this summer is over.

Now if you excuse us, we have to go get beaten on the river again with pocket rockets by some schmuck with a king-five off suit...

Could Somebody Please Explain This To Us?

Seriously folks, we're really befuddled. We'd like to know why fans use as a shining example of what they want their franchise to be a franchise that hasn’t won a title in 35 years now, hasn’t played for the title in 12 years, and is two years removed from the by far the worst season in franchise history? And remember folks, that is WITH Gary Bettman's point inflation scheme in full force.

Hades folks, we've been to a more recent Stanley Cup Final than the Philadelphia Flyers have. How in the world can you point to them as an example of a franchise we should model ourselves after? What in the world are you smoking when you make the claim "the Flyers do what they have to do in order to contend every year"?

Emulate Detroit? Ok, 4 Cups in 11 years is something to admire. New Jersey? Eh, 3 Cups in 9 nine years though only because that franchise was able to get away with being a one-man-band with the right system played in front of him. (Though we do admit that could be the recipe for success in the Salary Capped NHL).

But Philly? We've already run down their less than stellar history. The Rangers? One Cup in 68 years speaks for itself. Pittsburgh? Look folks, that was a total and complete fix done to further the NHL's Marketing Plan. If Game 3 of our series wasn't obvious enough that the fix was in (six Penguin Scum Power Plays to two for the Caps), Game 3 of the Finals should have been when the Penguin Scum had too many men on the ice for 21 seconds and not only was it not called, the NHL refused to publicly comment on the clearly blown call by their officiating crew. Referees Paul Devorski (why aren't we surprised that this guy is at the center of another highly publicized blown call?) and Dennis LaRue along with linesmen Derek Amell, and Pierre Raciot should have been pulled from the Finals immediately after Game 3. But not only were they not pulled, they worked Game 5 as a unit and Devorski and Raciot were tapped for the deciding Game 7 where former Penguin Scum employee Pierre McGuire forgot to add to the end of his infamous line (after yet another blown call in the Penguin Scum's favor) "that's a penalty in the regular season and first three rounds of the playoffs" "and games that the Pittsburgh Penguin Scum desperately need to win."

Sorry folks, but we digress...

Seriously, we want to know why you think the Flyers are a franchise worth emulating? E-mail us at "capsnut" over at gmail dot com because we thought you all wanted to win a Stanley Cup?

2008-2009 Caps Season Wrap-Up, Part I

Ok folks, we've put the guitar controller down for now and are now turning our attention to reviewing and wrapping up the 2008-2009 Washington Capitals season. And as we picked through the debris of a season brought to a crashing halt and put back together the wreckage of a season ended too soon for many, we've come to a few conclusions;

#1. Things are not as bad as they seem. Folks, we never drank the Kool-Aid that the Caps were Stanley Cup contenders this season. We knew that the Caps were not going to win the Cup so that meant that the Caps would likely lose in the playoffs. We really wish it hadn't been to the Penguin Scum but somebody had to end our season. Last year we felt that this would be the season that the Caps broke through and made the playoffs. The Caps surprised everybody and crashed the NHL Post-Season last year and while they only lasted one round, they were expected to do better this season and they did. They posted seven more victories in the regular season for 14 more points in the standings. The Caps wrapped up a playoff spot and the division title early and held the #2 seed in the East, #4 overall. The Caps also got into the Second round for the first time since 1998. That is nothing to sneeze at while they also lit the town on fire hungry for a winner.

But that's not all folks because:

#2. Better days are ahead. The players who are easily defined as "the core"; A.O., Nicklas Backstrom, Alexander "Slappy" Semin, and Mike "BEAM ME UP" Green are 23, 21, 25, and 23 respectively. That means they can and should get even better than they are right now. If you happen to be in Darwin's Waiting Room for some reason, ignore the bozos who claim that their primes are being wasted. These guys haven't entered their primes yet which is what makes this so scary. Furthermore, when you look at the list of injuries, you should realize just how good this team really is and like us, can only imagine what this team could have done at full strength. Because with a hurt Green and A.O. the entire time, they came back from a 3-1 deficit to win in the first round and took the Penguin Scum to the distance before finally running completely out of gas.

However:

#3. There is still a lot of work to be done. We don't envy the job of General Manager George McPhee in not only trying to keep this team together, but to also find upgrades and improvements with little room under the salary cap and not much more room coming this season and the very real possibility of even less room in 2010-2011. We should also note that the Caps have not yet acquired the hard-hitting stay-at-home defenseman that they've needed since trading Brendan Witt. Furthermore, the scoring right winger to play alongside A.O. is still missing as well. John Carlson may be the defenseman we've been looking for but he isn't expected to be here full time until 2010-2011. Who the right winger will be is anybodies guess and would be our focus with the 24th pick in the upcoming draft. Finally, while the core is young, they also need maturity. That will come with time but until these players are no longer concerned with how they will celebrate their goals or what their hairstyles are going to be, they will lack the maturity that they need in order to be successful. We're not saying that these guys can't have fun. We want them to have fun, but we want them to focus on the game more than style points.

So folks, over the next few days we'll go through the lineup and assign some grades. Some guys will get different grades for the regular season and playoffs while some will get only one grade. We'll let you know which is which.

'Roid Rage

Well, if there was anything that could snap us out of our funk over the abrupt ending to a promising season (oh, who are we kidding, we bought Guitar Hero for our P.C., trust us folks, this isn't a pretty site which is why we haven't been around lately) it was the reports of the Caps and Natinals being sold steroids.

We happen to be a little too jaded and cynical (shocking, we know...) to think that this is just the ramblings of a desperate individual who now finds himself in deep, deep trouble with the law. So what he's an accused felon and by definition, is a slimeball? Does anybody dispute that Jose Canseco is slimeball but absolutely 100% correct about his allegations against his fellow Major League Baseball players?

We don't think so.

We happen to put the odds of this guy telling the truth at 50-50. And should the coin flip work in his favor, we can't say we're surprised. We'd be very disappointed but not all surprised.

First of all, six mostly former Natinals players were named in the Mitchell Report with one other getting bust that the IOC for a substance that was not banned by MLB at the time. Jose Guillen was the only player to be accused of doping while playing with the Natinals and it certainly explains his explosive temper. The idea that a Major League Baseball team has now or had at one time a player doping is not far-fetched at all.

As for the Caps, well, aside from the obligatory denials and requisite weasel wording it wouldn't be too far-fetched either. First of all, yes, we said "weasel wording" because the explicit "past two seasons" gives the Caps cover for anything prior to the 2006-2007 season. If you've read the stories, the dealers have been in business for 10 years. That's eight years the NHL and the Caps weren't looking and who knows what was going on. As a matter of fact, of the players who were on the opening night roster for the 2003-2004 season only Alexander "Slappy" Semin remains and he was a healthy scratch that night. Michael "Meadowlark" Nylander (who was on injured reserve when the season began and was traded at the deadline), Brooks "and Dunn" Laich, and Shaone Morrrissonnn also appeared that season but in limited roles. Again, who knows what was going on then or earlier.

And don't think that all dopers have to look like Big Head BALCO Barry Bonds* either. Floyd Landis who tested positive for steroids and Lance Armstrong, who has been under constant suspicion, are anything but big muscled brutes like Big Head BALCO Barry Bonds* or Roger Clemens. The fact that Tomas Fleischmann gets knocked over by a stiff breeze does not mean he could not possibly be doping.

Now before anybody tries to get us in trouble, we are NOT accusing any current or former Caps of being dopers. We are listing these names to establish the possibility that this guy could be telling the truth. First of all, Viktor Kozlov and Sergei (#3) Fedorov have off season homes in Florida. Former Cap and current Islander Brendan Witt also maintains an off season abode in the state. Again, we are not accusing these guys of being dopers, we're just saying that these guys live in the same state as the arrested dealer and could possibly be clients. We don't know for certain and quite frankly, we hope that isn't the case.

But remembering like the Venerable Off Wing Opinion did how the NHL's drug testing policy was ripped by the World Anti-Doping Agency President and reading in Sports Illustrated about how the NHL had to clean out Sudafed from its locker rooms in advance of the 1998 Olympics (Sudafed contains pseudo ephedrine which was a banned stimulant under the IOC at the time, it is now regulated by the WADA) the idea that doping at the NHL level becomes less and less far fetched.

We do however feel that the Caps and the NHL are handling this situation appropriately, at least in public. They should conduct through investigations including former players. We should also note that many of the star players have played in international competitions in recent years (Kozlov 2006 Olympics, Fedorov 2008 World Championships) and few if any have ever come back with positive tests. Jose "Alvin, Simon," Theodore tested positive for a masking agent but not a PED. What this tells us is that the star players aren't very likely to be the culprits. If we were bettors, we'd bet that the lesser players, the NHL equivalent of a Nook "LaLoosh" Logan being caught instead of the superstars.

However at this point, the idea or accusation of performance enhancing drugs in a professional sport should sadly no longer be a surprise.

Sunday Smorgasbord 5-17

• We've been having too much fun (if you want to call it that) catching up on sleep and general life since the Caps were eliminated by the NHL on Wednesday night. We had wanted to do a full preview for the Conference Finals that started today but never got around to it. After going 8 for 8 in the first round we cooled off and only went 3 for 4 in the second round. So to give you the condensed version of the previews we were planning, Chicago is an Original Six Rehabilitation Project that hasn't been fully tested in the playoffs. They'll get one now. The Red Wings got a wake up call from Brad Watson against the Thug Ducks (who blew our perfect record) in Game 3 but slipped a little bit and still needed seven to finish off Anaheim. That's why we think Detroit in six is a safe bet. As for the East, whenever New Jersey and Carolina meet in the playoffs, the winner has gone on to the Stanley Cup Finals. Underestimate Carolina at your own risk. The Penguin Scum are coming off of two series against two rivals, how much is physically and emotionally left? We happen to think that Carolina plays the game that Pittsburgh is trying to play now under Blysma, only better because Carolina is bigger and stronger and will hit the Penguin Scum defense, unlike the Caps. We really think Carolina in six if the NHL keeps it on the level, otherwise Carolina will likely need seven.
• We have to say, after watching today's Natinals 8-6 loss to the Phillies, we feel it is really only a matter of time before Manny Acta is fired. Not that any of this is Manny's fault but considering the turnover in the bullpen that still can't get the job done with any consistency and defense that flat out self-destructs, there's no other way to get the players attention than to get rid of the manger. That said, this lineup can really hit the ball and should get more attention from the fans because that means they'll never be out of games. Just don't expect them to win many games.
• Anyway, this is quick this week because we're about to head off to bed for night but this week Stan Kasten will actively sell to all the Pittsburgh fans who felt slighted by Ted Leonsis as the Pirates come to town and then Stan tries to convince the Baltimorons that Nationals Park is just like Ralph Cramden Yards.
• The email address here is "capsnut" over at gmail dot com.

Game 7 Caps vs. Penguin Scum 5-13-2009 Wrap Up

The Local Yokels:

(Com)Post: painful end, get what they wanted, quick finish, good season, bad end, high praise, final farewell. Times: flattened, quest finished, value added, throwing daggers, rocked out, actions speak, peace and quiet. Caps.com.

The Neutral Observers:

NHL.com: recap, more battles, rising up, big save, disappointing, splitting up, returning impact, fan salute. AP Wire. CBC.com. ESPN.com.

The Other Side:

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: moving on, chasing, following the rules. Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: chased off, always cocky, spark provider, the best medicine, playing through pain. Penguin Scum.com.

Final Thoughts:

We don't think anybody who followed this team this season was in the least bit surprised by the injury list partially revealed after the game last night. Looking at three of those four names, A. O., Alexander "Slappy" Semin , and Mike "BEAM ME UP" Green; you really get a sense of just how hard and how well the Caps played just to keep up with the Penguin Scum. Had those guys been out of the lineup for this series (throw in Tom Poti for good measure after Game 1) like they should have been under normal circumstance; this series would have been over a lot sooner. If you don't understand now who the better team really is, then you never will.

As for the real nattering nabobs of negativism, no longer can they say with any credibility that the Caps are not built for the playoffs or that certain key players are soft.

So Penguin Scum fans, thanks for stopping on by. Go out and do your little superiority dance like you did after the joke that was the Super Bowl. We don't expect any less out of you people.

Game 7 Caps vs. Penguin Scum 5-13-2009

Well folks, we knew we shouldn't have bothered going to the game tonight. Our heads told us not to go tonight. Our guts told us not to go tonight. But our hearts were insisting that we did.

So much for listening to your heart...

We knew right away after finding out that Martin Brodeur had choked away the series to Carolina that we were going to lose to the Penguin Scum. We knew the NHL would not allow us to win.

Oh come on Caps Nut, you can't be serious??? How do you fix a 6-2 game???

Pipe down... We'll get there...

But first, some of you have noticed and call us out for a change in tenor on this blog. Back when we first started this thing, the Caps were just plain awful. There was all kinds of negativity surrounding the team as the losses piled up. We however tried to focus on the positive. We tried to stay upbeat in the dark times knowing full well that better days were ahead.

Then last year when the Caps fired Glen Hanlon and replaced him with Bruce Boudreau, things started to turn around. However, while we noticed the improvement, we didn't believe that the Caps were a playoff ready team. We didn't think that the Caps could come from as far back as they did to make the playoffs.

Then the Caps hosted Carolina on April 1st, 2008. When we saw Alexander "Slappy" Semin layout Eric Staal with a clean, vicious, and brutal open ice shoulder check, we began to think, they could just actually do this.

Falling behind 3-1 to the Flyers in the first round was a wake-up call, but we didn't fully heed it as we watched the Caps force a Game 7.

Uh, Caps Nut, what does this have to do with tonight???

Shut up, we're getting there... This is called "decompressing" ok???

We thought, "these guys could really do it, maybe this is a team of destiny." Then like a ton of bricks the shoe dropped first in the form of Shaone Morrrissonnn getting tossed into Christobal Huet and the refs looking the other way as a goal was scored on the interference. Then other shoe came with a ticky-tack tripping call to Tom Poti in overtime after 60 minutes of "let 'em play" hockey.

In short folks, we got blindsided and we weren't going to let that happen to us again.

This wasn't at all like 1998. The breaks were not going our way against the Rangers and it was our sheer talent level that got us through. If this had been a replay of 1998, Sean Avery would have been the one suspended for six games, not Mr. Donald Brashear. If this had been a replay of 1998, the Penguin Scum would have been the ones getting marched off to the penalty box in droves. Not the Caps. If this had been 1998, Simeon "the Saviour" Varlamov would not have melted down and cost us 3 games with his play.

Add in the that the fact that we never drank the Kool-Aid that the Caps were a legitimate Stanley Cup contender and you should understand why we've been a nattering nabob of negativism. Sorry folks, but when John "Coach's Pet" Erskine Bowles is considered your big hitting defenseman who scares the opposing forwards, you aren't going to win the Cup. When Viktor Kozlov, Eric Fehr, and Tomas Fleischmann are your go-to goal scoring right wingers, you aren't going to win the Cup.

But we'll wrap the season later.

Back to tonight.

FINALLY!!!

Get out of here...

How in the world the NHL assigns the "senior" referees from the two worst officiated games of this series to Game 7 is beyond us. But again, it was a sign that the NHL wasn't going to allow the Caps to win this game. After all, they tried rather hard on Monday night but the Caps just wouldn't cooperate.

The game got off to a decent enough start. We were expecting "let 'em play" hockey until at least the third period. But we only got 11:29 of it. Long enough for the Penguin Scum to weather the early Caps storm and get their legs under them. Morrrissonnn gets called for a slashing call that was ignored when Evgeni Malkin-Lindros did the exact same thing to Sergei (#3) Fedorov in Game 4. (Fedorov you might remember then had to tackle Malkin-Lindros because he didn't have his stick anymore and got called for holding.) Power Play goal Penguin Scum and things were off and running.

Throw in a bad night for Simeon "the Saviour" and the snowball effect got underway.

There were other opportunities for Bill McCreary and Dan O'Halloran to "even things up" but nope, just to make sure that the Caps could not get any momentum heading into the intermission, a dive that certainly rivaled anything ever done by Canadian Diving Team Captain, Lowblow Secondary Assist Cindy Crosby, by Brooks Orpik drew a penalty on Sergei (#3) and put an end to any of those ideas.

After Boudreau finally yanked Simeon "the Saviour" after allowing two goals on two shots to start the second period, there was really no need to call anymore penalties on the Caps unless of course it involved protecting the NHL's Golden Girl, Lowblow Cindy. Jealous of Orpik's header, Cindy couldn't help herself and took a header herself off a high stick from Brooks "and Dunn" Laich 26 seconds into the third period. Laich was assessed four minutes for the gushing head wound he opened up on Lowblow Cindy and any hopes of a third period rally were snuffed out.

To give you an idea of how bad the officiating was tonight folks, the Caps couldn't even get a sympathy call/token Power Play tonight. Four penalties called on the Caps. None, zip, zilch, nada, zero, nothing called on the Penguin Scum. If that is not indicative that the fix was in tonight, then nothing else will. The 6-2 score just provides cover because the Caps would have had to play out of their minds to win this game, and even then that may have not been enough. The Penguin Scum played like a team that knew it could do just about anything it wanted, the Caps played like they were afraid to take another penalty after the first two penalty calls.

However ladies and gentlemen, we have to admit. We take a perverse pleasure in tonight's game.

Huh? You enjoyed watching your team take a hose job you knew was coming???

We said get out of here...

After bestowing this series the title of "Greatest NHL Playoff Series, Ever" before the Series was even officially over, tonight's game was as Anti-Climatic as they come. There was standing room only in the Phone Booth Press Box tonight but we guarandangtee you that all over the United States, Canada, Russia, Africa, and the rest of the world, TV's were be changed en mass 2:12 into the second period for something else. Only the folks in Pittsburgh and the sadists in Washington were sticking around for this one and some of the folks in Pittsburgh were heading outside to get a head start on burning their couches in celebration.

In short, this was a joke of a game befitting a joke of a league properly won by a joke of a team. Marc Andre Fleury literally gave away a tailor-made shutout tonight and we had a feeling that whoever ended up winning this series wouldn't have anything physically or emotionally left in the gas tank for the last month of the playoffs. Because as we said, we didn't think the Caps were Stanley Cup contenders and with the advantages and breaks afforded the Penguin Scum in this series, there's no way you can take them seriously as Cup threat either, because let's be honest here. With all the calls and breaks going their way, they still needed 7 games and two deflections of our own sticks to win the series. That isn't the sign of a better team.

But hey, at least we didn't blow a 3-1 lead, that was our worst nightmare.

So in the coming days we'll pick through the rubble of this season and come up with some grades. We'll also preview the Conference and Stanley Cup Finals.

Game 7 Caps vs. Penguin Scum 5-13-2009 Preview

Series J: Washington Capitals (56-38; 108 points; 1st Southeast Division, 2nd Eastern Conference, 4th Overall) vs. Pittsburgh Penguin Scum (52-41; 99 points; 2nd Atlantic Division, 4th Eastern Conference, 8th Overall):
Eastern Conference Semifinals Game #7, Caps Game #14, Home Game #8, NHL Game #227

Verizon Center, Washington, DC. 7:08 pm. Washington TV: Comcast Sportsnet Mid-Atlantic. Radio: WJFK 106.7-FM. Pittsburgh TV: Fox SportsNet Pittsburgh. Radio: WXDX 105.9-FM. U.S. National TV: Versus. Canadian National TV: CBC, RDS (French).

Tonight, the greatest second round series in the history of the world finally comes to an end. The Caps are looking to improve upon their 2-5 record in Game 7 and are 0-2 against the Penguin Scum in Game 7, meeting them in a Game 7 for the first time since 1995. The Penguin Scum are 5-4 All-Time in Game 7, including a 3-0 mark on the road.

What The Natives Are Saying:

(Com)Post: doing it again, stepping up, keep it clean. Times: ghostbusting, other contributions, another big night, preview. Caps.com.

Neutral Views:

NHL.com: preview, memory wipe, mood swings, drama king, Game 7 stats, no changes, trying to play, good line, epic in the making, pain killers, improvement needed. TSN.ca. ESPN.com.

Open Source Intelligence:

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: variable answers, overexposed, been there, jawing ahead, standing by his man, attention hog. Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: gaining experience, could return, his turn, historical advantage, predictable debate, higher ratings, using the whip.

What Do We Expect Tonight?:

Well folks, the NHL hype machine got what it wanted, a Game 7 in this series that is already being branded as "epic" and "an instant classic" before the puck even drops. Taking a narrow view of Game 7, the current crop of Caps clearly have more experience and history on their side simply because the main players for the Caps have played in and won a Game 7, something the main players for the Penguin Scum have never done. However, two weeks ago when the Caps played the Rangers in Game 7, they came out very flat and very tentative despite playing in front of a raucous home crowd. For almost two periods that night the Caps did not show up and play with any purpose. If the Caps do that again tonight, it will be a quick evening as the Penguin Scum are much more dangerous than the Rangers. As for the Penguin Scum, an honest observer has to say that they have no idea how this team will respond to playing in a Game 7. You certainly can get some clues but nothing compares to playing in an NHL Game 7 where both teams are facing a do or die situation. The big key for the Penguin Scum is the play of both Evgeni Malkin-Lindros, who is the true leader of the Penguin Scum, and Marc Andre-Fleury. We have no idea how Malkin-Lindros is going to play but do know that if he has one of his better games, the Penguin Scum will be very tough to beat because the Penguin Scum feed off of his play more than Canadian Diving Team Captain, Lowblow Secondary Assist Cindy Crosby. Marc Andre-Fleury has been a non-factor this series and is about due for an exceptional game. If Fleury has it tonight, then the Caps could very well be sunk. However, Fleury has a troubling history of coming up amazingly short in large situations. A win tonight can help put that to rest. Finally, there is the x-factor for tonight that has been an underlying storyline throughout this series and that is the officiating. First of all, who will get this marquee assignment and how will they call the game? CW says that tonight will be one of the old fashioned "let 'em play" games which means that Power Plays will come at premium tonight. But as we've here in DC have seen, that often gets thrown out the window at the most inopportune times. Especially when it comes to advancing the agenda of the NHL Hype Machine.

Caps Nut Official Prediction:

Caps 2
Penguin Scum 3
Winner by Scuderi

(5-8 in the playoffs)

Game 6 Caps @ Penguin Scum 5-11-2009 Wrap Up

The Local Yokels:

(Com)Post: still alive, game savers, scoring touch, highly rated. Times: deflected, going the distance, itchy, doing other things, perfect timing. Caps.com.

The Neutral Observers:

NHL.com: recap, the cavalry arrives, effective, second times a charm. AP wire. CBC. ESPN.com.

The Other Side:

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: off script, going all the way, another close call, rising up. Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: dropped, meeting the hype, reinforcements, fitting end, still out, unmotivated. Penguin Scum.com.

Final Thoughts:

3 down, Game 7 and a case of Maalox to go...