All eyes are on the Caps, wallowing in their slump, magnified by the cameras of HBO. Like Willow Rosenberg before them, Russian Machine has “gone dark”, popping Lord Voldemort and Dawson Leery up on the site until the Caps get a W.

Tough times, but they won’t last.

Most Popular Stories of the Week

1. Rangers beat Caps 7-0: Initiate Panic Protocol
   We respond to the Worst Game Ever by laying out precise instructions on how to panic.
2. Avangard vs. Vityaz: The Bloodiest Rivalry in Hockey Escalates
   EITM talked about Fedor’s hockey violence screed for 45 seconds before switching topics to group sex.
3. Peter’s Review of HBO 24/7 Capitals/Penguins, Week One
   Coping with HBO’s kick in the teeth with the power of (slightly off-key, slightly out-of-tune) music.

Six Stories That You’ll Be Glad You Read

1. Six-game Losing Streaks are Rare
   How ’bout seven, Neil?
2. HBO 24/7: A Cameo of Sorts for One Fan
   Ellen’s knitted Ovechkin doll finds unsuspected fame on pay cable.
3. Alan May and Peter Bondra Skate at Mites on Ice Outdoor Classic
   Nour and Lindsey document two Caps notables schooling little kids at Reston Town Center.
4. Can’t Lose
   Textual version of the “Unleash the Fury” video package.
5. Poof! Goes the Offense
   Neil charts the decline and disappearance of the Caps’ production using his scoring chances data set.
6. Is Two Days Enough?
   Bruce’s Caps perform poorest with two days off before a game. Yikes.

Game Recaps For Masochists

1. Avalanche 3, Capitals 2 — You can’t say that this team has hit rock bottom until they start heading in the other direction.
2. Rangers 7, Capitals 0 — We need them to be the team we love, not the disaffected clowns who are apparently just killing time until the playoffs.
3. Ducks 2, Capitals 1 —  …we’ve got to power through the next few days of blowhard columnists and humorless humorists waxing assholic about our team.

Puck drops in a few hours way up in tropical Boston, Massachusetts. Let’s make next week’s narratives totally different. Go Caps.