Beagle’s face here (Photo: Bruce Bennett/Getty)
The Caps played another one-goal game last night and lost. As Pat said, one-goal games– be they wins or losses– are the mark of a mediocre team who relies on luck too much. The Caps are not a mediocre team, but they haven’t shown us much to sing about lately.
Wrapping up a string of four games in five nights, the Caps are in Boston today. How great would it be to see a 3-0 lead after 20 minutes? A boy can dream…
Game’s on at 7 PM on CSN.
| Team | Record | Possession | PDO | Power Play | Penalty Kill |
| Washington Capitals | 47-13-4 | 51.6% | 101.7 | 24.1% (1st) | 84.2% (5th) |
| Boston Bruins | 36-23-6 | 48.9% | 100.7 | 21.7% (6th) | 81.9% (11th) |
Projected Lineup
Guys, I have no idea. Here’s last night’s line up with Schmidt in and Grubi in net? I am just making this up.
Ovechkin – Backstrom – Oshie
Burakovsky – Kuznetsov – Williams
Chimera – Johansson – Wilson
Winnik – Richards – Beagle
Alzner – Niskanen
Orpik – Orlov
Schmidt – Chorney
Grubauer
By Period
So the first period Caps are not a good team, but the third period Caps are a very good team. The first period is also the only one where goals don’t outpace possession.
Is this a real thing? Is this an artifact of samples? What exactly causes slow starts? I don’t think anyone really knows, but I bet people will act like they do!
Storylines
- Tonight’s begins the Caps’ longest road trip of the season. In March. Whoop.
- The Boston Bruins are barely holding onto a playoff spot. Last season they missed the playoffs with 96 points, which is basically the worst case scenario for a team. Boston has won 4 of its last 5, so.
- Trotz’s thoughts on the Orlov Orpik pairing are …interesting.
- Schmidtuation: expected to play tonight after missing two games with a lower-body injury.
- Interesting conversations about body-checking bans in youth hockey.
- This is why league and PA officials have zero credibility.
- Ian interviewed a rock star last night.
Best Thing on the Internet Today
This Jedi hamster.
Or is he even a Jedi? What if we’re too narrow-minded and strict in equating Jedi/Rebellion/Resistance with good/light side and Sith/Empire/First Order with evil/dark side? Isn’t that absolutism at least part of what pushed Anakin into psychopathy in the first place?
I urge you to consider the tale of Darth Vectivus (Legacy of the Force, 2006), who was a successful businessman turned Sith Lord but who never succumbed to the dark side. Perhaps the only true model for success among force users is balance within individuals, rather than balance through extreme offsets (i.e. Luke counterbalances Vader). After all, Luke flirted quite a bit with the dark side — from adopting its look (his outfits got progressively blacker from IV to VI) to embracing wrath up to a point. And it was Vader, the supposed apotheosis of evil, who committed the final act of heroic violence in VI by killing the most extreme force user we’d ever seen, Emperor Palpatine.
So maybe this hamster isn’t a noble Jedi, some sedate white space knight. Maybe he’s just like you and me*: trying to create balance for his hamstery life in a world that wants him to vacillate from good to evil like a dim child playing pretend.
(* except he’s a hamster)
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