21 Days Out: Brooks Laich is Brooks Laich
Normally, I’d put some stat analysis or some opinion in here, but today– 21 days out from the beginning of the season– let’s just appreciate Brooks Laich.
By Peter Hassett 10 years ago
Preseason
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22 Days Out: Jason Chimera Will Be Better
It varies from year to year, but the average shooting percentage in the NHL is somewhere just south of 9%. There’s a lot factored into that (like power plays and the gap between forwards and defenders), but it basically means one out of every eleven shots becomes a goal.
Unless you’re Jason Chimera. Chimera put 92 shots on goal last season and came up with just 3 goals. That’s a 3.3 shooting percentage. Normally, with that volume of shots (about 2 per game), a guy like Chimera would come up with about 8 goals — maybe 14-15 goals in an 82-game season. Although he’s never been an elite shooter, Chimera was absurdly unlucky last year. It won’t last.
The goals will come for Jason Chimera in 2013-14. Take it to #thebank.
By Peter Hassett 10 years ago
23 Days Out: Joel Rechlicz Bobblefist Night in Hershey
On Saturday, December 21, the Hershey Bears will host the Worcester Sharks at Giant Center. That’s reason enough to get excited, but the Bears’ promotion schedule has a note next to the game: Joel Rechlicz Bobblefist Night courtesy of UGI.
By Peter Hassett 10 years ago
24 Days Out: Is SportsYapper Still a Thing?
The New York Yankees have introduced many evils upon the world, but Mark Teixeira’s SportsYapper is truly the evilest. It’s positioned as a kind of Twitter for sports, which perhaps forgets the fact that there is already a Twitter for sports, and it’s called Twitter. A redundant and doomed-to-failure start-up is fine, but viewers of Caps games on CSN last season had to endure a barrage of SportsYapper advertisements. And Yapp it, somehow, despite my protestations, entered the lexicon in 2013.
In April, our own Chris Gordon, at great personal risk, went on SportsYapper and produced one of my favorite pieces of RMNB writing all year.
I dunno if SportsYapper will still be a thing in 2013-14, but it’s not like Teixeira is running out of money anytime soon. So just promise me you won’t go on there. PROMISE ME.
By Peter Hassett 10 years ago
25 Days Out: Kuzyamania!
Ed note: Well, this is awkward. I scheduled this post before Kuznetsov’s trick shoulder got re-injured in Friday’s game against Vityaz.
Evgeny Kuznetsov is RMNB’s cottage industry. We’ve been covering him since mid-to-late 80s, and it’s gone swimmingly well so long as he doesn’t say any words to anyone who is in the business of writing words for other people to read. Kuzya has a bad habit of speaking his mind– particularly when he’s changing his mind every couple of minutes. Kuznetsov’s proclamations of an imminent move to America have been… uhh… let’s say fluctuant.
For the record: it’ll happen either after Traktor’s season ends in the spring or in the fall of 2014. Or never.
Until then, we’ll be here reporting on his (final) season in the KHL with video highlights, stats, and a sense of cool detachment that has allowed us to survive the last few years of Kuzya news without suffering a coronary.
By Peter Hassett 10 years ago
26 Days Out: The Maple Leafs are a Laugh Riot
The Toronto Maple Leafs, the most storied team in the NHL, had failed to make the playoffs in seven straight seasons until 2013. There was something magic in that lockout-shortened, 48-game season that allowed a team ranked second-to-DFL in puck possession to make the postseason.
And what a postseason it was. The Leafs took a commanding lead over the Boston Bruins in game seven before blowing it, freaking epically, in the final ten minutes of regulation. Patrice Bergeron won it for the Bruins in overtime, and Leafs management promptly began its offseason ritual of ruining the team.
They bought out the plucky Mikhail Grabovski, re-upped the derpy Tyler Bozak to a five-year deal, secured David Clarkson until he turns 37, and poisoned the well with Nazem Kadri. Given they probably won’t score a goal on every ninth shot next year, I suspect the Leafs are due for a reckoning in ’13-’14. Meanwhile, the Caps picked up Grabo from free agency and are actually planning on using him to play hockey in the offensive zone at some point.
Thanks for the lulz, Dave Nonis. Keep up the good work, Randy Carlyle. Never change, Toronto. See you at Thanksgiving *(U.S. edition).
By Peter Hassett 10 years ago
27 Days Out: The Dirty ‘Peg
Winnipeg and DC are 1500 miles apart. The Capitals spanned that distance five times in the last two seasons, but thanks to the glory of realignment, that number will be just ONE in 2013-14.
Winnipeg is actually closer to LA than DC, but when the Atlanta Thrashers relocated in 2011, Winnipeg kept its spot in the Southeast Division because reasons. That sucked– not just for players, who endured long plane rides to the exotic and un-parked realm of Manitoba, but also for fans who had to wait until 10 PM later for the puck to drop in an interdivisional game. No more. In 2013-14, the Caps will have five 10 PM starts, and they’re clustered together in two convenient trips to the Western Conference.
Winnipeg is no longer in the southeast, and all is right in the world. On behalf of the Association of American Geographers, I’d like to thank Gary Bettman for the sudden outbreak of cartographical sanity.
By Peter Hassett 10 years ago
28 Days Out: Bruce Boudreau and #TeemuForever (Wherein “Ever” Means “One More Year”)
Consulting the 2013-14 schedule, we see two dates with the Anaheim Ducks: Monday, December 23 in DC; and Tuesday, March 18 in California. The first of those dates will be coach Bruce Boudreau‘s first game back in Verizon Center and his first against his old squad. Poor guy never got to play against Dale Hunter.
Boudreau’s Ducks went 30-12-6 last season on the back of the league’s third-best highest PDO (the sum of two stats that don’t often persist from year to year: save percentage and shooting percentage). The team’s possession actually ranked them in the league’s bottom third— just one spot above Washington. Next season should be interesting for both teams.
Also in Anaheim is 43-year-old Teemu Selanne, recent signatory to a one-year, two-million dollar contract. I suspect the Finnish phenom will finally be finished after this season. Teemu’s powerplay time fell last season, perhaps a sign of reduced utility in his advancing years and purportedly the cause of some snags in contract negotiations. Whether Teemu will actually get more ice may depend on his even-strength performance, which– ya know– also fell last season. He’s still a legend and everything, but it seems that if Selanne cannot stop for retirement, retirement will gladly stop for him.
So here’s my question for you: how shall we greet Teemu and good ol’ Boose Boudreau come Christmas Eve Eve?
By Peter Hassett 10 years ago
29 Days Out: The Metropolitan Division
The Southeast Division is dead. All we have to remember it by are a whole bunch of banners in the Verizon Center rafters and this nifty t-shirt I’m wearing above (25 bucks from the NHL store!). In its wake comes the Metropolitan Division, a bloated version of the old Patrick Division from your youth– unless you’re not old like me.
It’s a double-edged sword. The Caps won’t have the Panthers and Thrashers to beat up on anymore, but they’ll be that much closer to the rivalries that built this team’s legend in the first place. That buzzing feeling in the back of your skull you get when the Caps play the Penguins or the Flyers? It will be coming around a lot more often now. The competition will be much stiffer, but in time that’ll benefit the Caps on-ice product and off-ice reputation. Long Live the Patrick Plus.
By Peter Hassett 10 years ago
30 Days Out: Healthy Mike, Healthy Brooks, Healthy Nicky
The first puck of the 2013-14 season will drop in exactly 30 days, so we’re going to spend the whole month reminding ourselves of all the good things coming our way on October 1st. I thought I’d start with this little gem: Everybody’s healthy. For once.
Over the last two seasons, Mike Green, Brooks Laich, and Nick Backstrom have combined to play just 63.5% of games. Concussions and #brittlegroin have cost those players a combined 142 man-games, probably a big factor in the Caps’ struggles since 2011. After successful rehab for all three, we’ve got reason to think those troubles are behind us now.
By Peter Hassett 10 years ago
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