032815 | RMNB

Mike Green Scores Goal Using One of his Fan’s Donated Stealth Sticks, Gets Another After the Game

Photo: Scott Cannon

A few weeks ago, Mike Green started playing with an old Easton Stealth CNT from his 30-goal season. Discontinued almost 10 years ago, Green found one of those sticks in his garage. Green started breaking out the stick in special situations, hoping to regain some of the offensive magic he had in the last decade. The CNT, he said, is the best stick he’s ever used. At the time, he had just one.

After I wrote about it, readers starting emailing RMNB to offer their old game-used Stealths that they had purchased or had been given by Green. Some are even signed. Since then, readers have slowly been resupplying Green with those old CNTs.

On Saturday, Green scored with one of those reader-provided sticks, his second goal since he started using the CNT again.

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By Chris Gordon 8 years ago

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Troy Brouwer’s Two Goals Send Brouwer Rangers Into Dance Fever (GIF)

Photo: Patrick McDermott

Troy Brouwer had a magical second period today. He scored two goals, single-handedly bringing the Caps out of a three-goal hole.

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By Ian Oland 8 years ago

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Filip Forsberg Scoresbergs, Tallies Three Points in First Game at Verizon Center (GIF)

Photo: Patrick McDermott

Filip Forsberg is a painful topic for Caps fans, like Esa Tikkanen and WMATA. We try to avoid it when we can, but Saturday’s matinee put young Filip front and center. The Calder contender, whom George McPhee traded away for an underperforming and underutilized rental and whom Trotz sent down to the AHL while coach of the Predators last season, recorded three points.

To live is to suffer, and to be a Caps fan is to suffer so much more sharply.

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By Ian Oland 8 years ago

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Predators beat Caps 4-3: It’s McPhee’s McPhault

Mike Green scored with one of your sticks.

If you turned off Saturday’s Capitals-Predators game after twenty minutes, I’m worried for you. Yes, it was ugly at that point, but the Caps team of the game’s latter two-thirds wasn’t so bad. If you tuned out, you’d have missed Troy Brouwer’s hero pose and Mike Green’s Ovi spot routine. It was still a brutal loss, but it wasn’t such a bad game after all.

The Caps actually looked pretty good for ten minutes, but after failing to convert a 4v3, the Predators took over. First it was Mattias Ekholm, whose pretty backhand goal came right after the Caps power play expired. Then Mike Fisher took the wheel after Karl Alzner lost his stick and a battle in the crease to Filip Forsberg. Speaking of that dude, Forsberg broke our hearts and ended Holtby’s afternoon with a solo scoar.

That all happened in the first damn period.

The second found Troy Brouwer scoring twice, his 19th and 20th of the season, to put the Caps within striking distance. Things were looking up, but then Mike Ribeiro, who is probably a garbage human being, gave the Preds their fourth goal.

Mike Green put the Caps back within one just 20 seconds into the third, scoring on a Greenie shot from the Ovi spot with his Stealth. The Capitals ratcheted up the pressure late, but Pekka Rinne held onto the lead.

Preds beat Caps 4-3.

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By Peter Hassett 8 years ago

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Caps vs Preds Pregame: Win the Breakup

Photo: Chris Gordon

Now begins a tough weekend for the Washington Capitals. There’s the two early games against two very high-achieving teams, the Nashville Predators today and the New York Rangers tomorrow. There’s also the untidy narratives surrounding today’s game, specifically Barry Trotz playing his old team, who got better when he left, and the “return” of Filip Forsberg to Verizon Center, where he never really played as a Capital, but you know what I mean.

Puck drop at 12:30 PM on CSN. Pants optional.

Team	Record	Possession	PDO	Power Play	Penalty Kill
Washington Capitals	40-24-10	52.0%	100.2	24.8%	81.2%
Nashville Predators	46-21-8	53.1%	101.5	16.3%	81.4%

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By Peter Hassett 8 years ago

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Filip Forsberg Returns to Kettler for the First Time Since Being Traded (Photos)

Photos by Chris Gordon.

Saturday, Filip Forsberg will play at Verizon Center for the first time. Caps fans eagerly awaited this moment when he was drafted 11th overall in 2012. But in March of 2013, Forsberg was sent to the Nashville Predators in exchange for Martin Erat and Michael Latta. It was a bad trade from the start, made worse when Adam Oates ran Erat out of town. Ever since, it’s been a sore spot for Caps fans. This season, the wound has been ripped open. Through 75 games, Forsberg has 56 points and is in the running for the Calder Trophy. While Caps fans still miss him, it seems Washington never made much of an impression on Forsberg, who laced up for the Capitals just once, during the team’s 2012 Development Camp.

“From coming here, things turned out in a way that no one really saw coming,” Forsberg said Friday, when he visited Kettler Capitals Iceplex for the first time since the trade. “They’ll always be a part of it, but obviously I never really made anything for the Capitals.”

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By Chris Gordon 8 years ago

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