Awesome Index

The Awesome Index: Brouwer’s Bash, Brooks’ Line is Best, and Braden Holtbeast

Image by @WashCaps

It was two days before Christmas 2006 when a 21 year old named Troy Brouwer played his first NHL game. He got four shifts that night for a total of less than three minutes. He didn’t play at all after the first period.

(He had a minus-one corsi differential that night, which I think someone should tell him. He’ll get a kick out of that.)

Four-hundred ninety-nine games later, Troy Brouwer has joined the 500 club. He did it in style with two goals. Longevity is laudable enough in this league, but Brouwer has scored 126 goals with 28 game-winners, won a Stanley Cup, danced Gangnam Style, and captured the imaginations of two seriously demented hockey fans.

Troy Brouwer is, in a word, awesome.

Here are some more awesome things in our world this week.

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The Awesome Index: Mutant Shootout, Roads, and Barry

Photo: Eliot J. Schechter

Alright, lemme just start with this, because if I don’t I won’t be doing the Awesome Index right.

The Caps haven’t lost a game in #rego in fifteen days. That one on December 2nd was kind of a lame one too. The Caps’ record ain’t bad. That’s awesome.

I’ve got some more awesome stuff for you below, including my 2014 “best of” list.

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The Awesome Index: Loving Laich and Five Years of RMNB

Photo: Scott Audette

I skipped the Awesome Index last week. There was nothing awesome going on. I tried to think of some, but then I had to wade through the internet’s putrid pools of pissypants to find any. Rather than do something insincere or making it the “awful index” for a week, I decided to take a week off. I’m glad I did. In the seven days since then, we’ve been inundated with Awesome.

The Caps are riding a three-game winning streak, all of it on the road, formerly ice cold players are denting the net, and one guy in particular is looking really good out there. And not just because he’s handsome. I’m talking about Brooks Laich, but before we get to him, we’ve got some other awesomeness to go over.

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The Awesome Index: Thanksgiving Special

Technically, this is a dinosaur. You are eating dinosaurs.

Happy Thanksgiving, friends. The Caps lost in OT last night, but there are still a great many awesome things. There is no better time to take stock of all the awesome things in our weird little universe than today.

Let’s change the format today. Let’s throw the ranking out the window and do it like a grocery list. There’s too much awesome for a top five.

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The Awesome Index: Who Are You and What Have You Done With Marcus Johansson?

I’m not going to dedicate this week’s Awesome Index to Jay “top-line” Beagle, though his pass to set up Alex Ovechkin’s goal during Tuesday’s game against the Blooj was irrefutably awesome.

But a successful Capitals season depends on Alex Ovechkin spending almost 60 percent of his time on attack. Last night he spent just 30 percent of his time on attack. Top-line Beagle isn’t awesome in the long term, which is one of the principal lessons we should have learned from the last guy to stand behind the Caps bench, whose name I don’t want to mention in the Awesome Index, lest it be sullied.

But there’s plenty of other awesome stuff. The Caps have won three in a row, which is absolutely awesome. And while the ways in which they’ve won those games haven’t been particularly awesome, what with the noted lack of SCOAR MOAR GOALS once they get a lead, maybe I’m just thinking about it wrong.

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The Awesome Index: The Gas Pedal, Ovi Hate, and Top-Line Tommy

I love the dude in the back here. (Photo: Rob Carr)

You’re like, “No way. No way Peter can find awesome things right now. The Caps have lost like seventy games straight. Except for stupid fancystats, he can’t name anything awesome about this team at all.”

Challenge accepted, holmes. The Capitals are awesome. I think I’ve found one spot where they can increase awesomeness in particular. Plus: did you even see the top line last night? They were awesome!

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The Awesome Index: Unlocking Ovechkin, Mojo Working, and “Analytics Death”

Broken up.

“But, Peter,” you might say, “what could be awesome about the Caps losing two out of three games on that road trip?”

A good question, hypothetical reader into whose mouth I have put words. While the Caps played awesome in western Canada, the results were not uniformly awesome. We’re gonna have to dig deep this week to find the coolest stuff in the Caps’ world.

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The Awesome Index: Happy Stats, the Bad Part of Canada, and the Caps/Puppy Hypothesis

All puppy pics by Amanda Bowen

You’re back already for some more Awesome Index? Good, because I’ve got heaping helping of hella awesome stuff all plated up for you.

Not a lot of Caps hockey since the last time I left you a dope beat to step to, but that doesn’t mean the world of the Capitals was quiet. Indeed, there was all kinds of stuff happening this week, and some if it was– and I hope you’re sitting down for this– awesome.

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