Over the weekend, nearly a quarter of the Vancouver Canucks roster showed symptoms of the mumps. Now the virus has spread to the Minnesota Wild. Forward’s Jason Pominville and Zach Parise have been diagnosed, according to the Wild’s twitter.
It’s all happening again.
By Cara Bahniuk 6 years ago
Wherever Bruce Boudreau goes, talk of winning the Stanley Cup follows. Since the portly bench boss oversaw the Washington Capitals’ transformation from a sad franchise to a thrilling team that is of the league’s perennial threats, Boudreau has been a coveted head coach for teams looking to turn things around. He has never been out of a job long.
On Sunday night, Boudreau returned to Anaheim for the first time after spending parts of six seasons coaching the Ducks. He took the Ducks to the playoffs five times, once within one win of the Stanley Cup Final. But after his fourth straight Game 7 loss on April 28 of last year, he was fired for the second time in his career, only to be replaced Randy Carlyle, the man whose job he took over years earlier. One week later, Boudreau was scooped up by the Minnesota Wild.
By Chris Gordon 6 years ago
Photo: @mnwild
The world lost a legend this week. In addition to being a virtuoso musician, prolific songwriter, advocate for artist rights, and a generally funky dude, Prince was also a favorite son of Minnesota. Before the Wild were eliminated by the Stars 5-4 on Sunday afternoon, Xcel Energy honored the late great genius.
By Peter Hassett 7 years ago
Wednesday night, we saw our best impression of the 2009 Capitals since Monday: don’t try for 40 minutes, score goals, and see what happens. With Adam Oates in the house, the Caps decided to suck some more, getting outside 9-2 at the midway point of the first period. It got worse. Mikko Koivu scored a power play marker with just 42 seconds left in the feckless frame. In the end, the Wild outshot the Caps 12-3. Shot attempts were 23-8 in Minnesota’s favor.
In the second, BROOKS ORPIK SCORED BECAUSE HE IS INFALLIBLE EVERYDAY.
Later in the period, Nino Niederreiter took a machete to the Caps defense like it was a Top Gear special. Things looked bleak.
Sometime in the third, the Caps decided to try to win, which is something that can be pretty good at. Alex Ovechkin promptly tied the game with his fortieth goal of the season on the you know what from the you know where. He’s the Marco Rubio of goals.
Dmitry Orlov made some Euro softie moves and scored a goal that went in somehow, as if placed in the net by Oates’s divine hand. Caps beat Wild 3-2.
By Chris Gordon 7 years ago
The Caps are at risk of doing that thing. You know that thing. That one thing where they lose two games in a row in rego. They haven’t done that yet and they don’t want to do that ever.
Playing guest at Verizon Center tonight is the Minnesota Wild, a desperate team and one not to underestimate. But they do have a pretty bad penalty kill, and Ovechkin is sitting at the cusp of 40 goals, so.
Time to do work. 7 PM on CSN.
| Team | Record | Possession | PDO | Power Play | Penalty Kill |
| Washington Capitals | 44-11-4 | 51.8% | 102.0 | 22.9% (1st) | 84.5% (4th) |
| Minnesota Wild | 27-24-6 | 48.1% | 100.8 | 18.3% (18th) | 77.6% (27th) |
By Peter Hassett 7 years ago
This baby will never forget this night.
I could say that the Washington Capitals defeated the Minnesota Wild, but that wouldn’t be totally cromulent. A better way to put it: Alex Ovechkin defeated the Minnesota Wild. (Braden Holtby helped.)
Ovi scored, then Ovi scored, then someone else scored, then Ovi scored again. One of those was a power-play goal. Then Ryan Suter scored, and it was close all of a sudden, but it’s the Caps so they won. Chim-dawg got an empty netter and some Minny dude got a late goal, whatevs.
Caps beat Wild 4-3! Five wins in a row!
By Peter Hassett 7 years ago
Hello, St Paul. The NHL’s best team is in town and they’re delighted to be here. Thanks for having them, now please be prepared to lose. Again.
The Wild are 1-7-2 in their last ten games and have lost 6 straight. As a Caps fan, you may be unfamiliar with the number in the loss column being bigger than the number in the win column. Basically, what it means is that the Wild have lost in regulation seven times in the last 10 games. The Caps have lost in regulation nine times all season.
Breathe it in, everyone. Soak it in and enjoy this. Remember how Andy Bernard said he wished that there was a way to realize that he was in the good old days before he left them? This 2015-16 season will be looked back upon as the good old days. Enjoy them. As Ben said #TheseAreTheDays
I'm already sad for the day when we'll be saying "remember the 2015-16 #Caps? Those were the days." #TheseAreTheDays!!
— Ben Scarbs (@1bscarbro) February 10, 2016
The game is at 8pm on CSN-plus.
| Team | Record | Possession | PDO | Power Play | Penalty Kill |
| Washington Capitals | 39-9-4 | 52.2% | 102.1 | 24.4% | 84.0% |
| Minnesota Wild | 23-20-10 | 48.2% | 100.5 | 17.8% | 78.1% |
By Patrick Holden 7 years ago
Tommy Drama.
It took a while to get going, but the Capitals played a good road game against a good opponent to earn two huge points on Thursday night. It was game that, like so many others, serves to remind us how valuable Alex Ovechin is to this team. You might even say he’s the Most Valuable.
We waited with baited breath until past the halfway mark, when Zach Parise roughed up Tom Wilson and Wilson got a B.S. embellishment call. Alex Ovechkin responded with his 46th of the season, followed by Evgeny Kuznetsov’s snatch-and-score just 40 seconds later. Christian Folin extracted revenge right before the second intermission with a rush goal.
Ovechkin scored number 47 in the third period, which was amazing, and Jared Spurgeon hit a stand-up double on a late-game power play. Braden Holtby fended off a wild (get it?) attack in the final minute to win the game.
Caps beat Wild 3-2! The first time ever in Xcel!
By Peter Hassett 8 years ago
Hello. Let’s do hockey.
Tonight in Minny the Caps take on the Wild. I don’t like singular collective nouns for sports teams. What do you call a member of the Wild (aside from “member of the Wild”)? They’re not “a Wild.” They’re not “a Wildling.” Same deal with the Lightning. I guess each one of those guys is “a Bolt” at least.
Those team names are stupid. Therefore the Capitals should beat them tonight.
8 PM, CSN, crash net.
| Team | Record | Possession | PDO | Power Play | Penalty Kill |
| Washington Capitals | 38-23-10 | 51.3% | 100.4 | 25.7% | 81.1% |
| Minnesota Wild | 39-24-7 | 51.6% | 99.8 | 14.9% | 86.9% |
By Peter Hassett 8 years ago
Not bad for a snow day! Bravo, fans.
The Caps lacked Alex Ovechkin for their Thursday night battle with the Minnesota Wild. In a curious coincidence they also lacked offense. It was a punishingly tight game, but the Wild eked out an edge late and now leave our snowy town with two points in hand, leaving none for our Caps.
During a first period power play, Curtis Glencross filled the net with a puck and our tummies with a free roast beef sandwich. From then on– nothing until the Wild scrambled the net for the tying goal. With five minutes left, Mike Green got overconfident in the breakout and surrendered the puck to Pominville, who scored again, darn it.
Meanwhile, Marcus Johansson rang the post twice. Shucks
Wild beat Caps 2-1.
By Peter Hassett 8 years ago
