It wasn’t Andrei Vasilevsky’s fault, but it’s hard to beat perfection. The Tampa Bay Lightning goaltender stopped 31 of 33 Capitals shots tonight in Washington’s 3-0 win over the Bolts in Game 6. Several of those saves were spectacular—though unsurprising for anyone who had seen Vasilevsky’s previous three…
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Partly it’s superstition, and partly it’s because, as they say, he likes what he likes, Alex Ovechkin eats the exact same thing a few hours before every Capitals home game, and he’s been eating it since his rookie year. Athletes really are different from the rest of us.
It might seem a bit tedious to go through all the goals in the Lightning’s 4-2 Game 4 win over the Capitals on Thursday night, which evened the Eastern Conference Finals at two games apiece. But bear with me—in the tensest game of the series so far, every scoring play (minus the empty netter with two seconds to go)…
A fun thing about Washington D.C. is that its metro transportation system closes at 11:30 p.m. on weeknights even if there are major sports events happening. Instead of simply extending metro hours so people can get home more easily, the Washington Metro Area Transit Association gets businesses or other third parties…
The Washington Capitals came crashing back down to earth tonight in a 4-2 loss to the Lightning in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Finals, shrinking the series lead of these briefly unbeatable-looking Caps down to 2-1.
Aside from the nonstop playoff losses, I imagine the worst thing about being a Washington D.C.-area sports fan is the fact that the Metro closes at 11:30 on weeknights, often before local games—especially playoff baseball—come to an end.
I’m sorry, what? The Caps spanked the Lightning last night. That’s two consecutive spankings! What is going on here? It would be a little too psychologically neat to posit that all the Ovechkin-era Capitals ever needed was to be underdogs, finally without pressure. Or that once they were finally able to dispatch their…
It doesn’t really matter. It’s just a conference final appearance. The Capitals are only halfway through the postseason, eight wins down, eight tough wins still left to earn for the only ending that’ll leave them truly satisfied. And each of the four other teams still alive are better bets to go the distance.
For the first time ever, an Alexander Ovechkin Capitals team has both advanced past the NHL’s second round and beaten the Sidney Crosby Penguins in a playoff series. Evgeny Kuznetsov got the Game 6 series-ender in overtime, breaking the teams’ 1-1 tie off a turnover stolen by Ovechkin and passed across center ice for…
Here’s a stat—a quirk?—that has very little to do with anything else in this blog but is too amazing not to lead with: In this series, Sidney Crosby has been on the ice for all 10 of Pittsburgh’s goals.
Less than 24 hours before Game 4 of the Capitals and Penguins’ second-round series—which Washington leads 2-1—the NHL announced that it has suspended Capitals enforcer Tom Wilson three games for his hit on Penguins forward Zach Aston-Reese in Game 3, which broke the Pittsburgh player’s jaw and gave him a concussion.
Familiarity breeds contempt, yes, but also, contempt breeds contempt. The Capitals and Penguins would dislike each other even if they didn’t meet four times a season and then again seemingly every spring, but the prolificity of the rivalry gives the bad blood the time and exposure it needs to ripen into an exquisite…
With 1:07 to play in tonight’s Caps-Penguins Game 3, which was tied at three, Alexander Ovechkin delivered a stellar game winner on a two-on-one to put Washington up 2-1 in the series. And he did it by batting a puck from mid-air and into the net in the signature style of his rival Sidney Crosby. (Sure he hit the post…
Washington Capitals bruiser Tom Wilson, after escaping discipline for knocking Pittsburgh’s Brian Dumoulin out of Game 2, made his presence felt again in Game 3 of their series tonight. As Penguins forward Zach Aston-Reese tried to take the puck out of his own zone near the benches in the second period, Wilson lined…
Soon after the Capitals killed a Penguins power play, at about the 11-minute mark of the third period of today’s Game 2, with the Capitals holding a 3-1 lead, the Penguins scored what sure looked an awful lot like a goal:
Behind a lead-off goal 17 seconds in from Evgeny Kuznetsov, and a sniper shot at the start of the third from Alex Ovechkin, the Capitals were cruising tonight with a two-goal lead in Game 1 of their second-round series against the Penguins. But in the span of five minutes, it all fell apart, as three unanswered…
With their 4-2 series win over Columbus, the Capitals are going to play in their seventh second-round playoff series in the last 11 years. That’s incredible! Don’t ask how they did in those second-round series.
On Sunday, a cute little girl sitting in the money seats at the Caps playoff game banged on the glass as Brett Connolly skated by. He noticed her and tried to flip her a puck over the glass, but a dad-person behind her caught it and handed it to the young fan beside her. She was sad. The same thing happened with the…
