Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Peepin' Foes Preview Edition: Washington Capitals

Well, well, well. Washington. Last but not least. My pal Poti. Yep. PotiPotiPotiPoti. PeanutButtaPotiTime. The man who "has the grit the team needs" was just rewarded with a two-year contract extension worth nearly three mil per season.

Yeah.

Tom Frickin' Poti.

Oh, and they have that Ovechkin guy too.

Familiar Foes: Captain Caveman is joined by Nick Backstrom, Alex Semin and Mike Green in Washington's packed arsenal of talent. Former Ranger Mike Knuble is still working in the trenches and the rest of DC's second stringers remain unchanged in Brooks Laich, Eric Fehr and Tomas Fleischmann. It is expected that Semyon Varlamov will take over the starting goaltender position as the Caps let Three-Or-More walk. If you've forgotten, Varlamov is the kid who helped Washington bounce back and beat us in Tortorella's Folly (the first round of the playoffs two years back).

N00bz: Seeing as Washington blew a 3-1 series lead to Montreal due to the red-hot goaltending of Halak, the Caps went out and added a goon in DJ King. Yeah, that makes sense. Whatever. In that playoff series All-American Hero John Carlson turned a lot of heads and is expected to make the defense full time, as should another youngster - Karl Alzner.

Last Year: Thursday, October 8th 4-3 Ranger win; Tuesday, November 17th 4-2 Capital win; Thursday, February 4th 6-5 Capital win; and Saturday, March 6th 2-0 Capital win.

This Year: Tuesday, November 9th at MSG; Sunday, December 12th at MSG; Monday, January 24th in DC; and Friday, February 25th in DC.

What They Mean To Blue: POOOOTTTTTIIIIIIIII. And a bunch of losses. All four games last season were interesting affairs that were quite close but Washington rightly took three of four last season. They could very well replicate that feat again this season as long as Varly isn't atrocious. And if he is, his two backups Michal Neuvirth and Braden Holtby both have big NHL futures ahead of them.

3 comments:

MikeL-Caps said...

Great preview! The only thing ya missed was that Carlson isn't "All-American Hero", it's "Real American Hero" as in RAHJC74 (his nickname at Japers').

Looking forward to reading your blog during the season. This is *the* place for NY Rangers info!

Mark Bonatucci said...

Nice write-up, I think we Caps fans still have to worry about King Henrick taking a game or two from us though... Caps vs. Rangers these days is always a solid game to watch, IMHO...

Scotty Hockey said...

I sit corrected Mike - sorry bout that. I got two-third of it ... just haven't hung out at JR in a while and was working much of the postseason last year.

UFCF - I agree, they definitely have been entertaining. Please pass the Pepto ...