Bruins Beat Caps 4-3, It's Not The End Of The World (Yet)

Boston now lead the series 2-1, and both teams now have (assuming the series goes to seven) two home games. So what went wrong? Well, the Caps had offense... if you told anyone before this game that a team would score three goals, it would be very likely they'd say that team would have won. The Caps took more shots than the Bruins as well, 32-29. Ovi had six shots, more than the last two games combined, and got himself a goal as well - Sasha also notched a powerplay goal, and Laich got  goal too.

Holtby was decent, but nothing special. He stopped 25 of 29 shots, for a save percentage of .862. Nothing compared to his .977 in Game 2, so obviously this was a factor in the loss. To his credit, the GWG was a tough deflection but it lost us the game and it didn't look impossible to save. The question is, why was Chara given so much free space with his slapshot? Defensive lapse. Had the goal not gone in, this could have been a much more positive post. Besides, it was offside. Here's photographic proof: image credit @k9brian22 

What could be more worrying is Nick Backstrom. He received a match penalty for completely pointless crosscheck at the end of the game on Peverley. Does he deserve to get Shanabanned? Video below:

As the title says, this result is not the end of world. Yet. The Caps can still snatch this in six if everything goes according to plan, but for the rest of the series, they can only lose one game. That's one game out of four to still have a shot at winning. Game 4 is a must, because can you honestly see the Caps winning three in a row in this series? This is why Thursday's game is so important.

And now for something unrelated:

Caps Beat Boston 2-1 (OT), Series 1-1

It took a while, but we got there. Predictably, this game did not have many goals and was forced into overtime again - but this time, Holtby had learnt his lessons for overtime. The Caps did what they needed to do, they played physical, and shot. A lot.
They outhit the Bruins 41-36, with Ovi flattening Krejci for his second big hit of the series. The offense came back as well, with 39 shots, and improvement on 17 in game 1. They were still unable to match the Bruins total of 44 shots, but it's the ones that go in that count, right?
       
-The Caps got the first goal, with Troy Brouwer putting in a scrappy pass from Ovi that was loose in                 the crease. Old man Thomas' weak spot is definitely in this sort of area.

- It wasn't going to be easy, though with   Benoit Pouliot scoring a goal levelling the score, and then crashed into Holtby's head. The goal stood, and Pouliot didn't even get a minor.

- The game continued into a nail-biting overtime (with unbelievable hockey by Semin), and then into a second overtime. A couple of minutes in, the Bruins won a defensive zone faceoff so I grabbed my phone and worked out Holtby's save percentage, assuming nothing was happening. But then, the Bruins coughed up the puck to Marcus Johansson, who fed it back to Nick Backstrom on the faceoff dot. Nicky ripped a wrister past Thomas. This was my reaction on twitter, with a math fail on the first tweet:

-Thomas ran back to the locker room. Either to cry or to go to the bathroom (it was a long night to be fair.)

The real hero of this game didn't even get into the three stars, and unjustly in most peoples' opinions. Braden Holtby. In his second playoff game, he conceded one goal, and had a save percentage of .977, saving 43 of 44 shots and getting the 'Beanton Beatdown' treatment all through the game.

So, the series has now swung in the Caps favour. The series is tied, and the Caps now have more home games than Boston, and whilst regular season stats aren't much to go by, the fact remains that the Caps were 16-21-4 on the road and 26-11-4 at home. It's fairly obvious where the advantage lies. With a bit of luck, the next two games may be the only times the Caps play at home this series.

Monday night. It's going down in Chinatown.

By the way, I won't be live tweeting that game. It's on at 12:30 AM UK time and I'll have hockey practice anyway.
                                                                   Go Caps!

Boston Bruins Game 2 Preview: The Most Important Game Ever

I've mentioned it before, game 2 is often where the series is won or lost. A win today would mean a real advantage in the series, effectively turning it into a 5 game series with a Caps home advantage.

But what do we need to win? First of all, the offense actually needs to be, you know, an offense. Seventeen shots is not good enough in the playoffs, especially against a strong goalie like Tim Thomas. That being said, Braden Holtby was on fire in Game 1, and if he can continue with this our offense can get away with being mediocre at best - it's one thing to build a team from the goalie out (Holtby had a .967 save percentage),  but we need some offense to go with it. Not mentioning any names... Ovi.

                                                     We've got to see this more often!

Something for the Caps to build on from game 1 was physicality. Despite being out hit 40-29, the Caps were able to keep this guy at bay (for the most part)

  The Caps didn't let the Bruins bully them around, and having been at TD Garden myself (I saw an incredible Bruins-Habs game there back in November) it's easier said than done. They play tough, and the crowd is brutal to the road team.

So to win.....
                      - Holtby must keep up his performance from game 1
                      - Ovi needs to keep playing physical and crash the net
                      - The Caps need to take shots from the close range - this is Thomas' weak spot.
                      - The home crowd must be silenced with an early goal
                      - Chances must be taken - there were too many near misses in game 1.

NHL's New Playoff Promo feat.Ovi

I do like this new promo, it's memorable, and it shows how much the playoffs mean to all the players, and how much they put on the line for the cup - you hardly ever hear of a hockey player calling it in, especially in the playoffs. However, it's not as good as the history will be made campaign from the last couple of years:

Plus, it was easily parodied:

Hockey in the UK - An Explanation

So I'm from and live in the UK, (apart from a couple of years in Germany and Washington DC.) My name is Cam, I'm 16 and live just north of London. There's more about me in the first post on this blog, anyway.

So, hockey in the UK. We won the won the Olympic Gold in 1936, and since then have been spectacularly awful. We're currently ranked 21st in the world and play in the Division 1 of the World Championship, and have had two players drafted to the NHL - Tony Hand (Edmonton 252nd, 1986) and Colin Shields (Philadelphia 195th 2000). As you can see, it's not a popular game here. In my town of 20,000 people, there are just two hockey players. My team plays over 30 miles away. The league I'm in (Under 19 South Divison 1) is actually the highest someone can get at junior hockey. But that's not much considering there's only two leagues in the south. We have a total of 37 Under 19 teams in the country. Not great.

Here's half of my team... I'm second to the right on the front if you're wondering!

Professionally, our top league is the ELITE League. The standard is slightly worse than the ECHL and has a total salary cap of around £8,000 a week. The best player in this league ever was Theo Fluery, after he left the NHL.The highest attendance we get is around 10,000 people. However, the majority of players in this league are actually foreign.

                                      The 2012 Champions - Nottingham Panthers

Below this, we have three leagues of lower standard than this, where foreign players are limited to maintain the British game. Of these leagues, only players in the EPL are paid.  

There's talk of the KHL expanding into Western Europe, and I hope we could get at least one team here. I find when people are exposed to the sport they love it, but it just hardly gets any media coverage here. British hockey is on satellite and NHL is pay per view.

The key to making the sport popular is simply exposing it more to the general public. If we put it on TV more, and taught kids it as part of PE (this is starting in some parts of the country) it would be far more watched and played. The government needs to subsidise more rinks - the Olympics is coming to London this summer, so lots are being invested in British sport, so why not hockey? We need more than the current 30 or so rinks in the entire country if we want to make it popular. Bringing the KHL to the UK would make it be a great way of promoting the sport, and maybe someday we'll have a player in the big show.

We may not have the level of support other countries have, but the British hockey fan base is one of the most dedicated in all of sport. If you're ever here, catch a game for a great atmosphere!

The Hiatus Is Over!

I'm back everyone. My season's over, our team didn't make the playoffs this year, but at least the Caps have.
So, the Caps.... Having got the 7th seed in the East, they picked up a difficult draw against defending champions Boston. In my humble opinion, we should have tanked it and got 8th seed - we've got the Rangers'  number and have beaten them in the playoffs multiple times in the last few years.
So with Vokoun and Neuvirth both injured, we're relying on this guy for now....

Braden Holtby. The guy's been solid down in Hershey for most of the season and has several NHL starts to his name, but not a second of playoff experience until last night

To be honest, he did spectacularly well, stopping 29 of 30 shots, finally conceding to Chris Kelly quickly in overtime. The reason why the Caps lost was their pathetic offence in the first two periods, although this picked up in the 3rd, this needs to be addressed urgently.

Game 2 is so important. In my view, if the Caps lose, then the series is done. They'd have to win four games our of five, which is not impossible, but very unlikely nonetheless. if they win, then they have the advantage. The series would be tied with the Caps having the majority of the home games - and the Caps have been far better at home than on the road this season.

 By the way, if you're new to this blog, I'm a 16 year old British Caps fan. I've been doing blogs for a while, but I took a break a few months ago to focus on my schoolwork, but I'm back for good now.

Let's go Caps!

I'm back home!

Hey guys, sorry for not posting, but it would have been difficult to take my laptop with me. But I had an awesome time in your great continent. I saw 2 NHL games, firstly I saw Montreal-Florida, and then Montreal-Boston. It was unbelievable, I've never seen such an amazing standard of hockey - I hope I can see the Caps some day.
So on to the Caps. I'm writing this at 11:30 PM and watching the Caps-Islanders game. Caps are up 1-0 right now.  If the Caps hold on to this lead, they will go 10-2-0 this season. That's twenty points already - if they continue this record, they will finish with sixty-eight wins. Sixty-eight. That's 136 points. Something tells me that the Caps might just make the playoffs this season.
But the fact is, the Caps, are almost 25% of the way to a play-off spot now anyway, and more like 20% to winning the conference. Highlights include the 7-1 win against Detroit and the thrilling 5-4 OT win over Anaheim.  the two games the Caps lost came against Vancouver and Edmonton were winnable - but you can't have everything.
But what of the Great 8? Well, Ovi is tied for first on the Caps and 22nd in the NHL with 5 goals. He also has 7 assists, at 31st in the NHL, and his 12 points are good for 25th in the NHL. These numbers are reasonable, but not Oviesque. He needs to get some goals in to justify his contract and reputation as possibly the best player in the world.