When you can't convert on a 9-minute power play, you deserve the Homer Simpson face palm.Time for your pre-Cap.
Washington Capitals (3-2-1, Last game L 2-1 vs. Calgary)
vs.
Phoenix Coyotes (2-3-0, L 4-1 vs. Montreal)
The story so far...
After the worst effort of the season so far, the Capitals continue their western road trip with a stop to the site of "The Goal."
Players to watch
WSH: Alex Ovechkin, Brooks Laich, Jose Theodore, Alex Semin, Tyler Sloan
PHX: Shane Doan, Olli Jokinen, Kyle Turris, Mikael Tellqvist
New team, same weather
Former Capital foe Olli Jokinen is wearing his new sweater tonight. The Florida Panthers traded Jokinen to the Coyotes last season and while it's nice to have him out of the division he remains a threat as he leads the Coyotes with 6 points. In his career Jokinen has 29 points against the Capitals (14 G 15A) but is a -13. Will Ovechkin try to run him down like he does every star player?
Backing it up
Tonight the Capitals will face the backup goaltender for the Coyotes, Mikael Tellqvist. Which is a total shame because I have been sitting on this hilarious interview with Coyotes starter Ilya Bryzgalov...
Why you haff to be mad?
And now your goalie duel statistics
Mr. Theodore is 5-0-3 with a .905 save percentage against the Coyotes. Tellqvist is 1-1-0 with a .892 save percentage against the Caps.
Brooks Laich: Inspirational quote machine
Leave it to Laich to come up with the "theme of the day." Last year he famously said, "If you want bread, go to a bakery; if you want money, go to the bank; if you want goals, go to the net." Well chalk another up to the team's "ladies man." In his recent interview with Tarik El Bashir he offered this gem about the teams power play.
"We're going to move our legs and not reach as much. We're going to surround the puck. If they have two guys on it, we're going to have three. If they have three, we're going to have four."
Bravo.
So how do you learn to fight on ice anyway?
After Tyler Sloan's monster hit last night and the resulting jumping he received, it got me thinking: how exactly do you learn to fight on ice? Well YouTube answered that question for me, and it's actually quite simple: You spend some quality time with the Don.
Speaking of monster hits
This is Tyler Sloan's equivalent to "The Goal."
Secondary Alex?
Both of Ovechkin's assists this season have been secondary assists. Here's to hoping tonight Ovie will find his touch.
Let's Go Caps!
For CRYING OUT LOUD, to make it the Caps need the genuine, authentic, hiding-inside-himself Ovie!!!
ReplyDeleteSOS plea to Ovie:
Ditch the muting helmut. Ditch the coaches, the team, the folks, the pressure. Ditch the noise of the arena.
Most importantly, have the COURAGE to, for just a few moments, ditch the noise inside your head.
You are, inside, this moment, every age you've ever been, every day you've ever lived.
Think about that.
How fantastic! What you could learn!
Unless, of course, everyone is talking at once, in which case it's just a whole lotta mind-f'in noise.
Connect to your best game by first connecting to your best self.
Start by UNPLUGGING.
EVERYTHING.
Sit with yourself in complete silence. Feel the comfort in it. When a voice pops in (and voices always do) shrug it off with an "oh, well ..." and focus back on nothing.
Practice it over and over, just like you practiced on your very first pair of skates: shaky and bruised to begin, eventually empowered by confidence.
In time you'll find a true, peaceful quiet. Once you get there you'll be asking, without even thinking about it, "Who wants to talk today?"
"Five'll get you ten" the first to pipe up will be the kid who just LOVES the JOY of it all.
But he might be afraid of something. Something on his particular day spooked him and has him frozen in time. Share with him the wisdom of the your years. Assure him that whatever he was afraid of, well, it couldn't be that bad -- after all, you've made it this far, haven't you?!
Stay quietly with him as long as you can, and feel the weights rise from BOTH your shoulders.
You can even practice this by talking to the "you" from yesterday, last week, last minute. Perhaps that "you" was worried about something.
But look, you've made it this far, haven't you? You're still here.
Feel weights lifting, over and over again ...
And chances are, whatever causes you anxiety at this very minute won't seem worth the being-anxious effort when you look at it, say, a year from now.
That's not to say there are not important things in life to pay attention to. Just that it's usually, in hind site, not worth the time to constantly worry.
We all have sadness. Taking time to identify and truly feel that is well spent. Hang on too long, though, and eventually you're just sad about being sad, an extra layer of sadness. Enough layers and, well, you've got yourself a shroud ...
In short:
You have an infinite resource of best games inside you. If you find yourself having a shitty game drop the baton, stop trying to orchestrate it all and LISTEN.
THEN
sing ...
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/dcsportsbog/2008/10/jim_zorns_symphonic_masterpiec.html
best. comment. post. ever.
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