Thursday, January 21, 2010
By Dave Molinari, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/It could have been watching Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin swap hat tricks in Game 2.
Or the overtime winning goals scored by Kris Letang, Evgeni Malkin and David Steckel.
Or maybe the work of Semyon Varlamov, the rookie goalie who looked so good, so often. For six games, anyway.
Peter Diana/Post-Gazette
Penguins forward Sidney Crosby shakes hands with Capitals forward Alex Ovechkin following Game 7 of last seasons's Eastern Conference semifinal at the Verizon Center in Washington.But no, Matt Cooke decided, the most memorable moment from the Penguins' seven-game series with Washington in the second round of the playoffs in May had to be Marc-Andre Fleury's glove save on an Ovechkin breakaway three minutes into Game 7.
That save prevented the Capitals from grabbing a 1-0 lead in the deciding game and gave the Penguins the opportunity to earn what developed into a 6-2 victory and a berth in the Eastern Conference final.
"I'm sure that was the most entertaining series the NHL has seen in a very long time, as far as pace and style and goals and goaltending," Cooke said. "Everything. That was probably the most entertaining hockey there's been for a long time."
Few who were part of -- or witnessed -- that best-of-seven likely will disagree.
Even though the stakes won't be nearly as high when the Penguins and Capitals meet at 7:38 tonight at Mellon Arena, it won't simply be one of 82 regular-season games, either.
Media outlets from outside the home markets of the competing teams will be well-represented this evening, and Washington arranged for Ovechkin and coach Bruce Boudreau to meet with reporters when the Capitals arrived in town yesterday, hardly standard procedure in mid-January.
"I think there'll be a buzz about this game that we haven't seen in a little bit," Penguins coach Dan Bylsma said.
Yeah, like since June.
That is because few, if any, other regular-season matchups in the NHL can offer such a blend of skill and passion and star power.
Crosby and Ovechkin are generally regarded as the two most prominent figures in the sport, and they have some pretty impressive supporting casts. Crosby's was good enough to win a Stanley Cup in 2009; Ovechkin's is producing a league-high 3.69 goals per game this season.
"They have some very, very, very gifted forwards," said Penguins goalie Brent Johnson, who played for the Capitals last season.
In a career that also included stints with St. Louis and Phoenix, Johnson fared well against the Capitals -- he is 4-0, with a 1.15 goals-against average -- but Washington has the personnel to do unspeakable things to those numbers in a matter of minutes.
Ovechkin is the most volatile element in the Capitals' lineup, of course, and needs just one goal to join Mario Lemieux, Wayne Gretzky and Mike Bossy as the only players in NHL history to get 250 or more in their first five seasons.
Doing damage control against the Capitals involves a lot more than trying to contain Ovechkin, however. Washington is the only NHL team with 10 10-goal scorers and three with 20 or more goals. No offense is more deep and diverse.
"It's great when different guys score big goals for us," Ovechkin said.
Important as secondary scoring is, though, the spotlight again will fall on Crosby and Ovechkin tonight. Just how hard the edge on their personal rivalry might be is hard to say. Both profess to respect the other's abilities -- and understandably so -- but both also are ultra-competitive.
Ovechkin said that "on the ice you don't have friends [on opposing teams]," while Crosby said that asking if he has a warm off-ice relationship with Ovechkin is "like asking me if I'm going to be best friends with five guys on the [Philadelphia] Flyers."
All of which enhances the excitement surrounding this game, even though it doesn't figure to have a profound long-term impact on either club.
"It's still a regular-season game," Crosby said. "You have to look at it like that. You have to kind of keep things in perspective."
And that is one thing, at least, on which he and Ovechkin can agree. Sort of.
"For us, it's like a regular game," Ovechkin said. "But it's a pretty big game."
For more on the Penguins, read the Pens Plus blog with Dave Molinari and Shelly Anderson at www.post-gazette.com/plus. Dave Molinari can be reached at dmolinari@post-gazette.com.
First published on January 21, 2010 at 12:00 am
Reuters Pictures
Pittsburgh Penguins' forward Sidney Crosby scores on Washington Capitals' goalie Jose Theodore during third period action in Game 7 of their NHL Eastern Conference semi-final hockey series in Washington, May 13, 2009.Today• Game: Washington Capitals at Penguins, 7:38 p.m. today, Mellon Arena.
• TV, radio: FSN Pittsburgh, WXDX-FM (105.9).
• Goaltending matchup: Brent Johnson for Penguins. Jose Theodore for Capitals.
• Penguins: Will be trying to win consecutive home games for first time since Dec. 12-15. ... RW Bill Guerin has four goals in past 10 games. ... Are 24-9-1 when getting 30 or more shots.
• Of note: Have won four games in row and seven of past eight. ... D Mike Green has points in nine consecutive games. ... Power play is NHL's most lethal, with conversion rate of 25.1 percent.
• Hidden stat: Capitals have outscored opponents, 59-33, during first period.
Capitals eager to face Penguins for first time since Game 7By Tarik El-Bashir
Washington Post staff writer
Thursday, January 21, 2010; D01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/Tom Poti thought he had finally pushed the painful memory of the Washington Capitals' Game 7 collapse against the Pittsburgh Penguins into the deep recesses of his mind. But about three weeks later, the veteran defenseman discovered he had not buried it deep enough.
"Just when you're starting to get over it, you see them hoisting the Cup, and it kind of started all over again," Poti said Monday, nearly eight months after Penguins captain Sidney Crosby and his teammates beat the Detroit Red Wings in the Stanley Cup finals. "You start thinking, 'What if we beat them? Could that have been us?' "
For Poti and many of his teammates, the only thing more excruciating than the what-ifs that consumed them during the quiet moments in the offseason has been the 253 days NHL schedule-makers forced them to wait before facing their arch rival again.
Reuters Pictures
Pittsburgh Penguins' goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury stops a breakaway shot by Washington Capitals' forward Alex Ovechkin during the first period of Game 7 of their NHL Eastern Conference semi-final hockey series in Washington, May 13, 2009.The Capitals are already done with New Jersey, Toronto and Philadelphia, but Thursday's trip to Mellon Arena will mark the first of four meetings between Washington and Pittsburgh.
"I don't know what the emotion is going to be like," Coach Bruce Boudreau said, shrugging. "But to win anything, we know you're going to have to go through Pittsburgh this year. It will be a tremendous measuring stick and it will let us see where we stand. I know they're going to feel the same way."
To fully grasp why this game means so much to the Capitals, one must first understand what they suffered through during and after the 6-2 loss at Verizon Center on May 13. One of the best playoff series in recent memory -- one that included dueling hat tricks by Alex Ovechkin and Crosby in Game 2, David Steckel's overtime goal in Game 6, Marc-André Fleury's infamous save on an Ovechkin breakaway in Game 7 -- ended with a whimper. By the middle of the second period, the Capitals were down 5-0.
Instead of breaking Pittsburgh's postseason hex, Washington suffered its seventh series defeat in eight playoff appearances against its longtime nemesis.
"We've never mentioned it from the beginning of the year on," Boudreau said. "We got over it. It's done. We lost and we played like [garbage]. I know everyone would like to take it back because the series was such a great series. It should have been a 4-3 overtime game win by them, or by us. It didn't happen that way. So a lot of good work by us went down the drain."
Boudreau said he couldn't bring himself to watch a recording of the game until mid-June. And even then, he turned it off twice, just after Crosby opened the scoring, before "gutting it out" and watching all the way through.
"It was as bad as it was the first time," he said. "It was a 'Woe is me, what could have been?' type thing."
Ovechkin still has not watched it. Neither has Shaone Morrisonn.
"Why would I want to?" Morrisonn said. "That's in the past."
But even now, the reasons for the collapse are as hard to come by as they were in the silent home dressing room minutes after the game ended.
"We got a little too ahead of ourselves thinking about what could happen if we got that win, not how to get that win," forward Eric Fehr said.
Said Ovechkin: "It's pretty hard for us to see what happened last year in the seventh game. But we can't do nothing about it. We're going to be more concentrated on tomorrow's game than last game, because last game we played terrible all game. Tomorrow is going to be a different game for us."
This is the ideal time for these rivals to renew their hostilities.
After Tuesday's come-from-behind, 3-2 victory over the Red Wings, the Capitals have won four games in a row and seven of eight behind an offense that is averaging five goals per game in that stretch. Mike Green is riding a nine-game point streak while Ovechkin has put up at least a point in seven straight. Goaltender José Theodore's confidence level is as high as it has been all season following the 44-save performance against Detroit that earned him a standing ovation from the crowd at Verizon Center and a bear hug from owner Ted Leonsis in the locker room afterward.
The Penguins, meantime, have steadied themselves after a five-game losing streak from Dec. 27 to Jan. 3. Their most recent win, Tuesday's 6-4 victory over the Islanders, saw Crosby match his career high with six points (two goals, four assists) and Evgeni Malkin recorded a hat trick in an otherwise off-year for the reigning Art Ross Trophy winner. The injury-riddled Penguins are also slowly getting healthy, but they might not have Fleury, who has missed two games with a broken finger. If he can't play, former Capitals goaltender Brent Johnson could get the nod.
The teams are separated by five points in the standings, with the Capitals sitting atop the Eastern Conference and the Penguins in fourth place. The teams' marquee players are also in a tight race, with Ovechkin second in points (65) and Crosby fourth (63). Crosby, however, has more goals (32) than Ovechkin (30) and has played in nine more games.
On Wednesday, Ovechkin didn't try to play down the rivalry.
"It's the same with the Lakers and Cavaliers," he told reporters. "Two players play against each other and the media say who is better and who deserves to win. It's probably the same. It's the same in soccer, like when Real Madrid and Barcelona play. The top players play against each other and everybody says, 'Wow, this is going to be a sick game,' and they can't wait for it. It's the same. They can't wait for it."
Neither can some of his teammates.
"It's a game everyone in here has circled and been looking at for a long time," Poti said. "It's going to be a game we're all pretty jacked up to play. We're going out to get a win and establish a game plan against these guys that we can use the next few months . . . and get a little redemption from last time."
"I love to throw my fastball," he said yesterday. "Here at PNC, I can throw my fastball more than I used to. I already throw it a lot, but here ... if you're going to hit it out, you've got to hit it."
