Pre-Game Talk: Season Opens on Wednesday as we raise another banner!

[TrudeauG]

This blues team looks really bad on paper right now with all the injuries they have, hopefully the pens take care of business tomorrow night.

We'll write them a poem, on ice. A Sidney Crosby joint, starring that hot dog T-Lake.

 

[Speaking Moistly]

Last year was kind of the first time I could really have a clear mental picture of Ovi and think "Y'know, this isn't so much his fault..."

I don't know. Maybe it's just that everything in Washington has been such a clown show for years, maybe it's him going grey...

But now more than ever, it just seems clear that the responsibility lies firmly with Sweaty Teddy.

If memory serves both game 7 goals last season stemmed from Ovechkin being weak in his own zone. So while overall it's not his fault he had a big hand in it last time.

Idk what to say abut this Caps era or in their history. In theory they should have won at least one cup with Ovechkin but never made it past the second round. The Pens went through them three times but Halak and Lundqvist also thwarted them.

Until Sullivan it was looking like the Pens were the Caps with a cup. Years of underachieving and questions of the core being the problem even after 2008 and 2009. Maybe the core is the problem with the Caps or maybe they'd be cup champs if they'd found a coach like Sullivan.

 

[Harvey Birdman]

If memory serves both game 7 goals last season stemmed from Ovechkin being weak in his own zone. So while overall it's not his fault he had a big hand in it last time.

Idk what to say abut this Caps era or in their history. In theory they should have won at least one cup with Ovechkin but never made it past the second round. The Pens went through them three times but Halak and Lundqvist also thwarted them.

Until Sullivan it was looking like the Pens were the Caps with a cup. Years of underachieving and questions of the core being the problem even after 2008 and 2009. Maybe the core is the problem with the Caps or maybe they'd be cup champs if they'd found a coach like Sullivan.

I think its a two fold thing with the Capitals. One they have traded away those guys that are not elite stars themselves but are those high end talents that supplement or compliment your core roster or eventually become part of the core themselves, most notably Forsberg. That trade was disastrous for Washington. Forsberg would have been a perfect player for them to have in their top 6 with other players they have had there and really could've pushed that offense even more over the top than it was for a few years. And two coaching, they just can not find a coach that can A:Coach to their strengths and B:Coach them to hide their flaws or correct them... At the same time. They have been able to find one or the other in a coach but not both. The key thing with Sullivan he is a coach that makes his enter design to play to the strengths of the team along with also in a way that hides/minimalizes flaws or holes. Washington has a different kind of roster than Pittsburgh, so I am not sure that Sullivan would even work there, we just have a perfect storm with the Pens roster and his coaching. But if Washington could find a coach that could do for Pittsburgh what Sullivan has, that both column A and B coaching, with the roster they have. I am sure they could still win a cup with Ovy. But those coaches do not grow on trees and you have to take some crossing your fingers risks to find one.

 

[PensandCaps]

Ovy is not the reason the caps haven't won anything. His playoff numbers speak for themselves.

 

[ncm7772]

Wrestling nerds.

PS. It's not real.

Oh, them be fightin' words!!!


On a serious note, super bummed I can't watch the game Wednesday, and won't be able to watch any until next Wed. Well, my liver will be happy!

 

[Jaded-Fan]

Ovy is not the reason the caps haven't won anything. His playoff numbers speak for themselves.

I would buy that except that the Caps' teams have been loaded, owning the president's award various times, and having stacked teams for most of his career with them. OV never has had to carry that team on his back.

Yes, he put up points, and yes no one player can win a series himself. That said, to absolve OV is simply wrong. He is part of the reason that they did not advance past the second round ever in his career despite putting up decent numbers.

 

[Peanut]

So is Niemi starting Wednesday?

 

[PensandCaps]

I would buy that except that the Caps' teams have been loaded, owning the president's award various times, and having stacked teams for most of his career with them. OV never has had to carry that team on his back.

Yes, he put up points, and yes no one player can win a series himself. That said, to absolve OV is simply wrong. He is part of the reason that they did not advance past the second round ever in his career despite putting up decent numbers.

That's just false. Same shit people were saying about Malkin and Crosby before the back to back cups. Ovi nearly did win a series by himself vs us in 09. How was it his fault they lost? 15 points in that 09 series.

Loaded teams, yes. But his elite centreman Backstrom is the one who disappears in the playoffs, then Kuzy last year aswell.

 

[Sidney the Kidney]

Ovy is not the reason the caps haven't won anything. His playoff numbers speak for themselves.

If all you focus on is pure numbers, maybe. But I think the problem is Ovie has never bothered to become a better all-around player, to where even if he's not scoring, he's still helping his team.

That's a key difference between him and Sid. Sid doesn't have to show up on the scoreboard to be a difference maker in a game, Ovechkin does.

 

[LetsGoBLUES91]

What is the opening night roster for the Pens? The Blues have been destroyed by injury. Should get a couple guys back in a week or two but the forward lines are rough right now.

 

[Peat]

Yup.

Ovechkin the player has never progressed into the best player he could be. Ovechkin the leader has never been a guy who can get a dressing room in the right state of mind when it counts. Some of that's got to be on him.


Anyway. I'll be at the banner raising. Can't wait.

 

[SHOOTANDSCORE]

Pens championship video is on NHL Network at 8 EST.

 

[SHOOTANDSCORE]

What is the opening night roster for the Pens? The Blues have been destroyed by injury. Should get a couple guys back in a week or two but the forward lines are rough right now.

Malkin's LW and the bottom 6 are fluid but...

Guentzel- Crosby -Sheary
Rust-Malkin-Kessel
Hagelin-McKegg-Kuhn
Wilson-Rowney-Reaves

Dumoulin Letang
Maatta Schultz
Cole Hunwick

Someone can probably correct me on which sides the D are playing.

 

[Andy99]

Malkin's LW and the bottom 6 are fluid but...

Guentzel- Crosby -Sheary
Rust-Malkin-Kessel
Hagelin-McKegg-Kuhn
Wilson-Rowney-Reaves

Dumoulin Letang
Maatta Schultz
Cole Hunwick

Someone can probably correct me on which sides the D are playing.

IMO the bottom two forward lines still make me throw up in my mouth, more sick even than Sutter and Vitale

 

[HuskerTornado]

Pens are 3-peating, book it. Barry Melrose just said they can't do it on NHL Network (which is weird because I swear yesterday he said they could...lol), picking the Bolts to come out of the East.

 

[WayneSid9987]

Those are the right lines from the latest practice. Believen Hunwick was playing the left side tho and Cole on the right.

 

[SHOOTANDSCORE]

 

[66-30-33]

So...Sundqvist plays tomorrow night (tonight if you live beyond PST).

 

[Honour Over Glory]

By all accounts, the Caps should have beat us last year, we had no Letang and our #1 was injured, they even took Sid out for a few games and Horny took Sheary out for a bit.

They literally had the perfect opportunity and still got owned.

 

[SHOOTANDSCORE]

By all accounts, the Caps should have beat us last year, we had no Letang and our #1 was injured, they even took Sid out for a few games and Horny took Sheary out for a bit.

They literally had the perfect opportunity and still got owned.

That's what made it so delicious.

That sense of futility from them is my guilty pleasure.

 

[Honour Over Glory]

That's what made it so delicious.

That sense of futility from them is my guilty pleasure.

Which is also why they are so mentally messed up by the Penguins.

 

[66-30-33]

By all accounts, the Caps should have beat us last year, we had no Letang and our #1 was injured, they even took Sid out for a few games and Horny took Sheary out for a bit.

They literally had the perfect opportunity and still got owned.

Watch them beat us with an inferior roster lol.

 

[Honour Over Glory]

Watch them beat us with an inferior roster lol.

Regular season? Maybe a win here or there, during a series? I trust Sullivan finding a way to out coach the other team, he's done it 8 times so far us winning series. I won't doubt him now.

 

[cygnus47]

By all accounts, the Caps should have beat us last year, we had no Letang and our #1 was injured, they even took Sid out for a few games and Horny took Sheary out for a bit.

They literally had the perfect opportunity and still got owned.

I reckon that proved that roster is never going to win anything. Things could not have gone more in their favour and they kooked it.

 

[Ogrezilla]