RED ALERT: Don't worry, Ovechkin is back practicing

What will be interesting to watch in the Capitals/Penguins round two playoff series is what transpires on the ice in terms of production on both sides.  In other words, the hype is Ovechkin, Semin/Corsby,Malkin.  And in real terms, fair or not, it is Ovechkin v. Crosby.  BUT, the bigger question, fueled by an odd Caps/Rangers series, will the stars provide the sparks and fireworks, or will the role players, like the Rangers/Caps series, decide the outcome.

I was thinking about this the night Feds won game 7 for the Caps.  Probably was part of my diatribe yesterday on the whole Ovie/Crosby media hype.  Today, DC Examiner has an article on the very issue.  Would the Caps have won the series without Matt Bradley?  Without Tom Poti?  Without John Erskine?  Yet they won the series without Mike Green showing up.  The thing with this series is — both the Caps and Pens have solid role players and secondary lines.  Added to the star power, it makes for one explosive series to come. 

“I think both teams have great supporting casts. It’s one of the
reasons that Pittsburgh made it to the finals last year,” said Caps
coach Bruce Boudreau. “I think in the end usually what happens is the
superstars get covered and the role players end up being the unsung
heroes.”

Speaking of Green . . . Barry Svrluga helps out Tarik on Caps coverage with an excellent article on Mike Green and his parents.

Only later in the day, after the result has been determined for Green
and the Washington Capitals — who face the Pittsburgh Penguins in the
Eastern Conference semifinals — will Kate Green return home and hear
the result. Only then will she turn on the DVR player and watch the
game in relative calm, the outcome long since determined, one way or
another.

This is what happens when a son develops into an NHL star — and
Green is inarguably that, one of the league’s best defensemen even
though he’s just 23 — and his mother suffers a massive heart attack,
leaving her still recovering more than 10 months later. This is how a
mother deals with the stress of blood pressure that would rise with
each hit, each shot, each shift, were she to watch the game live. This
is reality for the Greens, whose son is living a life he never really
expected even as the one person who could envision it — his mom, Kate
– can’t be on the scene to support him.

This is an outstanding article on Mike Green, the person, the family man, and the son.  Excellent read, don’t miss it. 

Green also gives us a little insight into the beginning of his Caps career. 

For Capitals fans, this is all rote by now. But for Green, it is still
somewhat staggering. Consider that in his first season with the
Capitals, he had one thought.

“I couldn’t wait to get sent to Hershey,” he said.

Uh, Hershey, Pa.? In the minor leagues?

“Seriously,” he said. “That first year, it was just really difficult. Probably my hardest time playing hockey — ever.”

Still, he was happiest with the Bears. Glen Hanlon, a former NHL
goaltender, was the coach of the Capitals, and his conservative style
didn’t mesh with Green’s more creative, push-the-puck-up-the-ice ways.
Bruce Boudreau was the coach in Hershey, and, as Green said, “He
understood me.”

 
Ovechkin back to practice . . .  Alexander Ovechkin took the day off yesterday, of course triggering tons of rumors about injuries. 

Coach Bruce Boudreau and Ovechkin both said he was simply taking a
second straight day off skating to rest and recover from a physical
first-round series against the New York Rangers. But the fact that
Ovechkin was the only player not on the ice for a strategy-intensive
session led to speculation that the reigning MVP could be nursing an
injury.

Series Preview . . . The DC Examiner provides it’s series preview. 

I am sure at this point in the season, nearly every player in the
playoffs has some knicks, bruises, soreness, etc . . . but Bruce
Boudreau insists Ovechkin is not playing through an injury and is
fine. 

“He’ll be practicing tomorrow, okay?” Boudreau said. “Sometimes his
body gets beat up because he plays so much. He just plays a lot. So he
needs a little bit more rest than other guys. So he’s just resting
today.”

Asked why he did not practice, Ovechkin smiled and said: “Just take more day[s] off.”

Paranoia reigns in DC, and it should, because Ovechkin is the best
player in the world, and heading into Round 2, the Caps need Great 8!

Caps to turn a profit? . . . Amazing, especially after it has
been built in our minds, that with the current arrangements of
concessionary sales agreements with Abe Pollian and the Verizon Center,
that the Caps could have a good year and still not make money, this
series may push that reality to a thing of the past, at leats for this
year.

With four home games in the opening round, the Capitals anticipate
turning a profit of between $400,000 and $500,000, Patrick said. Those
figures are after the team returned an estimated 60-65 percent of its
gross ticket sales revenue to the league, which redistributes the money
to the revenue sharing program and to players’ postseason bonuses. The
Capitals are among the teams that benefit from revenue sharing.

Patrick estimates those figures will continue to grow because ticket
prices are higher in the playoffs. Tickets purchased at the gate and
season ticket holder prices increase roughly 20 percent per round.

Kudos to Capitals fans, the Sea of Red, and Ted Leonsis.

Ovechkin/Crosby hype . . . Might as well make this a little subset of Red Alert
on a daily basis.  We are going to get serious heavy doses everyday. 
So you want your dose to, just come to red Alert and look for the
Ovechkin/Crosby Hype subsetting.

And as far as the Ovie – Crosby rivalry, Ovechkin knows where his place is. 

Asked about the perception that the league promotes Crosby more than
him, Ovechkin cracked, “He’s superstar. Me, I’m just like you guys.”

Ovechkin — the hockey player and comedian.  More on Ovechkin/Crosby fromt he Washington Times.

“It is good for the league,” Ovechkin said. “Lots of attention, lot of
talking about it – fans, the media. Everything is going well.”

Added Pierre McGuire, an analyst for NBC and Canadian sports
network TSN: “This series is star power personified, just great for the
game of hockey.”

Crosby vs. Ovechkin (or Ovechkin vs. Crosby, depending on geography)
goes beyond statistics and hardware. It is about resonating with casual
sports fans and attempting to grow and capture the imagination of those
who haven’t followed the sport.
  

The National Post jumps in as well on Ovechkin v.Crosby.    

Other Caps tidbits . . . Caps Insider reports a bunch of small notes.  Here are a few.

First thing, Tarik reports that Games 4 and 5 are back to back.  Simeon
(SimYAHN) Varlamov has never played back to back NHL games, and will do
so for the first time in his very young NHL career.

But, Brudreau has unshaken confidence in his young net minder.

“I don’t know if he can get rattled,” he said. “It doesn’t look like
he’s a guy who gets too emotionally up or too emotionally down. I’ve
seen him for a short amount of time, but I think he’ll be fine.” 

More on the Caps/Pens rivalry from ther DC Sports Bog.  HC Bruce Boudreau continues to pump the Caps/Pens rivalry. 

“There’s a tremendous rivalry,” he said. “How it’s going to play out,
it’s two teams that are going to go at it pretty hard. [The Penguins]
want to get back to the Stanley Cup finals where they think they can
win. And we want to get there for the first time in a long time.”

Want to add to the rivalry?  The best thing about it — the Caps minor
league affiliate, Hershey Bears, are starting their second round of the
AHL playoffs, against Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, the minor league affiliate
of, you guessed it, the Penguins. 

I absolutely agree with Ryan O’Holloran,
the Caps have to get a quick start.  They can not fall in both of the
home openers like they did against the Rangers.  This is Pittsburgh,
not New York, and there is fire power on Pittsbrugh, unlike New York. 

Rangers rewind . .  . Just a bit of a rewiend on the Rangers series, Coach John Tortorella apologizes for the water bottle incident. 

“It’s a bad mistake by me,” John Tortorella told reporters in New York,
referring to the water bottle-tossing incident at Verizon Center. “I
regret it. I put the New York Rangers organization in an embarrassing
situation. I’m embarrassed by it. I am an intense person, which is a
positive, but it also turns into a negative sometimes.” 

Read the Sergei Fedorov interview from Sports Express. 

Don’t forget, to learn more and do opposition research, visit our Penguins MVN bretheren, Get more Brandy and Penguins Experience