Ted's Take

We now have 66 points which is good enough - for the moment - to rank us first in the Eastern Conference in terms of points. We are humbled but our expectations are quite high.

We beat Philly again yesterday 5-3. I think we have now taken 7 of 8 available points from them this season and we have scored 22 goals in four games. Philly is a great team with a great D corps so this set of achievements is impressive in my book.

We are rolling four lines now, all of them that are tough to play against and all can score. We are playing well on special teams too, all eight seconds last night on our one power play when we scored that is. Really, we only drew one power play all night. What was up with that stat?

When we get reasonable to good goaltending, we are a very tough team to play against.

We now move on to Tuesday’s big game against the Red Wings.

We sell out every game. It will be a sea of red but for us this time not the Red Wings. Thank you Caps fans - you all rock! And you sure Unleashed the Fury at the game. The roof almost came off when Alex scored on his penalty shot.

Onward. If you are what your record says you are, we should feel pretty good for one moment.

Pause. Smile.

OK - back to being hyper nervous about every little detail. Go Caps!

Before the game last night, I read several blog posts and received many emails from the media, from fans and from message board posters. Most of them contained what I call “conventional wisdom” lazy cliches.

1.  ”The Capitals are a one man team. If Alex Ovechkin isn’t in the line up, you can’t win. Wait until you see what happens in Philly tonight.”  Sorry. You can’t say that anymore. Check out our record without Alex in the lineup this season. Check out the team scoring stats. Alex isn’t even leading our team in points anymore. So mainstream media and some select fans - never darken your columns or emails with that comment again. :-) We have built a fully functioning team now around our superstar player. We are a team. Not a one man show. We have many great players. We have terrific role players. And Alex is still reigning league MVP and he will return to our lineup on Monday evening. We are starting to get healthy again. This is positive news for our franchise. By the way, we managed to squeak by last night in Philly without Alex.
2. “Without a big rugged ‘clear the crease’ D man on your own like the Flyers now have, you can never beat them and never be successful.” We have now scored 5 goals, 4 goals and 8 goals in three games against the Flyers this year. Six available points and we have 5 of them. We are competitive with them, don’t you think? This is a great rivalry for us. They are a great team but we play them very competitively of late. We certainly don’t play “scared” as someone mentioned to me in an email. :-) We lead the league in goals scored. We are first in the East and second in the NHL to date in points. Somehow we are managing to get by with what we have in our lineup.
3. “Without an enforcer to send a message and play rough and tumble, you can never beat a team like the Flyers in their building.”
   Well, we scored three times on a 9:00 minute power play last night. I would much rather punish a team that way than by retaliating and negating the power play. By the way, we now have the # 1 power play in the NHL. I look forward to Jim Kelley’s column on the play; the penalty; the league reaction to the play; and the aftermath. I still haven’t heard an RSVP from Jim yet by the way on my invite. Jim - my email is Washingtoncaps@aol.com. We would let Jim interview Matt Bradley, when he meets with me too.
4. “A coaching change is always bad news for the visiting team. Ted - be prepared to get blown out. This could get ugly.” We won 8-2.
   It is easy to write a column; a board post; or an email to me filled with conventional wisdom. On occasion though you just might get called out for it. But nicely.

We are humbled by our performance of late. We are grateful to our fans that support us through thick and thin. We are starting to get some of our injured players back into the lineup. Let us see how well we can play now with a fully functioning and healthy team. Go Caps! Enjoy the ride.