Same Old Garbage

Alexander Semin has been the Capitals' best forward this season. You won't hear many other analysts or fans say it, but it's true. Despite being criminally underutilized (e.g., reduced minutes at even strength and the power play, playing with inferior linemates, not being used on the penalty kill) and having to play in a mind numbingly conservative, defense-first-second-and-third system installed by Dale Hunter, Semin has managed to essentially lead the team in even strength scoring rate (Perrault actually leads but largely because of Semin), Corsi, and Scoring Chance ratio (SC% as determined by Neil Greenberg). Ovechkin, Laich, and recently Jay Beagle are being given the lion's share of ice time, but it's really Semin who's being effective.

To wit, compare Ovechkin and Semin's numbers at even strength (I did not include Laich's only because he was given checking line matchups for a good portion of the year and I thought it would be unfair to compare apples and oranges, but know that Laich's numbers are fairly dismal, harder matchups notwithstanding):

There may be a basis upon which Ovechkin receives more than 10% more even strength ice time, but it is certainly not performance. The misuse of Semin is at the top of a long list of curious coaching decisions by Hunter.

On a team that has been mostly terrible all year, Semin has been remarkably effective. Everyone talks about how great Backstrom was playing before he got hurt, but Semin has a higher Scoring Chance %, a higher scoring rate, and a higher Corsi, and he did it all while having to carry around the anchor that is Jason Chimera on his line. For a guy who gets nothing but criticism from the mainstream hockey media, it's been a very good season for Alex Semin. Fans of absurd Pierre McGuire histrionics that lead directly to him being made to look the fool on national TV were given a special gift last night when McGuire harangued Semin for not "bearing down" and being "too casual" in putting a chance off the post after calmly deking Dwayne Roloson out of position. McGuire was literally screaming at Semin, who has the 11th highest goals per game average since the lockout, for not converting the chance after great work by Ovechkin earlier in the shift. The echoes of Mcguire's bloated bloviations, which included calling Semin the definition of, wait for it, an "enigma," had barely quieted when Semin absolutely ripped a one-timer through Roloson for the first goal of the game. What was that about bearing down?

Last night was perhaps the apotheosis of the misuse of Semin under the Hunter regime. In a game where a victory would have all but assured the Capitals of the playoffs, and kept them in the hunt for the division, Semin played a total of 14:11. Through two periods, in what was for the most part a scoreless game, he had played 8:10. When Jason Chimera went off for fighting in the 2nd period, Hunter, rather than change his lines or replace the winger to get Perrault and Semin (the Capitals' two most effective even strength scorers) on the ice, the coach simply chose to not play them until Chimera's penalty time had ended. It's been a stunning misallocation of resources, as was the case under the old guy, and it should not come as a surprise that the team is fighting to make the playoffs. Semin finished with 2 points in his 14 minutes, Ovechkin with none in over 22.

Semin is 53rd in the league in EVP/60 (min 50 GP). Of all the players ahead of him, only 11 have played less (Marchand, Purcell, Peverly, Bergeron, Foligno, Perrault, Voracek, Stalberg, Hudler, Pominville, Stafford). Bos, Ott, Phi, Chi, and Det all score substantially more goals than the goal-starved Capitals, and all have deeper groups of scoring forwards to apportion time, however. Semin was apparently not too happy with his ice time last night, and that makes perfect sense, but it's unclear why George McPhee doesn't feel the same way.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

I wasn't initially going to bother with this, but at the urging of my only two regular readers who apparently noticed that I've spewed a fair amount of words pleading for the firing, beheading, or defenestration of Bruce Boudreau, and with him being terminated yesterday, apparently want some form of schadenfreude soaked obituary, an orgy of I-told-you-so feasting on the bloody carcass of a defeated foe. But alas, I don't really have much to say. Yes, I think he ruined the Caps' last two postseasons by not putting together Ovechkin-Backstrom-Semin together despite that trio being Corsi- and scoring-dominant over the past three years. And his giving Semin less PP time than Brooks Laich last postseason and this season was asinine. And yes, his team played loosey-goosey and he didn't seem to pick up on the newer tactical developments around the league, e.g. the pp-breakout-drop-pass thing that Van and Det and other teams do. But that said, Boudreau was probably a not-good-but-not-terrible-coach-either. He was mostly hokey and sincere and inarticulate and caring. His biggest crime against me was his mistreatment (i.e., playing him with a revolving door of ill-fitting, unready, and/or inferior linemates) of Alexander Semin, whose abilities and style of play have become largely the only joy I derive from watching the Capitals, or the NHL for that matter. So for that, I certainly but hesitantly celebrated BB's departure. Hesitantly because of what has come next.

While Dale Hunter does have a reputation for playing the fuck out of his stars in junior, I would have preferred the nerd/tactician type. The Bylsma/Babcock/Vigneault breed of coach who understands data and goes on more than just gut, who are if not educated, at least articulate and thoughtful. But most of all, I want a coach that understands that Alexander Semin is probably the best intercepter of opponents passes in the league (whereas Datsyuk is the best thief of puck carriers), is a dominant player along the boards in maintaining and obtaining puck possession, and is a unique offensive talent that needs to be paired with a certain type of center that instinctively plays the European, combinational style to maximize his effectiveness. I don't know if the Caps got that in Hunter - my guess is no - but I do know Hunter is one of the dirtiest players in the history of the sport. Second all-time in penalty minutes, yes, but moreso shit like this:

Am I happy that Boudreau's gone? Sure. Am I optimistic about the future? No.

On Semin, Boudreau, and Understanding

Alexander Semin possesses a unique set of characteristics that often cause extreme polarization among hockey fans and pundits: he is supremely skilled, particularly in areas that are easily observable (FN1), and he seems to operate in a different space from the dominant North American hockey culture, both on the ice – whereas certain preferences exist for those players that appear to skate hard and fast into corners and up and down the ice (FN2), Semin and other such players "let the game come to them" without continually chasing the play/puck so aggressively – and off it – Semin is extremely shy, introverted, and does not speak English well. (FN3) While Semin’s patently high skill level does create expectations that are difficult to meet, what actually fuels the vitriol is subtler: an ingrained preference against a distinct playing style due to a hockey-cultural dissonance, i.e. because a player doesn’t skate around the rink like a madman, combined with an inability or unwillingness to share person and personality with teammates and/or fans, i.e. that there is no connection to the subject, not only poisons any objective evaluation of play but also foments unsupported and ad hominal attacks, such as that Semin “just doesn’t care,” to explain perceived failings. (FN4) Such attacks, long the domain of message board and blog pabulum, were finally levied by actual ex-teammates, first by Matt Bradley and then echoed by David Steckel. Capitals coach Bruce Boudreau and owner Ted Leonsis sort of lukewarmly, or at least inarticulately, responded to the criticisms and defended the player without really explaining why the attacks were without basis. GM George McPhee, however, supplied a brief but appropriate response, noting that Semin is a proven playoff performer, that Bradley got the facts wrong, and perhaps most succinctly and accurately, “[t]his kid’s been productive.”

FN1 – These skills being predominantly stick-handling and shooting, as distinct from other skills that are not always so obvious, e.g., screening the goalie, winning puck battles, etc.

FN2 – Those that play the game this way are not exclusively from North America, see, e.g., Semin’scountryman and good friend, Alexander Ovechkin. Also note the important distinction between appearing to skate hard and fast and actually skating hard and fast. Effortlessly smooth skaters, such as Paul Coffey and Phil Housely, were brutally criticized at various points in their careers for appearing to not work hard enough. Ditto for those players whose games involved patiently waiting in the weeds rather than relentless puck pursuit. Before reaching statistical heights which made them largely criticism-proof, Mario Lemieux and Brett Hull faced criticisms regarding work-ethic that were born more from their style of play than any actual substantive flaw.

FN3 – In over six seasons with the Capitals, he’s given two English language interviews, and both occurred this week. The first was kinda heartbreaking, and the second was awkwardly charming.

FN4 – Another player who is similarly divorced from the predominant North American hockey culture is Nikolai Zherdev. Like Semin, Zherdev plays a passive game that is more read and react than pursue and attack. Zherdev also speaks very little English and in unconcerned with bonding with players or reporters. He is a very good hockey player though, who has no problem scoring or domintating possession at even strength (I’ve written about him before but others have done more). Despite this objective success, Zherdev is one of the more maligned players of his generation by fans, coaches, and reporters.

Notwithstanding the incomplete statistical picture he offered, McPhee is basically correct. Neil Greenberg provides a fuller analysis and concludes with what should have been long obvious to any objective viewer unbiased by a culturally-derived aesthetic preference of the game: Alexander Semin is an extremely effective hockey player who drives possession against tough competition and who is an effective penalty killer. (FN5)

FN5 – An effective but criminally underused penalty-killer. Semin finished the 2010-11 season with .96 TOI/60, 7^th highest among Washington forwards. He did not spend a single second killing penalties in the playoffs. See infra.

McPhee basically nails the point about Semin’s playoff success, but I’d like to delve into Semin’s most recent playoff performance a little deeper with specific reference to how he was utilized.

2011 Playoffs

Power Play

Perhaps the most egregious example of the misuse of Semin came on the PP. The Capitals’ PP was mostly woeful during the season, but Semin was its most productive player:

Semin had the highest scoring rate and received the third most minutes (behind Ovechkin and Backstrom). This is consistent with Semin's PP utilization and production throughout his career, that is, he's played and scored a bunch (scoring rate rank among Capitals’ forwards is in parenthesis):

Those scoring rates are comparable with other elite scorers (Datsyuk’s PP scoring rates are 5.68, 5.38, 7.03, and 5.74 over the same period; Crosby’s are 4.80, 4.62, 5.38 and 5.02). Semin’s proven track record on the PP suggests that he should be used similarly in the playoffs. However, not only did Semin’s PP ice time decrease in the playoffs, relative to the other Capitals’ forwards, it decreased significantly:

While Semin’s raw decrease in power play minutes was only .15 minutes per game (a 5% reduction), the reduction is heightened by the fact that the Capitals as a team saw a 20% increase in power play time from the regular season to the playoffs (5.04 to 6.06). In fact, there were 7(!) other Capitals’ forwards who received more power play ice time than Semin. While Semin has been an elite PP scorer his entire career, none of Knuble, Fehr, or Johansson have ever approached Semin’s scoring on the power play, yet they received more PP time in the playoffs than him. The case of Brooks Laich is an interesting one. Laich received a whopping 3.58 min/game on the PP in the playoffs. That is 31% more time than Semin received. Had Laich ever done anything to suggest that he was a more effective PP player than Semin? No, quite the opposite:

Semin has been used more frequently on the PP his entire career, and he has scored at a higher rate than Laich every year (including 06/07 which is not listed) save for 07/08 when Laich scored at a higher rate but in nearly one-third the PP time. It seems clear that going into the 2011 playoffs, Semin had established himself as a great, bordering on elite, PP player, and Laich had established himself as a good or very good PP player. Yet, for some reason Boudreau opted to use Laich 31% more on the PP than Semin, and opted to use 7 different forwards more than Semin. This strikes me as completely insane, without justification, and a severe misuse of talent. (FN6)

FN6 – Critics may want to point to the fact that Semin didn’t score a single PP point in the playoffs as a justification for Boudreau to curtail his use. This argument fails because the Capitals only scored 5 PPG in the 9 games, so the sample size is too small to draw any real conclusions. Moreover, with respect to shots directed at net, the key driver of PP success, Semin was third on the team in PP Corsi (behind Knuble and Sturm). Laich was eighth.

Even Strength

At even strength during the regular season, Semin produced the second highest point scoring rate and the highest goal scoring rate on the team:

He did this while being paired up front most often with Brooks Laich (51% of the time) and to a lesser extent Nicklas Backstrom (36%) and Alexander Ovechkin (31%). He was paired with rookie Marcus Johansson not infrequently (22%) as well. This tells us that Semin played with a variety of different linemates at different times, and was with the big boys some but not all that often. Semin wasn’t exactly handed a golden key on a silver platter, but he wasn’t exactly slumming it either.

The playoffs were a far different (tragic and stupefying) story, however: Semin spent the majority of his even strength ice time with Jason Arnott (65%) and Marco Sturm (52%). These numbers are actually probably misleading because, while I’m a firm believer in the inverse correlation between shift length and effectiveness, Arnott in particular was taking ridiculously short shifts at even strength in the playoffs. It appears that it was as obvious to him as it was to me that he could barely hang on and keep up with NHL playoff pace, and he accordingly and wisely got off the ice at the earliest opportunity. Good for him, not great for his linemates if they happened to have the puck and were headed in the right direction. There doesn’t seem to be published data for even strength shift length, but we can make do with overall shift length:

The most immediately notable thing in that chart should be just how many fewer minutes Semin got than the “big 4” of Ovechkin, Backstrom, Laich, and Knuble. One of Bradley’s comments was about top players and playing time:

When you’re paying your top guys a lot of money and those
guys carry you through the whole season, and if one of them isn’t going, it’s
very hard not to play them, and I understand that that’s tough. But I think in
the end, if you want to win, sometimes you have to sit some of those guys down
and maybe send a message and try to get them going.

It’s unclear if he’s talking about Semin specifically (it seems to me that he was) or someone else like Backstrom, but he probably should have been talking about Knuble, who was on the ice over 21 minutes a game and scored a whole 2 points, despite playing nearly exclusively with Ovechkin and Backstrom. I imagine "Knoobs" and "Brads" are good friends who talked a lot, whereas it wouldn’t surprise me if Bradley and Semin have never had a conversation. So, Knuble’s a great locker room guy who helps the team win, and Semin’s a monster that doesn’t care and wants to go back to Russia.

Sturm’s shift lengths are muddied because he saw time on the penalty kill, but if you consider that Arnott took about 16% of his ice time on the PP, and if you assume those shifts averaged a minute long, then you can estimate that Arnott’s even strength shifts were about 38 seconds long. Those strike me as the shifts of a player in desperate need to get off the ice because he knew he couldn’t keep up. Although Semin having to essentially babysit Arnott and Sturm so much of the time makes it’s difficult to precisely identify who was driving the results, we can nevertheless make some inferences.

Semin spent two-thirds of his even strength playing time tied down by the grizzly Arnott, during which time they would have had the same Corsi stats, but in the one-third of the time Semin thankfully extricated himself from the Anchor, he managed to create a 13.2 differentiation in Relative Corsi. Same story viz. Sturm, and because Boudreau blessed Semin with even more non-Sturm time, Semin separated himself even further from another old-timer playing on at best one leg. One wonders what Semin and the Capitals could have done if he was paired with actual NHL caliber players more of the time. After falling down by a goal late in game 1 against the Rangers, Boudreau put Semin together with Ovechkin and Backstrom (Prayer is the last refuge of a scoundrel). Semin promptly set up the Capitals’ first and tying goal late in the third. (FN7) There were far too few shifts for the deadly trio during the playoffs, as was the case last year v. Montreal. How many playoff failures will Capitals fans have to endure before Boudreau tries uniting those three for a sustained period of time?

FN7 – Of course Boudreau went back to the old line combinations for the overtime, and Arnott made his one nice play of the entire playoffs and Semin absolutely devastated a one-timer for the win.

Penalty Kill

Semin is a very effective penalty killer:

He had the highest Corsi among Capitals forwards last season. I’ll spare you further charts but let you know that this was also the case in 2009-10 and 2008-09. It’s painfully clear at this point that Semin is really good at limiting opposition shot imbalance (and by proxy, scoring chances) on the penalty kill. It may not jive with traditional hockey narratives of skilled, soft players not playing defense, but the statistics are unmistakably unequivocal in this regard. One person who either does not understand statistic or does not care about the Capitals penalty kill happens to be their coach, unfortunately, as shown:

The player who has demonstrated the highest ability to limit opposition Corsi on the PK over the last three seasons did not receive one single second of PK time in the playoffs. It is a stunningly dumb misallocation of assets and abilities, an important microcosm explaining why the Capitals, despite having a vast collection of talent at every position, perhaps unmatched around the league, have won 2 playoff series in four years under Boudreau.

If George McPhee Isn't Looking Up Craig MacTavish's Number Right Now, He's Probably Breaching a Fiduciary Duty or Two

I was at this game and the highlights don't do justice as to how atrocious it was.

And re this incident from the previous night:

Don't ever do it again. It was a selfish penalty. Liles hit him a couple of times but this is hockey not Tiddlywinks. You've got to suck that up and can't do what he did. I think at that point in time we had 8-0 in shots on goal, we had everything going our way and then you've got to kill a penalty for five minutes.

- Boudreau

Kind of odd that a coach in the midst of a 5-game (soon to become 6) game losing streak, despite the most complete - in terms of both experience (age and youth) and functionality (scorers and grinders) - and stacked - in terms of elite offensive level talent (OV, Semin, Backs, Green) - NHL roster would call out and vilify the team's most consistently productive player, a player who leads them, by a far margin, in EV and PP scoring efficiency, and who plays an important and effective role on the PK as well, for basically defending himself, after a career in which it's become painfully clear that NHL refs have no interest in doing so. What a joke. And the team responded as they should: with no desire in saving the job of a hokey, "golly, gee" faux-charismatic bench boss who's better suited to leading the Wheeling Nailers to the Kelly Cup than matching wits against the Babcocks and Vigneaults of this world. I used to be of the opinion that common sense and decency mandated that he be given this year to go at least as far as 3 rounds before being axed, but I don't think GMGM has any choice but to start spinning the rolodex (scrolling through the BBM list) to see who else knows enough about the Caps (and not the silly MSM narrative - high octane offensive w/o the defense or goaltending or grit) to start ASAP. It's going to take some time to undo all the coddling OV's received and all the bad habits - both on the ice and off - he's picked up. And the new guy has to know enough to play 8-19-28 together for an extended period.

Who'd You Rather?

These two players are on the same team and these are their stats through the first 28 games of the season. Player A scores at a higher rate at even strength (getting less ice time, 13.4 vs. 16 min/60) and on the PP (getting much less ice time, 3.1 to 4.7 min/60). Player A makes up some of that time playing shorthanded (he is fifth in ice time for forwards on a team that is in the top-10 in penalty killing) whereas Player B does not play shorthanded. There is a higher discrepancy in shots directed at the opposition's net vs. their team's net (CORSI) when Player A is on the ice rather than Player B. Player A gets twice as many takeaways (tied for the league lead) and fewer giveaways. Player B gets more shots and about 10 times as many hits (although it's pretty clear that hits have very little if any utility in a hockey game).

Are there any compelling arguments that Player A, this season, isn't a more effective player than Player B? Any guesses who the players are?

Filet Mignon or Strip Steak?

The Capitals begin their opening playoff series tonight after an historic regular season that saw them produce the 7^th most impressive offensive season in the history of the post-expansion NHL. A great deal of that production has come from the team’s top line, with Ovechkin and Backstrom permanent fixtures on left wing and center, respectively, and with the right wing slot being occupied by either Mike Knuble or Alexander Semin. Semin started the season on the top line before ultimately being replaced with Knuble, with the exception of sporadic games here and there where Boudreau would reunite Semin with Backstrom and Ovechkin for a period or two with the Caps trailing. To begin the playoffs, as it has been for the last few months fairly consistently now, Knuble will be on the top line.

Which version of the top line is more effective? These numbers suggest an answer. Note that Fenwick numbers are shots plus missed shots, and Corsi numbers are Fenwick numbers plus blocked shots.

The results are fantastic for both lines, but the numbers are particularly great for the Semin version. Their Goals For / Goals Against, Shots %, and On Ice EV Shooting % indicate an exceptional level of dominance for that trio. The Knuble line has a higher On Ice EV Save %, though it’s unclear that swapping out one player would drive the results to that extent. My best guess is that Semin played a higher percentage of his minutes with that line while the Caps trailed, which would skew his On Ice EV Save % (because the Caps would face fewer but higher quality shots while trailing). It appears that Semin and Knuble each had approximately the same number of total events (shots + misses + blocked shots for and against) when on the top line and trailing. Because Semin had fewer total events than Knuble on the top line regardless of game score, I think it means that Semin probably played a greater percentage of top line minutes while the Caps trailed, relative to Knuble. That certainly comports with my understanding of how Boudreau used that line. And because their shots against totals are lower, a few extra goals against while trailing (caused by Ovechkin, Backstrom, and Semin being in hardcore offensive mode) would disproportionately affect the On Ice Save % more so than the Shooting % or the Shots, Fenwick, and Corsi ratios.

That would certainly distort the territorial numbers (Shots, Fenwick, and Corsi ratios) in favor of Semin as well. However, those numbers so clearly skew towards Semin, and the percentage of time the Caps spent trailing is small enough, that I think we can make the general conclusion that territorially, and in terms of scoring efficacy, the top line was at its best with Semin on it. I think it’s an important point to make and realize, though it obviously does not necessarily imply that that is the line that Boudreau should use going forward, as it does not take into account any effects on other lines. And I’m fairly confident that Boudreau ultimately knows that Semin helps that line more than Knuble, as evidenced by his reuniting it down the stretch to help Ovechkin’s cause in the scoring and goal races. But depending on the way things go at various stages of the playoffs, Boudreau should not hesitate to reunite the line when he really needs a goal or to shift the momentum in his favor. I know he'll do it in the third if the Caps are down a goal, but I think there could be other times where going to the power trio earlier makes sense.

Incidentally, I looked at a couple other lines around the league that I thought might have approximated the Caps top line with Semin. It turns out, they did not. Ovechkin / Backstrom / Semin is a ridiculously good line.

the battle between good and evil

Canada and Russia will assume the roles of the Nationalists and Republicans, respectively, with the venue this time being the Quebec City Colisee in the gold-medal game of the 2008 world ice hockey championships, rather than the battlefields of Guipozcoa, Segovia, and Ebro of the Spanish Civil War. Though the world championships have always played second chair to the NHL playoffs in North America, this year's event has taken on special meaning due to the IIHF's celebration of 100 years and, more importantly, its hosting, for the first time ever, on Canadian soil. Competitions between national teams are particularly interesting because you get to see specific identities and styles emerge as players from a shared background and with a more consistent hockey aesthetic come together to form a team. The short duration of the tournament also gives coaches less time to mold their teams, and thus players have to rely more on their own instincts and abilities than a coach's direction. This can, though not necessarily, result in more interesting hockey than at the end of a long club season when basically every team plays the same way and the players can at times look like robots following direct orders from above.

This is the dream match-up everyone was hoping for and these are clearly the two best teams of the tournament. As in any one game series, goaltending will be huge: if either Ward or Nabokov woke up feeling funny and has a stinker, their team will probably lose. Canada is essentially a one line team; the trio of Heatley, Getzlaf, and Nash has been dominant. Russia, of course, will have no special plans to defend them, will not match-up any specific line of defensive pair against them, and will essentially appear as if being coached by a solipsistic infant who has wandered into a hockey arena for the first time. Their possible saving grace is that Russia has displayed a hugely successful puck possession game and regardless of what 5-man unit is out there they will likely force the Big Canadians to spend a fair amount of time and energy running around their own zone, which could seriously limit their effectiveness. As for the good guys, the "Capital Punishment" line of Ovechkin, Fedorov, and Semin have been the main suppliers of offense thus far, and I expect Canada to pay special attention to stopping them (i.e. stapling Jovanovski and Bouwmeester to that line). This could open the door up for the ZZM (Zaripov, Zinovjev, and Morozov) troika to have a big day (and hopefully show Canada and Canadian fans especially that the NHL no longer has a monopoly on the hockey talent in the world).

It will be absolutely imperative that the Ruskies stay out of the penalty box as the hosers from up north have a deadly power play. My thought, hope at least, is that the prairie boys aren't fast enough to play with Russia 5 on 5, but they can do some damage with the man advantage. Lamentably, the refs will play a huge role in the outcome of the game: if they decide to whistle everything that moves, I think it favors the bad guys. If they let the players decide the game and call only those infractions that impede and prevent possession or scoring chances, I like the former Soviets' chances. A Russian victory won't undo the all the damage the Republicans' defeat did to freedom and liberty around the world, but it would be a start.

1st period update: Russia gets off to an awesome early start off a goal by Semin. Then, quick and decisive responses by the major actors involved: 10 straight minor penalty minutes to Russia handed out by the refs, 3 straight goals from Canada, and continued asinine coaching and bench management by Russian coach Slava Bykov. The biggest mistake he makes is continuing to play 8 defensemen. NHL teams use 6 defensemen in a game, and of those 6, 1 will often play sparingly. Bykov uses all 8 roughly equally, despite some being obviously not as good as others. This specifically includes Vitaly Proshkin, a Russian league defender who was on the ice for the first two Canada goals, and took a 4 minute highsticking penalty that led to Russia being down two men and led to Canada's third goal. A Canadian coach wouldn't even dress Proshkin for the game, yet now he will be a major reason why Russia will lose. Canada's second goal was the result of another Russian league player; Maxim Sushinsky coughed up the puck at center ice, then ran into, guess who, Vitaly Proshkin, which allowed Chris Kunitz to coast in and beat Nabokov up high. Bykov will continue to roll out Sushinsky, who is super skilled and a good player, but who is not used to playing at speeds this high against very big and aggressive Canadian players. Against a team like Switzerland, Sushinsky could be Russia's best player, but he will exploited by team Canada and will make it that harder for Russia's difference makers, Ovechkin, Fedorov, Semin to keep Russia in the game. Yet, Bykov will continue to roll all the lines out equally, a kind of unthinking socialism that is being applied to hockey in a way unimaginable to the Canadian players, coaches, and fans. Coaching again will cost Russia a chance to effectively compete at the level it should.

2nd period update: much better period. Bykov actually makes an attempt to have his better players on the ice more often than his worse players. It appears to be too little too late. Everyone will go home happy and expectations will have been met. I hate hockey.

final update: good beats evil 5-4 in OT. Maybe there is hope for all of us after all.

Tic-tac-toe-tac-toe to game 7

What a game, what a comeback. Caps special teams failed them for the first half of the night, and it wasn’t looking particularly good. If as of around 8pm EST Caps fans had their tomorrow evening reservations at "drinking alone and crying into their collective glasses" city, no one could have blamed them for overreacting. But everything changed when the much maligned Steve Eminger threw a 90 foot breakout pass from deep in his own zone on the tape to a streaking Brooks Laich: Brooksie (how good does that Bondra for Laich trade look now?) entered the Flyers zone with speed on a 3-on-2 and dropped it back to initiate as pretty a play as you’ll ever see in the Stanly Cup Playoffs circa 2008. Semin one-touched it cross ice to Nik Backstrom, who one-touched it back to Semin, who amazingly didn’t let the puck linger on his stick for more than a fraction of what seemed like a nanosecond, firing it back to Backstrom, and calmly rifling it above the shoulder of the heretofore unbeatable Martin Biron. It was the kind of goal that not only got the Caps back into the contest, but put the bad guys on their heels and let both teams know that the good guys were, indeed, very good. Much will be said about OV’s two third-period goals, both undeniably brilliant, and the Caps D and Huet weathering the storm early in the final frame, and it should be so, but it was that insane passing and finishing play, off a great effort from Eminger mind you, that started it all and gave Washington life. Anything can happen tomorrow, but you’ve gotta like what has transpired thus far and they way things are going now. Should be a great one. Go Caps.