The guy is on fire! The Post put out a long article talking about all the reasons why Ovi is not Ovi and it was pretty critical. The reasons ranged from his mom being overbearing, to laziness, to sulking, to being a prima donna, to a number of other reasons. The funny thing is a guy can be the exact same person but if his numbers are down, everyone wants to search and manufacture reasons to get that story.
The thing is ever since the story ran, Ovi has been brilliant. He has 9 goals in his last 7 games and is playing with the intensity and fire that made him the Great 8. To reward him for his hard play, Hunter double shifted him yesterday and Ovi welcomed the extra work. He added another goal but skated well and had a defensive gem where he stopped a two on one shorthanded opportunity for the Wild. The guy is stepping up and shouldering the load to try and get this team into the playoffs.
With 6 games remaining and the Caps being tied with the Sabres for the final spot, every game is a playoff game. It starts tomorrow with the aforementioned Sabres coming to town. They have been red hot and Ryan Miller, who was sketchy for much of the season, has been leading the way and playing the way everyone expected him to. This is being taken as a Game 7 playoff game and the ramifications will be huge. The thing is Ovie typically loves the bigger stages and bigger games and I look to him to have another big game.
As a side note, Backstrom has been cleared for full practice and hopefully he will be back in games very soon. We also need Mike Green to step up and be Mike Green. Still, I like the way the team has been playing the last couple of weeks and it looks like they are raising their intensity and playing with more confidence. Couldn't happen at a better time.
2 comments:
I think Ovechkin does care what others think. I also think that the story was probably pretty accurate and it ended up motivating him to play.
Good. Now if they can just keep it up. The thing I don't like about the Caps is that they still don't seem to play good D for significant stretches of games.
I was at the game last night. It's the atmosphere was a bit strange because the crowd seemed dejected and oddly quiet for much of the beginning of the game. I don't recall the crowd being so quiet in previous visits to the Verizon Center. Then Ovi made his amazing 2-1 defensive stop and Perreault scored and it was like old times. Holtby was rock solid in goal. The team was energized and raised the intensity of its play. They poured on the pressure and added a couple of goals and all was well in DC.
It's hard to figure out what the problem with this team is. Sometimes its lack of effort. Sometimes it's poor execution. Sometimes it's bad luck. Still, if we can sneak into the playoffs, anything can happen.
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