Capitals' Strong Season Performances Without Ovechkin

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00:00I almost fell over when they lost to the Blackhawks.

00:06I can see losing to the stars, but they had won three in a row before that.

00:10You know, I have a lot of hockey talk on this show periodically where we'll have like Danny

00:15Bernstein on and we've talked about the Metro and we're like, man, is it disappointing?

00:20And I said to him, the Devils and the Capitals aren't disappointing.

00:24I mean, they're loving life.

00:27True.

00:28And I'm not going to offer, I know the players aren't going to offer excuses.

00:33They're incredible athletes, but the schedule is done, washed in, no favors.

00:37Everybody's going to say the same thing around the league, but there have been so many back-to-back

00:41game scenarios, three games in four nights, four games in six nights.

00:46And I'll double it up with the way the Caps lost in Chicago an evening ago.

00:50Their normal travel, the team had a plane issue, couldn't get out of Dallas, really

00:55didn't fly into Chicago until the morning of the game.

00:58Again, this is me making excuses.

01:00This is not the players.

01:01They played poorly.

01:02It was as bad a game as I've seen from them in the last two periods, an evening ago in

01:06Chicago in the entirety of the season.

01:09Prior to that, terrific run, seesaw battle with the Devils for the Metro division lead,

01:15for the conference lead, right there battling Winnipeg for the top spot along with Minnesota

01:20lead wide.

01:21They've been unbelievably good on the road.

01:24They set a franchise record with a 10-game win streak before they went into Dallas this

01:28past Monday, Tuesday.

01:29That was a combination, Dallas-Chicago, which seemed to have tripped them up.

01:33But so many different reasons that we can talk about, Scotty, as for why they're playing

01:37well, but the big thing is they are playing extremely well, and we're already a third

01:42of the way into the season.

01:43One of the things that I noticed was how great they've been on the road.

01:50Simplifying the game, and when you're scoring goals the way they've been scoring, Scotty,

01:55they can beat anybody anywhere, and it's so interesting that they've been without Alex

02:00Ovechkin for about a month's time now since the broken leg injury sustained in Salt Lake

02:05City, and their offense hasn't fallen off, and Alex was on a major, major role prior

02:11to the injury.

02:12I think it was 15 goals in 18 games, but all in all, the offensive production's been there

02:17from the get-go, and especially so on the road.

02:20They've been able to generate offense.

02:23They're never out of a game.

02:24If you look at their record, I want to say they have 21 wins, 13 of those are come-from-behind

02:29kind of wins.

02:30At some point in time, they're trailing in the game, so they know they have the ability

02:34to turn it on and finish, and maybe that wasn't sustainable.

02:39Their shooting percentage was through the roof in October and November, and yet still,

02:43I see them right around four goals a game, which is pretty close to the darn NHL league.

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