I had the chance to take in the Caps practice this morning. I got there right around 10.30 am, as they were just getting underway. They ran some drills and the first couple of times they were called back Tyler Sloan and Matt Bradley had to take a lap for being last over to the whiteboard.
I was standing behind the goal, and could hear Boudreau talking (talking is putting it politely). The basic message was this…
“Pick up your f&*king feet and f&*king skate. I’m f&*king sick of having to wait 10 or 20 minutes to see a f&*king pass get made or a f&*king shot go in. Get it f&*king together and get to f&*king work”
Immediately following that, the pace of the practice picked up. I don’t want to dump on anyone, but I saw the tone change immediately in Eric Fehr. For the 10-20 minutes prior to Mount Boudreau erupting he was skating somewhat lazily, and worse, shooting lazily. He soon picked up his pace, and was ripping his shots harder and with a lot more effort.
The same was true of everyone. In fairness, the grind line of Bradley, Brashear and Gordon were going hard all practice, as was Fedorov, Semin, Nylander, Laich and Fleischmann. For the rest, it was a little lacksidasical (is that the correct spelling? is that even a word?)
For the time I was there it was mainly shooting and breakout drills. Here is a little slideshow
Caps Practice October 27th 2008
And here is a little video from the shooting drills.
And another one, with Fedorov and Semin shooting
I’ve got some more videos I’ll hopefully add to later, but I had to share this one, even though you don’t actually see anything sort of. During the practice, Alexander Semin took a shot up over the netting and hit the lamp hanging over the bleachers (there was no one under it). It was pretty freaking amazing. Unfortunately I did not get it on video, only the aftermath. A little kid got the puck, and you can see the adults with him also pointing over to Semin. The kid has skill like you wouldn’t believe
Anyway, as most of you heard, Ovechkin was not in practice today, he has left the team to go to Russia to be with his grandfather who is ill. We wish him and his family well during these times. In the meantime Brooks Laich took his position on the top line, leaving the lines to look something like this:
Laich-Backstrom-Kozlov
Steckel-Fedorov-Semin
Fleischman-Nylander-Clark
Brashear-Gordon-Bradley
That’s all for now, lets hope the Caps get out and play hard in Ovechkins absence and he can keep his mind on his family for now, where it should be.
Hockey and Beer 