Caps v Devils (Dec 23rd)

Happy Holidays everyone.  Tonight the Caps traveled up to New Jersey to face the Devils in their last game before the mini-holiday break.  It was ugly through the first two periods, but those who managed to stick it through got to witness a pretty exciting Caps comeback and shootout.  Unfortunately, they didn't pull off the shootout victory but they showed some real heart in 3rd period and overtime.  Here are you stars from the CSN crew:

Third Star (1 pt):

Jill Sorenson was back tonight and it seems she has taken our comments about showing some emotion and energy to heart.  She ran through the highlights from around the league without stumbling, as usual, but she actually sounded interested and engaged in what she was doing.  He voice changed pitches several times and it really felt like she was interacting with the audience rather than dictating to them. She didn’t even wear all black tonight, though there was no red or green in her outfit.  Why you no like Christmas Jill?  Actually there was a lack of red and green with all of the crew tonight so I guess maybe it was a company mandate or something.  Why you no like Christmas CSN?  It was a solid night for Jill and a step in the right direction for her to become a serious contender. 

Second Star (2 pts):

On a night where Joe B had a great performance you know that Craig Laughlin can’t be far behind.  Not to be outdone by Joe B’s intro, Locker got into the rhyming action with his “wishlist” for the game, “I want 8 and 28 to be great”.  During the first period Locker was all about the biscuit.  He hasn’t been using that term as much in the past few weeks but tonight he made up for it.  Maybe he had KFC for dinner?  He had a nice first intermission interview with Alzner about plus-minus versus points.  Alzner said he cares about the plus-minus but Locker set him straight by saying its all about the points.  In the second intermission, Locker did some telestrating.  He only had 4 “hold-it-here’s” so that wasn’t to terrible.  He was the tag-team partner with Joe B, and managed to keep the game watchable throughout the first two periods.  It was a good overall performance for Locker tonight and he has gotten himself a little bit of separation in the standings.

First Star (3 pts):

Joe Beninati.  Whoever writes Joe B’s game intro monologues is a genius.  Since we don’t know who writes them, credit has got to go to Joe B himself.  Tonight’s was a variation on The Night Before Christmas and was quite impressive.  Joe was also rocking a light purple tie, and he pulled it off quite nicely.  As the game got underway Joe B was forced to watch the poor excuse for a team that was the Caps through the first two periods.  You could tell how sad he was as he talked about how low scoring the team is.  Clearly, he misses fire wagon hockey from the days of old.  As the game limped forward Joe B had some great back and forth with Locker that kept the game watchable.  It’s a good thing they did.  In the third period Joe B noted that the Caps looked like a different team.  He made a pseudo-pun/prediction by saying the “Laich is a likely candidate” to get the scoring started.  Lo and behold, in the following minute Laich buried the puck in the net to get the Cap’s comeback started.  As the game went into overtime, you could tell Joe B was into it because he broke out his favorite term, “flamethrower”.  A final interesting note from Joe B’s performance tonight, he loved saying “Err-bomb”.  Very similar to the way he liked saying “Hammmerlick” last season.  Guess we should look for Alexander Urbom to join the Caps next season. 

Other Participants:

Alan May:  Was a hair shy of getting the third star tonight.  Good work from him as always.

Al Koken: Seems way more comforatble with May than Carlin does.

Last Star (0 pts instead of -1, Christmas gift):

Chris Miller. On a night dominated by Joe B and Locker but without any standout bad performances, Chris Miller gets the last star by process of elimination. Came out to do the first period highlights and did a passable job, though he seemed a half-step behind the action on the screen with his calls. We’re willing to mostly chalk that up to rust and give him a pass. However, we will NOT give him a pass for saying we should root for Pittsburgh to beat Winnipeg at the beginning of the postgame show. I don’t care how many points we or another team may have; rooting for Pittsburgh in December is never okay.

Point totals for Participants:
Locker: 10
May: 6
 Joe B: 6 
Smokin: 3
Jill Sorenson: 3
Miller: 0

Happy Holidays.  Next game is Monday. Twitter @Dru90.