On a night where the Caps could get back into the playoff picture with a win they did not dissappoint. The came out and dominated the Flames and got the W. Also Mike Green is finally back but Nick Backstrom took a nasty elbow to the head and is being evaluated. Hopefully everything is okay with him! The CSN crew had a newbie in their ranks tonight for the coverage. Read about it below!
Third Star (1 pt):
Kelli Johnson. She is a new face to the CSN broadcast crew for Caps games. After some quick research I found out that she normally serves as the CSN field reporter for the Redskins. I guess since that gig is over for the time being she has been brought on board to do some Caps coverage. She handled the second intermission break and smartly wore bright red to score some easy points. She did a good job with the highlights and didn’t make any mistakes, which is impressive for a newbie. She came off as very professional and never seemed like just a pretty face/ airhead. She really reminds me of Jill Sorenson in her delivery, very professional but lacking emotion. However, some of that lack of energy could be due to it being her first time out with the Caps crew. It is notable that she showed a lot more energy in the CSN show after postgame live and raised Chick’s energy level as well. I expect she will be getting more opportunities now that the Skins are done and I think she will be able to put in a consistently good effort and grab better finishes now that she has her first one out of the way.
Second Star (2 pts):
The second star goes to Rob Carlin. He was in his normal spot alongside Alan May for the Pre and Post game coverage. During the pregame, Carlin set up May nicely to talk about all the major points of interest for the game. He brought up what Green’s return meant to the team and how it would impact specific players like Hamrlick and Orlov. He also gave Hamrlick some well deserved praise for his nice play of late. Carlin also brought up the goalie fight between Voko and Kipper and touched on Iginla’s pursuit of goal number 500. In the post game Carlin came out excited. He talked about Ovie’s great performance of late and uses a nice “back down in Chinatown” rhyme to throw the coverage back over the Joe B and Locker. Carlin tag teams the game highlights and does a nice job. Carlin seems to feed off of the Caps successes. When the team is playing well and winning Carlin takes his performance to another level and really shines. If he can figure out away to bring that same energy and passion to the broadcast even when the team is playing poorly he’s going to move up in the standings quickly.
First Star (3 pts):
Alan May. Solid performance tonight for CSN’s resident hockey tough guy. Did a good job during the pregame show covering all of the stories and topics along side Carlin and doesn’t get stuck talking only about Mike Green’s return. He telestrates and makes it look so easy. Really, Alan May telestrations look effortless whereas Locker makes it look like a struggle. Alan’s keys to the game tonight were for the Caps to be better than the Flames at everything. Can’t argue with that logic! Favorite part of the pregame coverage from May was he saying “I wouldn’t mind seeing a fight tonight” in response to Carlin’s comments about the Voko-Kipper fight. During the postgame May does a nice job hitting on the high and low points of the Caps performance. He also went through the game highlights with Carlin very smoothly. He makes sure to give Voko his due, on a night when really nobody else mentioned his great performance. May talks about how Ovie has been hot as of late and gives credit to Hunter for giving him a lot of ice time, something he says Bruce did not do. Carlin tries to make it seem like him and May are best buds by making a comment about watching the game together. May shrugs him off and gives him a look that says “its our job to watch the game and yes we were in the same room, but we are not friends”. May ends the postgame show with a crack about Carlin forgetting his suit and having to borrow one. May takes no prisoners! He also takes the lead over Locker in the Action on the Ice standings.
Other Participants (0 pts):
Smokin Al Koken: Handle the interview duties. No Bites of the Nite and lost out of an intermission interview because of Joe B's interview with the head of the AHL.
Chick: Came out flat tonight. Picked it up as the night went on but not enough to get into a scoring spot. Saw him pulling double duty doing the Wizards game. If I was forced to watch that team I would be a little flat myself.
Joe B: Part one of the dynamic Mike Green is back duo. Mentioned that Green was back from injury 20+ times.
Locker: Part two of the dynamic duo.
Last Star (-1 pt):
Chuck Gormely. I think some criticism has reached Chuck’s ears. Maybe he’s reading this blog. I suspect someone told him people think he sucks and has zero personality because he tried to change it up tonight. He really tried to put in a better performance when Joe B tossed the broadcast over to him in the 1st period. Unfortunately, for Chuck this meant that he just talked real fast and slurred his words. Soon enough the good old, slow and monotone Chuck was back. He told us that he was talking about Iginla on his blog and his chances at the Hall of Fame. I seriously doubt that Chuck has heard of Iginla before tonight because he didn’t have a lot to say about the dude. If you don’t have at least a minute of material you can use when talking about Iginla then how are you a professional covering the NHL. Chuck felt that Iginla wasn’t good enough to fill up his brief time sport so h crammed another topic in. His second piece of super insider and breaking news was that there is a thing called the Winter Classic and it might come to Washington at some point. This is a topic that any halfway decent Capitals fan has heard once or twice before. While I appreciate that Chuck tried to do something different tonight, he still feel on his face with his topics and delivery. ‘atta boy Chuck, welcome back to the bottom.
Points of Participants to date:
Alan May: 12
Locker: 10
Joe B: 7
Carlin: 7
Smokin: 3
Chick: 2
Kelli: 1
Chuck: -4
See the complete standings in the top right of the page!
Hope you enjoyed the post. The next Capitals game is against the Sharks at 10:30pm on Saturday. Saturday also happens to be my birthday. If anyone out there has been dying to take a crack at covering the CSN crew for a game I'd be willing to give them a shot at doing Saturday's game. Its away so there won't be to many people to keep track of. If interested leave a comment or shoot me a tweet @Dru90 and we can work something out. See you Saturday.
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