Washington Capitals 2013 Off-season

The more things change, the more they stay the same. The Washington Capitals once again got bounced from the playoffs before Memorial Day, leaving the DC faithful to wonder how a team with the best sniper in the world can consistently struggle to find postseason success. I've always maintained that the idea of being clutch or choking in the playoffs is largely an effect of luck and circumstance, but as the sample size of Caps failures increases I am left to wonder if that's just wishful thinking on my part.

More like "FAN OF THE DECADE".

The season wasn't a total loss. New head coach Adam Oates started off on the wrong foot (2-8-1) but after some lineup juggling he righted the ship and led Washington to its fifth division title in six years. Alexander Ovechkin's transition from left wing to right wing also took a while to get settled, but it resulted in Ovie's third Hart Memorial Trophy and third Maurice "Rocket" Richard Trophy. Despite another year of playoff futility, it's important to remember that the major contributors still have plenty of good hockey in front of them. Brooks Laich is the elder statesman at 30 years old, Mike Green and Ovechkin are 28, and Nicklas Backstrom is 26. Karl Alzner, John Carlson, Braden Holtby, and Marcus Johansson are younger still. The point is Washington still has a lot of juice left in the tank to make a substantial run at the Stanley Cup Finals.

Before I get underway, I'll offer the same public service announcement I did last season: Please check out the following websites for a much more informed and detailed account of the Capitals and hockey in general.

• Japers' Rink, the top Capitals community with daily links and intelligent discussions
• Russian Machine Never Breaks, my favorite Caps blog with a dash of humor
• Chris Gordon, reporter and photographer for RMNB
• sk84fun_dc, Japers' poster with tons of knowledge about Caps prospects
• CapGeek.com, the only source for anything about the salary cap
• Hockey Prospectus, not as complete as its baseball counterpart, but plenty of good info
• Hockey-Reference.com and Hockeydb.com, good sites for stats
• Hockey's Future and Elite Prospects, for all your prospect needs

-- Front Office --

In his quest to build a contender in Washington, general manager George McPhee has never shied away from trimming the fat off the 50-man roster. Following the lockout, he waived Roman Hamrlik after it was evident the aging defenseman was out of shape and ineffective, and the New York Rangers did the Caps a solid by claiming him. He chose not to sign projects like Mattias Sjogren and Steffen Soberg, and has taken a lot of NCAA prospects recently in order to add a few years to their signing window. Now in the midst of training camp, the Caps have 46 players under NHL contracts, which gives them a little room to sign cheap free agents or make NHL-level trades over the course of the season.

"Yay! I still have a job!"

To his credit, McPhee has resisted the urge to blow up the core roster despite six straight early playoff exits. The biggest loss, allowing Alexander Semin to leave via unrestricted free agency, was necessary due to the uncertain nature of the salary cap under the new collective bargaining agreement. McPhee was able to acquire Mike Ribeiro to fill the scoring void left by Semin, and hopefully Mikhail Grabovski (or eventually Tom Wilson, Evgeny Kuznetsov, or Andre Burakovsky) will do the same. But keeping Ovechkin, Backstrom, Green, Laich, and more recently Carlson and Alzner together indicates that he will never hit the panic button and do something to harm the team's long-term fortunes. McPhee's one historic weakness may have been to solidify the goalie position, as the post-Olaf Kolzig era has seen its share of hits and misses. But with Holtby now solidly in control of the starter's job, the whole roster may have the stability needed for a deep playoff run.

We'll get to the coaches and the players after the jump...

Civilization V: Gods & Kings - Rome

In a previous post, I commented that I got bored with Civilization V rather quickly. I found the replay value to be lacking because it seemed like there just wasn't enough to do. You build, you go to war, and most of the time you win. At the higher difficulty levels, there just weren't enough ways to get around the advantages the of the computer-controlled players. But with the Gods & Kings expansion, it added not only a new religion mechanic, but added more of everything to make gameplay more varied. In the past few months, I've been playing it a lot, and the "one more turn" addiction has taken hold of me once more. I want to experience as much of the game as possibly before buying the brand new expansion, Brave New World, which changes culture entirely and adds a new tourism mechanic.

With that in mind, I'm going to be recapping some recent games I've played. I hope you enjoy them, I know I did.


ROME - AUGUSTUS CAESAR

Unique Ability: The Glory of Rome (+25% Production towards any buildings that already exist in the Capital)

Unique Unit: Ballista (+1 Combat Strength and +2 Ranged Combat Strength over Catapult, which it replaces)

Unique Unit: Legion (ability to build roads and forts, +3 Combat Strength over Swordsman, which it replaces)

Map Size: Standard (8 civilizations, 16 city-states)
Map Type: Continents
Difficulty: King (5)
Pace: Standard

The Romans are pretty great for an "infinite city sprawl" (ICS) strategy since any building that exists in Rome is built much faster in every other city in your civilization. In other words, you can build tall and wide with Rome. The problem becomes managing your gold and happiness, as lacking in either will give the computer players a big advantage, especially on King difficulty. My strategy is to build tall at first, then go wide when I can afford happiness and science buildings. A domination victory is difficult because you need science to research new units, gold to keep them upgraded, and happiness to offset the penalty of conquering cities. If anyone can do it, it's Caesar. (Well, him and Napoleon, but I don't like the French.)

I didn't take screenshots during the actual game, but I will try to tell the story of my victory through the replay maps.

 

Turn 1: I found Rome, one turn later than everyone else founded their capital, in the northwestern part of the eastern continent. To my east the Netherlands are light orange and white, to the south the Incas are gold and green, and finally on the extreme other end of the continent the English are burgundy and white. The western continent has the Polynesians in orange and white, the Spanish in dark red and pink, the Egyptians in yellow and purple, and the Austrians in red and white. All of the black territories are city-states. This is a good starting location because I have a nice buffer between Rome and London. Queen Elizabeth I can be very aggressive with expansion and military strength, so I wouldn't want to go to war with her until adequately prepared.

Of course, I don't know any of this. All I know is that Rome got lucky by starting on a hill next to a river, with wine and marble nearby. Marble is especially nice since it provides the same happiness as other luxuries in addition to speeding up wonder construction.

More after the jump...

Review: Final Fantasy XII

After my review of Final Fantasy XIII-2, I theorized that it wouldn't be long before we saw another direct sequel. Turns out I was right. But since that experience left me battered and bruised emotionally, I decided rather than wait for the (hopefully) final installment of the saga of the Farron sisters, I would go through older Final Fantasy titles in order to remind myself of why I enjoy them so much in the first place. My recent reviews of The Legend of Zelda franchise have moved forward down the official Zelda timeline. In the Final Fantasy series, however, the settings are completely separate worlds with no chronological order, giving me no clear direction with which to work. But I figured it would just be easiest to go in reverse order of the release of the major installments. Plus, if I went down that road, the next game up contained that one superboss I could never get to... Therefore, I hooked up my old PlayStation 2 slimline and returned to the world of Ivalice and Final Fantasy XII.

Oh, yeah! It's my old friends, Swashbuckler and Bunnytits!

In the six years and change since I bought XII on the day it was released (I even shelled out the extra dough for the Collector's Edition!) I had yet to visit the final dungeon. It seems strange that I never finished a game that I enjoyed playing, even if it wasn't my favorite title in the series. It's just that the dungeon right before the end is about one hundred floors, and the game's real challenges stem from defeating optional bosses and acquiring rare items which have nothing to do with the main storyline. Speaking of, this is also the point in the story when things start to go a little batshit insane, although I do have to give the developers credit for not tacking on some needless trip to outer space (spoiler alert!) or something equally stupid. But in the interest of completion, I finally beat the last boss, watched the end credits, and now I can safely say that I wish I had never gone back to this game.

I should have left you under the TV stand, covered in dust. :-(

More after the jump...

Florida Panthers at Washington Capitals: 9 February 2013

Last year, my friend asked me to go with him to see Florida and Washington square off at the Verizon Center, where I enjoyed braided pretzels and a dominating Capitals win. Exactly 368 days later, that same friend couldn't use his tickets and offered them both to me and my fiancée, in exchange for two signed pucks being offered at a team charity event. So we got there early, got in line for the pucks, and while we weren't lucky enough to get one of the five blank pucks to be signed by Nicklas Backstrom after the game, we did get four very good ones.

Left to right: Marcus Johansson, Joel Ward, Eric Fehr, Mike Green. Awesome.

Mike Green was an especially good get for me, since my friend already had one of his from the last charity event, and he's been one of my favorite Caps for years. My friend called dibs on Ward and Fehr, so now I'm really hoping MoJo doesn't get traded any time soon.

As for the game, I was less than optimistic. Sure, the Caps have owned the Cats at home in recent memory. But Washington opened the season 2-8-1, one of their worst starts in franchise history. In fact I had just written a lengthy rant on my favorite online forum BlueGartr on what was wrong with the Caps. Not only that, they were coming off an embarrassing loss to Pittsburgh where they played one of the worst periods I've ever seen. The only consolation I had was that Florida was playing almost as bad.

The game started in fine fashion, with Brouwer scoring a goal with his leg or maybe his ass (replays were inconclusive!) off a blast from Carlson, and the Caps took a 1-0 lead into the first intermission. But I've seen that song and dance before, and Washington has been dreadful in second periods. Thankfully, they finally decided to put for effort for the full sixty minutes. The Caps got two goals in each of the final two periods while Braden Holtby stopped all 27 Florida shots to seal the win. A lot of encouraging things happened -- Ovechkin finally scored an even strength goal, Holtby looked calm and confident in net and even scored a primary assist on Brouwer's power play goal with a beautiful up-ice pass, and the Fehr-Perreault-Ward line was creating chances all night and picked up two goals combined.

In the post-game interview Smokin' Al Koken asked Holtby if this game was a turning point. He said it only is if they can continue to play solid hockey. Truer words... I'm still not buying the 2012-13 incarnation of the Capitals as a playoff team. But for one night in February, it felt like the Caps and the Verizon Center of old.

Turns Out This Was My Fantasy

I'm sure you all remember this post about how I evaluated my draft class at the start of the fantasy baseball season. A few things:

• Michael Young was God-awful
• I dumped Adam Dunn before he could destroy my batting average single-handed
• I accidentally dropped Brian McCann and had to go with a patchwork of Jarrod Saltalamacchia, Wilin Rosario, Jesus Montero, Salvador Perez, Russell Martin, and Yasmani Grandal at catcher
• I haven't had an effective Cub on my team since Sammy Sosa's 2003 campaign

Well, you will be happy to learn that I overcame my blunders and won this highly competitive league, ensuring me the top prize of $350 and more importantly my name and team, "Horatio Caine," engraved on our trophy (yes, we got it before The League was a thing and physical trophies started popping up everywhere). The standings were close all through September and October, with the top three teams each having a legitimate chance at winning it all.

"Whorin' n Storen" had a juggernaut. His four corner infielders were Miguel Cabrera, Prince Fielder, Chase Headley, and Edwin Encarnacion (out of FRIGGIN' NOWHERE) to complement Adam Jones and Mike Trout (whom he drafted, props are due for that move) in the outfield, which adds up to the best offensive club on paper by far. His staff was dominant as well, milking Stephen Strasburg for all he was worth, and carrying Cole Hamels, Chris Sale, Chris Capuano, and trading for Felix Hernandez. What he lacked, however, was attention to detail. He tinkered with his lineup far less regularly than the other top teams, and finished 112.1 pitching innings under the cap. That's a lot of room to make up when it comes to counting stats, and he just couldn't overcome the mediocre point totals for wins, saves, and strikeouts.

My other main competition this season was "The Immaculates," possibly the creepiest fantasy sports team name ever. The owner, who will be the best man at my wedding in four months, has dominated both our football and baseball leagues over the years. He didn't have the firepower that "Whorin'" or I had, but he massaged his roster into the best it could be. During the 199 roster moves he made this year, I think only Matt Kemp and David Wright survived the entire season. My hats off to him for unreal levels of want. His moves on the final three days of the season were a thing of beauty, as he needed to balance grasping at wins with keeping his WHIP intact, as well as hitting for average, stealing bases, and driving in runs. His superfecta almost hit, as a mere three RBI more would have resulted in a shared title. I was nervous until the standings were finalized the morning of October 4th.

After my victory, most of my friends congratulated me, of course. But I could tell most of them were choking back their own resentment. One said to me just last week, "So what's going on with baseball?" He will not be receiving an invitation come spring. But one of my good friends seemed genuinely happy for me, and asked me a question I had not considered -- "Who is your MVP?" I honestly did not know.

Through trades and injuries, I didn't have anyone really excel for the whole season. Before Yahoo! archived the season and the team log was lost to the annals of time, I captured some of the stat lines from my active roster I felt directly contributed to my victory:

Hitters
Name	POS	GP	R	HR	RBI	SB	AVG
Jason Kipnis	2B	149	84	14	76	31	.257
Ryan Zimmerman	3B	145	93	25	95	5	.282
Joey Votto	1B	111	59	14	56	5	.337
Giancarlo Stanton	OF	107	69	37	81	6	.293
Adam Dunn	1B/OF	94	60	30	71	1	.211
Adrian Gonzalez	1B/OF	89	41	13	71	2	.329
Allen Craig	1B/2B/OF	58	33	7	41	1	.325
Bryce Harper	OF	53	34	7	20	11	.270
Todd Frazier	1B/3B	40	23	7	27	2	.301
Marco Scutaro	2B/SS/3B	20	14	2	13	0	.375

For some reason I didn't include Carlos Beltran's monster two months on my team, and his totals are now lost to the annals of time (THANKS YAHOO!). I include Scutaro because at the end of the season, when Emilio Bonifacio went down with yet another injury, I was able to snap up Scutaro and keep pace in batting average.

Pitchers
Name	IP	W	SV	K	ERA	WHIP
Jered Weaver	188.2	20	0	142	2.82	1.02
Justin Verlander	148.2	11	0	142	2.42	0.92
Brandon Morrow	117	9	0	105	2.69	1.06
Max Scherzer	99.1	9	0	120	2.81	1.06
Rafael Soriano	51.2	0	40	54	2.09	1.05
Tom Wilhelmsen	51.1	3	29	50	1.23	0.92
Brett Myers	35.1	0	19	25	3.06	1.27
Hisashi Iwakuma	28.1	3	0	25	1.59	1.20
Alex Cobb	23	3	0	20	0.78	0.70

Myers was important as an SP-eligible closer for the first half of the season. Iwakuma and Cobb were late-season spot starters who worked out beautifully.

Interesting numbers, to be sure. All of the major contributors have their faults, however. Votto's counting stats where lacking, even when he was healthy. Kipnis kept me alive in steals and plugged a huge hole at second, but that batting average is troubling. Stanton and Morrow couldn't stay on the field. Weaver's strikeout totals weren't what I expected. Verlander had a rough stretch with wins before I traded him. The closers are, well, closers. So the question remains, who is the MVP?

Time to dig deeper. Maybe someone I acquired down the stretch provided that boost I needed to win the league. Let's break down my trade history:

• Preseason: J.J. Hardy for Cameron Maybin. Meh.
• Preseason: Nick Swisher for Emilio Bonifacio. I needed speed, and a shortstop after the Hardy trade, so getting Boni was great for my team makeup. Unfortunately he missed two long stretches, during which Kipnis was basically my only consistent stolen base threat.
• Preseason: Neil Walker / J.J. Putz for Jason Kipnis / Frank Francisco. I've already detailed how great Kipnis was, and he only cost me Walker and a closer flop. Me gusta.
• 25 April: Colby Rasmus / Adam Wainwright for Giancarlo Stanton. Wainwight ended up having a good year. I thought he might break down, which is why I dealt him, but his July and August were sparkling. Based on Stanton's spotty health, this was probably a wash.
• 23 May: Frank Francisco for Bryce Harper. I acquired Bryce for his talent, plus as a bonus I got to see him play live here in DC. After he arrived on the scene, I parlayed him into a bigger trade. Outright thievery on my part.
• 22 June: Carlos Beltran / Jordan Zimmermann for Adrian Gonzalez / Max Scherzer. I absolutely loved this trade at the time. Beltran was playing way over his head, and I thought Zimmermann might fatigue (as I did with Wainwright, notice a trend?). Both of them had two bad months out of the final three. Meanwhile, Mad Max became my staff ace, while A-Gon racked up the RBI. Woot.
• 26 July: Adam Dunn for Edwin Jackson. Something for nothing, since I considered dropping Dunn at the time. A home run every three games is nice, but that batting average...
• 26 July: Justin Verlander / Bryce Harper for Mark Teixeira / Carlos Gonzalez. I was overloaded with pitching, so losing Verlander wasn't that bad. Or so I thought. CarGo was good when he played, but never at the MVP-caliber level I was paying for. Stick a fork in Tex, I think he's cooked. Looking back, I think it was my worst trade.
• 30 July: Martin Prado / Michael Young / Kevin Youkilis for Allen Craig / Todd Frazier. My last and probably trickiest trade of the season. People love name recognition, and all three guys I dealt have some degree of it. But Prado was hitting for almost no power, Young was terrible, and I picked Youk up off waivers after he landed with the White Sox. In trying to parlay that group into something useful, I recognized the amount of plate appearances Craig and Frazier were getting due to injuries to Lance Berkman and Votto, respectively. Craig also had eligibility at 2B and filled the hole I had at MI after four months of Young. Both Craig and Frazier were plus players in four categories for much of the final two months, and having Craig at MI and a Frazier/Votto tandem at 1B was a huge boost to my offense.

In my estimation, two trades netting four players -- Adrian Gonzalez, Max Scherzer, Allen Craig, and Todd Frazier -- made the difference between winning and losing. So do I pick four co-MVPs?

Thinking back on the season, with it's six month-long grind, there was only one constant. It was my undying devotion to the sport. From March to October, I looked at my team's page literally every day, through birthdays, anniversaries, vacations, weddings, sick days, busy work days, days when all I wanted to do was sit on the couch playing NHL 12... you get the idea. So there is only one conclusion I can draw from my championship season.

I am the MVP.

Dat face...

The play:

The close-up:

THE FACE:

(Thanks to CJ Fogler)

Review: The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap

After finishing Final Fantasy XIII-2, I didn't play any new video games for a while. First of all, my spirit was crushed by the weight of Square Enix's complete and utter failure. Also, the weather was finally nice enough to actually go out-of-doors with regularity. I did pick up Civilization V, which I enjoyed quite a bit but found the replay value surprisingly lacking. I even went back to an old stalwart, Heroes of Might and Magic III, which I'm happy to report I still play every so often. But eventually I decided on continuing down the Zelda timeline and playing through my first handheld game in years, The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap. It only took me a couple of weeks to explore everything, even with working full-time and five fantasy football drafts to plan for, but no one expects massive amounts of content from an eight-year-old handheld game. What I did expect was vintage Zelda gameplay in bite-size form, and in that, The Minish Cap delivers with aplomb.

Consistently crisp and refreshing, the Zelda franchise satisfies. No, it's not a beer or a candy bar.

I loved the look and feel of The Minish Cap almost immediately. It reeks of an updated Link's Awakening (which I played and replayed religiously as a kid) and the plot continues the threads from Skyward Sword. This was my first experience with game developer Flagship, a subsidiary of Capcom who also worked on Four Swords and the two Oracle games. Their expertise in handheld gaming is evident, as the nuts and bolts of The Minish Cap all feel right. The scale and graphics are wonderful, the controls feel natural, and the dungeons and tasks are short enough that the player won't run out of battery life just before a boss fight. Keeping things short and sweet on a handheld platform is essential, and director Hidemaro Fujibayashi and his team accomplish that goal extremely well.

As mentioned above, The Minish Cap begins with a nod to the world of Skyward Sword. The introduction tells of darkness descending on the land of Hyrule long ago, when a race of very small creatures called the Picori came from the skies (possibly alluding to Skyloft) to bestow a sword and a golden light on a young hero. The hero banished the darkness, locking the evil beings in a bound chest, and the Picori Blade was enshrined by the people of Hyrule. Every year since, they remember the gifts of the Picori in an annual festival. Seems like a standard backstory, but there are two things I appreciate. First, it hints at an untold story of a former Link, one whose adventures would take place between Skyward Sword and The Minish Cap. As the Zelda franchise has grown and changed over the years, Nintendo has done a nice job of tying together themes and stories, and I wouldn't be surprised to see a future Zelda title cover the Picori's initial trip to Hyrule and the hero they encountered. Second, it tells the story of a legendary sword other than the Master Sword, which as we eventually learn in other games, is tucked away in the Sealed Grounds. Instead, the Picori Blade is Link's weapon of choice, and The Minish Cap details how it eventually becomes the Four Sword. It's a fun little story, perfect for both the setting and the handheld console.

I always love way-epic stained glass windows.

More after the jump...

Ben Kweller at 9:30 Club: 19 October 2012

In March of 2011, in an effort to get my then-girlfriend (and now-fiancée) Laura interested in some of my music, I bought two tickets to see Pete Yorn play 9:30 Club here in DC. I figured she, being from North Carolina and with an affinity for country and folk music, would really like some of Yorn's stuff. The good news is she really enjoyed the show. The bad news is she was lukewarm on Yorn, and instead fell in love with his opening act, Ben Kweller. In her defense, Yorn was a bit lethargic that night, while Kweller cranked his furious energy and Texas twang up to eleven. I must confess I didn't know much about Kweller that night. But after the show was over and we made our customary stop at the merch table, we both came home and iTunesed (is that a verb?) most of Kweller's discography, and I'm happy to say any lingering disappointment I had when she didn't like Pete's performance was swept away almost immediately.

Flash forward to this summer, when during one of my customary checks of tour dates I discovered that Kweller was returning to 9:30, only this time he would be the headliner. Needless to say I bought tickets right then and there. As the concert date approached, our enthusiasm swelled, and by the time we were at the venue listening to Lissy Rosemont of the Junior League Band finish up, it was uncontrollable.

Now, earlier in the week, I read this on Twitter:

FRIDAY: I'm performing @930club in DC! me, you, piano, guitar. Taking requests! I can't wait! Get your tix here: ticketfly.com/purchase/event…
— Ben Kweller (@benkweller) October 15, 2012

I figured the "me, you, piano, guitar" portion was only referencing that he is both a skilled pianist and guitarist. But the show was literally just that -- he performed alone (save for a brief guest spot from Lissy Rosemont) and there were only two guitars and one piano at his disposal.

But no one cared. Kweller, as he did last year, oozed energy and confidence throughout the show. He opened with a track off his latest album Go Fly a Kite called "Mean to Me," which he restarted twice due to some problems with his effects pedals. But even that couldn't slow him down, and he tore through his early set with some wicked guitar licks and enthusiastic vocals. At 31 years old, Kweller still has the baby face of an idealistic young musician from a small Southern town. On stage that night, he even looked like a teenager, complete with sleeveless denim jacket, ripped jeans, and a mullet-like mop-top brimming with wavy curls. One gets the sense that he hasn't changed much from his early days in Texas -- he's still the rock and roll outsider expressing himself through infectious hooks and thoughtful ballads. Only now he has found his audience.

Kweller kept it going with some of his more well-known songs from his first major record, Sha Sha. "Wasted & Ready" and "Falling" were particularly good, as he hopped between piano and guitar seamlessly. But at some point in the middle of his set, he moved on to a combination of lesser known tracks and requests shouted from the audience. I guess that's the advantage to his one-man format -- Kweller was able to completely change his set mid-concert, stop songs on a dime, and generally do whatever the fuck he wanted. This was never more evident than during a track from his self-titled third album, "Until I Die":



Kweller invited any audience member with a set of keys to come up on stage and mimic the jingle bells, cymbals, and triangles from the studio version. It wasn't the greatest auditory product in the world, but everyone involved seemed really pumped to be a part of it, including Kweller himself.

The show marched on at a furious pace. In fact, I remember very little of the setlist order because I was having such a good time. I do remember songs in bunches. "Sundress" and "In Other Words" showcased Kweller's piano and vocal chops. "Jealous Girl," another song off his new record, was heartfelt and seems just a little bit autobiographical, which is also true for "Commerce, TX." He gave a shout out to Evan Dando with his cover of "My Drug Buddy." "Hospital Bed" got the crowd singing along towards the end of the show, and by the time Lissy Rosemont joined him for "Fight," I only wanted to hear one more song. He delivered, and closed his finale with "Penny on the Train Track," although for a song that is such a tour de force, only having one performer sapped the energy just a bit. But I can't complain. The show was awesome, and I'm already lobbying hard for Kweller to come back to 9:30 on his next East Coast swing.

The Afghan Whigs at 9:30 Club: 28 September 2012

It's hard to describe exactly what genre of music Greg Dulli makes. In fact, the Afghan Whigs remind me of Led Zeppelin in that regard. Sure, at their core they both made rock music. But the product is so much more. While Zep's sound was heavy on jazz and folk influences, the Afghan Whigs are very much soul and lounge music, and I mean that in the best possible way. It's a brand of rock that is sensual, highly literate, and equally effective at any volume. So I wasn't quite sure what to expect when seeing them for the first time in the small but usually raucous 9:30 Club. Would they pull it back in a live setting, and really connect with the audience? Or would they crank it up to eleven? The answer was a little bit of both.

First of all, the show was the first time in my roughly two-dozen trips to 9:30 that I completely missed the opening act. My fiancée Laura was working late that night, and I wanted to wait for her so we could grab dinner together. Once we polished off CalTort and I got caught up watching way too much of Mississippi Burning, Laura was nice enough to drop me off at the venue. I don't think I missed much though, as I clicked through some of School of Seven Bells' songs on iTunes and wasn't terribly impressed. Anyway, by the time I arrived and had a cold Amstel in hand, the house lights were already dimming.

Greg Dulli is a force of nature. Despite any criticisms I have for the show, above all else I'm glad I was able to witness him perform live. He could have been playing Death Cab or Pomplamoose songs and he would own them, rock them in the best possible way, and the crowd would have loved it. But he began the night with his own stuff (we'll get to the covers later), the classic "Crime Scene Part One," and rightly so. It was great, and it was loud. I mean, really, really, really fucking loud. Maybe I'm just getting too old, but it was the first concert at which I considered stealing someone's earplugs. The Whigs kept the volume up though, churning through some of my old favorites, especially "Uptown Again" and "What Jail is Like." "Jail" in particular was moving, and at this point Dulli and his band were dripping with sweat, feeding off of the energy of the crowd.

But as all great performers do, they took it down a notch, accomplishing this by mixing some of their original songs with snippets of covers. The highlight of this section was "See and Don't See," an obscure soul track by Marie "Queenie" Lyons that the Whigs covered in studio and is available for free download. I can't say I've heard the original, but they've really made it their own, and once again the crowd loved it. Unfortunately, this is where the show lost me. As they ramped the energy back up, I was hoping for a heavy dose of songs from 1965 to close the show. Unfortunately I only got one, "Citi Soleil," as they chose to stick with their earlier work. Near the end of the set, Dulli discussed his feelings on the modern state of the encore with the crowd. "Encore is a word whose French origins come from motherfuckers going crazy. Currently, encore seems to mean, 'They are coming back.' Well, we ain't coming back unless it's the motherfucking French version of encore which is, 'We played our asses off,'" he said. So as they departed the stage and the lights remained low, the crowd went pretty bonkers. (But we all knew they were coming back.)

And come back they did. Now, at this point, I was there for one reason and one reason only -- to hear "Omerta / The Vampire Lanois." I was following set lists of recent shows, and the Whigs had a decent record of closing their encores with those two songs. But once again, they whiffed (in my opinion), opting for three songs off Black Love mixed in with a few Prince covers. It was still enjoyable, all things considered, but I couldn't help but feel disappointed I missed out on hearing my top four or five favorite Afghan Whigs songs. After the encore concluded, I stood there with a handful of others, clapping and shouting away, hoping they would come back for a second encore. No dice.

Finally, I am sad to say that my brother-in-law Matthew, who is the biggest Afghan Whigs fan I know and had a ticket to the show, was unable to make it down from Manhattan. I know he hated missing it. But the good news is his brother Max was able to come, along with his lovely wife Erin. It was great to hang out with them both, if only for a short while after the show, and I hope to see them again soon.

Washington Capitals 2012 Off-season

A 7-0-0 start. A 3-7-1 skid. A head coach fired. A legend brought in to replace him. Mediocrity. A team on the brink of missing the playoffs with under a week left in the season. A career-low point total for a superstar. The seventh seed. Two injured goaltenders. A first round upset of the defending Stanley Cup champions. A rookie takes the league by storm. Another second round exit.

It was an up-and-down season for the Washington Capitals. But as with all sports teams who don't get a parade, there's always next season. I'll take my best shot at sizing up the Caps roster, depth, strengths, and weakness for the eventual 2012-13 season. The key word here being "eventual," as NHL commissioner and woodland imp Gary Bettman has allowed the collective bargaining agreement between the player's association and the owners to expire for the third time in his nineteen-year career. Thanks a boatload, G-Betts.

DO NOT WANT.

[Note: Before reading my little piece of the internet, please read the analysis and opinions of those much more knowledgeable on these subjects than I am, notably Japers' Rink and Russian Machine Never Breaks, statistics from Hockeydb.com and Hockey-Reference.com, and salary info from CapGeek. Many photos taken by Chris Gordon of RMNB.]

-- Coaching --

Dale Hunter was hired as head coach two months into last season. The idea was that a former Caps great would command respect in the locker room, and his defensive system would help Washington win close games, especially in the playoffs. Hunter succeeded in helping the Caps defensively -- they gave up 3.32 goals per game under Bruce Boudreau, and only 2.62 goals per game under Hunter in the regular season. Add in 2.14 goals per game allowed in the playoffs, and it's clear the players bought into his system in their own end. But they also struggled to score goals -- Hunter's Caps scored 2.53 goals per game in the regular season and a measly 2.07 goals per game in the playoffs. This was a recipe for close games, where every contest could be won or lost in a single shift, and every goal scored or defensive breakdown was magnified and scrutinized. While not exactly ideal for my blood pressure, it did enable the Caps to beat a better, more consistent team in Boston. And although their luck ran out in New York, it's hard to blame Dale for trying to do it his way.

Hunter may be gone, but his animated .gifs live on forever.

General manager George McPhee promised that he would take his time during the search for a new head coach, and in truth six weeks went by without anyone in place behind the bench. Earlier, I cautioned against hiring a former legend, as history has shown little correlation between a great playing career and coaching a team to a Stanley Cup. But McPhee decided otherwise, and on June 28th he hired Adam Oates to take Hunter's place. Coincidentally, on that same day, Oates was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame for his storied playing career. Oates has some numbers that speak for themselves; 341 goals and 1,079 assists in 1,337 games, along with 42 goals and 114 assists in 163 playoff games, and five All-Star Game appearances. He is sixth all-time in assists. But what he doesn't have is a Stanley Cup, and he must believe Washington is a good place to begin his head coaching career in search of one. He spent the last three seasons as an NHL assistant, first in Tampa Bay and then New Jersey, where he just helped guide the Devils to the Stanley Cup Finals.

Oates has several things in common with Dale; both were centers, both were Capitals captains, both have long, impressive careers, and both looked like famous actors (Oates was a dead ringer for Ray Liotta, and Hunter kind of looks like a cross between Robin Williams and Patrick Swayze). But Oates is an improvement over Hunter in several aspects. First, he most certainly has a more creative offensive mind, and is given credit by the Devils faithful for running their power play and getting star forwards Ilya Kovalcuk and Zach Parise on track amid three head coaches in two years. Also, Oates is a superior communicator, already much more engaging to the DC press than Hunter ever was. How that will translate to the locker room is anyone's guess. Hunter certainly won over the room and was respected as "one of the guys." But in that regard, I'm guessing Oates will do just fine.

"For most, being inducted into the Hall of Fame and getting their first head coaching gig is the most important day of their life. For me... it was Thursday."

Also leaving the team are both of last season's assistants, Dean Evason and Jim Johnson. Evason, the lone holdover from the Boudreau era and the man who encouraged the Caps to "grab [their] fucking sack and fucking compete" in 24/7, was hired by the Nashville organization to be the head coach for their AHL affiliate, the Milwaukee Admirals. It's his first head coaching gig since the 2003-04 season, when he was the bench boss for the WHL's Vancouver Giants, and a great opportunity for Evason. Johnson is changing coasts and will be an assistant to Todd McLellan in San Jose. Along with Larry Robinson, that's quite a formidable coaching staff for the Sharks.

To replace them, McPhee and Oates brought in two familiar faces to the Caps organization. The first is Calle Johansson, the former blueliner who spent fourteen-plus years in Washington and holds the record for most games played in a Caps sweater at 983. Known for his solid two-way game, he played parts of six seasons with Oates, and has one year of coaching experience in his native Sweden. Calle Jo should shoulder much of the defensive responsibilities for the coaching staff next season.

Rocking the red before it was a marketing ploy.

The other assistant coach will be Tim Hunter, who was an assistant to Ron Wilson during Oates and Johansson's playing days. In fact, this will be (the new) Hunter's first NHL coaching job without Wilson also behind the bench. Hunter was known as a rough customer during his playing days, as he twice led the league in penalty minutes and finished his career with 3,146 PIMs in 815 games. His role will likely be to bring toughness, grit, and accountability to the forward ranks, letting Oates handle the offensive playmaking side of things.

Dat nose.

We'll get to the guys actually on the ice after the jump...