FanHouse Bruce Boudreau

UNIONDALE, NY -- What does a Stanley Cup contender do when nothing is working, their feisty underdog of an opponent is giving them fits and they're down 2-0 with 15 minutes left in the game? To hear the Washington Capitals tell it after coming back to beat the New York Islanders 3-2 on Saturday night, a few things.

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UNIONDALE, NY -- Washington Capitals coach Bruce Boudreau came to the defense of Alex Ovechkin on Saturday morning, after the superstar forward was fined $1,000 for his alleged "slew-foot" of Atlanta's Rich Peverley on Thursday.

At 6:30 this morning, Tony Romo, inexplicably at Tiger Woods' invitation, joined the world's best player in the AT&T National pro-am at Congressional Country Club, some 20 miles west of FedEx Field, home of the Washington Redskins.

On Tuesday, Tiger said that, "...It's just going to be a fun round," before adding, "...but also an interesting one. Granted, he's used to getting booed, and it is what it is. It comes with being, I guess team sport, away from home."

And University of Maryland basketball coach Gary Williams did his part to make sure that's exactly what happened.

WASHINGTON -- When Capitals owner Ted Leonsis learned that Game 5 of his team's second-round Stanley Cup playoff series against Pittsburgh would have to be played 24 hours after Game 4 in Pittsburgh because of a Yanni concert scheduled at the Penguins' arena, he complained that the back-to-back games were bad for the league, bad for the teams and bad for the fans.

Personally, I was more concerned to learn that there were enough fans of the Greek crooner to fill a major sports arena. But I digress. Leonsis was right. Yanni shouldn't have been allowed to have any influence on one of our major sport's postseasons, any more than he does on music in this country.

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Just a few minutes ago as he sat at a podium following his team's 4-3 overtime loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins, it was obvious that Washington Capitals head coach Bruce Boudreau was more angry than heartbroken.

Who could blame him? Washington, a team that got two goals from the best player in the world, Alex Ovechkin, had played its most complete game of the series, yet still couldn't find a way to win.

In the end, this game turned on two sequences on either end of the ice in the overtime period. The first came early in the period when Washington center Dave Steckel, one of his team's more consistent performers, couldn't put the puck into an open net early. The second came just a few minutes later, as an Evgeni Malkin pass intended for Sidney Crosby deflected off the stick of sprawling Capitals defenseman Tom Poti and through the legs of a stunned Simeon Varlamov.

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It's probably a matter of perspective when discussing Alex Ovechkin's hit on Sergei Gonchar during Pittsburgh's 5-3 win on Friday night. The hit, which resulted in Gonchar leaving the game with an undisclosed injury, appeared as if it were a knee-on-knee hit, while the Capitals' superstar was issued a two-minute minor for tripping.

Penguins head coach Dan Bylsma would not offer any information regarding the severity of Gonchar's injury, but the tone of his voice and his facial expressions weren't exactly promising if you're the Penguins.

As was first reported by Dan Steinberg at DC Sports Bog last night, both the CBC and Versus aired some video footage last night during the pre-game show before Game 3 of the Caps-Penguins series that featured a shot of a dry erase board listing the team's "keys to victory." While nothing earth-shattering was revealed -- "Don't let Crosby/Malkin have any room," is hardly a state secret -- that didn't stop Washington head coach Bruce Boudreau and general manager George McPhee from expressing their displeasure to the press Thursday while announcing they won't be allowing any locker room access to camera crews before Game 4.

Wednesday night was great theater for NHL fans. In Pittsburgh, the Penguins kept hope alive with a stirring 3-2 overtime win over Washington. Shortly after that game ended, the Carolina Hurricanes needed less than three minutes of overtime to finish off Boston, 3-2.

The Penguins' huge win was not without at least some controversy. The Capitals were fuming afterward about a 7-2 disparity in power plays that worked in Pittsburgh's favor.

It's the series everybody is talking about, as Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin prepare to hit the ice in a one-on-one, steel cage battle for NHL supremacy. Wait. What's that? There's actually other players involved in this series? We take a look at the series after the jump.

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WASHINGTON – It became custom sometime ago that the hero in a victorious Capitals locker room received a shower of shaving cream from his happy teammates.