By: Jim Williams
The Washington Capitals dropped game one of their Stanley Cup Playoffs to the Blue Shirts from New York. Now today on NBC at 1PM they will be Rocking the Red as a sold out crowd will fill up the Verizon Center in Washington for what promises to be a wild game 2.
The NHL on NBC is in Chinatown for today’s HUGE Caps-Rangers telecast and there is no love lost between these two teams.
The Rangers were able to score 4 goals on just 21 shots in game one against the Caps and that means the pressure Caps net minder José Théodore. But will coach Bruce Boudreau make a change in goal? “You’ll see [the starter] in the warm-up,” said Boudreau on Friday.
We could see 21 year old Russian sensation Simeon Varlamov who has played in just six games. You can bet that will be something the NBC boys will talk about before the game.
Mike “Doc” Emrick (play-by-play), Eddie Olczyk (analyst) and Pierre McGuire (inside-the-glass analyst) call the action (Darren Pang will fill in for McGuire in Washington). McGuire and Pang will pull double duty, hosting NBC’s studio show alongside analyst Mike Milbury live from the Verizon Center.
Earlier this week they spoke about this series.
McGuire on the Rangers: “”John Tortorella has gone into New York and just doing a spectacular coaching job, getting those guys to go from a passive team to a very aggressive team, along with the reemergence of Sean Avery as an important player and a controlled player for the New York Rangers.”
McGuire had plenty to say about the Caps Alex Ovechkin: “”He can do it by himself. A lot of guys need other players around him. He can make himself great and make this team win because he is so overwhelmingly dominant because of the physical nature of his game. He’s the best player in the world. He’s virtually indestructible. I would call him a ‘cyborg.'”
NBC continues their NHL coverage on Sunday with game three of the Pens-Flyers series with game time at 3PM. The same crew will make the short trip from DC over to Pittsburgh.
CSN will have plenty of postgame coverage from Chinatown after what we hope will be a big Caps win. So after the NBC broadcast turn over to CSN for the gang.
The Quest for the Cup continues tonight with Columbus at Detroit at 6PM on the NHL Network then later this evening a real old school battle takes place on Versus when Boston hosts Montreal and it would be an understatement to say that these two teams do not like each other. Game time will be at 8PM. There will be plenty of cut in’s on the Flames-Blackhawks game. That game will only be seen locally on Comcast-HD in Chicago.
Sunday as we know the Flyers-Pens will be on NBC with Versus doing a double header of the Blues hosting Vancouver at 7PM then at 10PM it will be game 2 of the San Jose – Anaheim.
Sunday’s Carolina – New Jersey game will be seen locally on MSG-PLUS and Fox Sports – Carolina. Game time is 7:30PM.
Here is a question for the NHL… How come all the Stanley Cup games are broadcast live in Canada but not in the United States on a national basis? Seems like a good chance to use and promote your own NHL TV. Just a thought.
