Even though it was Dale Hunter’s debut as the new coach of the Washington Capitals, all I could think about on the way home was the blinding visibility of Alex Ovechkin’s frustration standing in stark contrast to the chants of “OH-vie! OH-vie!” we heard for the first time this season just last week.

On Frozen Blog posed the question late last night “has Hunter solved the Ovi/breakaway frustration?” Despite a first period assist we got to see him spin around killing the air with his stick at the end of one shift where he couldn’t make anything happen. A little more than five minutes into the third period he ended another shift skating back to the bench screaming an obscenity loud enough to be clearly heard in the 200 level on the south side of the Verizon Center. Then, just in case we couldn’t hear it the first time, he yelled it again. That seems more Great Frustrate than Great 8 to me.

Hopefully, things turn around soon. As a ticket buying fan, I miss the fun. A lot. Of course, pretty much everything gets forgiven if we’re still going to games in June. In the words of Joe Strummer, “On the road to rock ‘n’ roll, there’s a lot of wreakage [sic] in the ravine.”

You all know where to go to read about all the game, what went right and what didn’t. On Frozen Blog, Japer’s Rink, Russian Machine, Ed Frankovic, District Sports Page, and so on. My photos are below and on flickr.