I know others think they beat me to the punch on using “Hatty for Matty,” but I’ve wanted to use that as a title since Mathieu Perreault scored his first NHL goal against the Florida Panthers in november 2009 (one of my favorite photos) and I almost immediately thought, “Wouldn’t it be great to see this guy score a hat trick? A hatty for Matty? Aw, man, that’s lame, but I gotta use that some day, if he ever comes through with a hat trick.” So with respect to Mike Vogel (the first public use of “Hatty For Matty” I can find, but I suck at the Twitters, so maybe someone else got it in first), I gotta go with what I gotta go with.”

Pretty cool game. Nice to see the Washington Capitals rally without Alex Ovechkin in the lineup and play some dominating hockey against the defending Stanley Cup winners and generally dominating team, the Boston Bruins, at times. Of course, that use makes it even more frustrating when we spend so much time watching them fumble on getting the puck out of their end for super long stretches. A win is a win is a win, so no real complaints.  That’s about the limit of my insight that I’m willing to try and share. I’d just embarrass myself compared to Japer’s Rink, Russian Machine, Ed Frankovic, and On Frozen Blog (who, by the way, featured one of my favorite photos of this season in a great post about statistics the other day and I missed it being busy with real life). And some pics and more at Capitals Outsider (but strangely missing their Young Guns II poster).

So, my photos are below and on flickr.