Now, when we last met, the Caps had a four-game week ahead of them, with divisional standings at stake. Let’s take a look at the Quick Takes from the past week.

QUICK TAKES: Last Week: 2-1-1

NY Islanders - Win 6-2: Good old-fashioned fire wagon Caps hockey. Ovechkin had two goals and Tom Wilson got his first goal, plus that magnificent Butt Assist ™. And as Twitter follower @EvBenjamin put it, “Butt assists are always the most appreciated.”

Minnesota Wild –  Win 3-2 (SO): I don’t hardly remember this game. I do remember Backstrom had a wicked shootout winner because he’s America’s Swedeheart.

Phoenix  Coyotes –  Loss 4-3 (SO): That comeback! Up 3-1 with scant minutes remaining, I left the room to fix myself a Red Stag and Dr. Pepper (I call it “Dr. Pepper and Mr. Stag”), only to return several dozen seconds later and find our lead squandered, like so many unused Ribiero puns. You hate to lose a point this way.

Colorado Avalanche – Loss 4-1 : This one was just ugly start to finish. The Avs are now 14-2 on the year, so there’s no shame in losing to a really good team, but you won’t win many giving up four goals.

Caught up now, let’s turn to the week ahead and take a look at what to keep an eye on:

You Just Had to Feel Special: PPs and PKs

Currently, the Capitals have the top-ranked power play and the second-ranked penalty kill in the league. Like a good menage-a-trois, we’re great with one man extra or less, but can’t figure things out at even strength. The three-headed powerplay monster of Backstom-Green-Ovechkin is terrorizing the countryside like a Hydra in heat, and the penalty kill is shutting down interlopers faster than a chastity  belt.

Our defensive problem at even strength comes down to this: we don’t keep our house tidy. That is, we allow way too much junk to accumulate on our doorstep, and lots of junk goals get stuffed in. On the penalty kill that’s less of an issue, because all you have to do is see puck, clear puck. At even strength, a loose puck on the doorstep has to either be firmly knocked away (but not too far!), moved to a teammate, or skated away. With icing in effect and a breakout possible, indecision can handcuff defensemen long enough to let a forward stuff in a sneaky one. Look for quick, crisp moves to clear the puck away from the net.

YOU Get a Contract! And YOU Get a Contract! Everybody Who Plays Well Gets a Contract!

Don’t you love it when a good thing lasts? Well unlike pumpkin spice lattes, the McRib, and weather-too-cold-for-freaking-bugs, the Caps’ top producers will be around for a while. With the exception of Mikhail Grabovksi, whom the Caps picked up in the offseason for a song and a heartfelt compliment, all of the top six point producers are signed through the end of next season, at least.

MoJo and Joel Ward are here through the ’15 campaign, Jason Chimera just got payyedd and is here through ’16, and Alex Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom will be Capitals until the Sun’s core runs out of hydrogen to fuse into helium and it collapses under the unfathomable weight of its own gravity, blowing off heavy metal elements and dimming to a faint glimmer as a white dwarf (through the end of the 2021 season).

So get comfortable, because this core, unlike the Sun’s, could be around for a while.

18 and Over Only: The Magic Number

Look, our defense at even strength isn’t any good. So like a rich guy with a little “ego” or a dumb bro with a big truck, what do you do? Compensate! That’s right, I’m talking Boudrea-era Caps hockey: offensive-centic and smeared with mayo. The Caps have scored five, six, or seven goals in half of their wins this year, continuing the legacy of  “Score So Many They Can’t Beat You” hockey that has worked for literally no team ever.

What is interesting, however, is the distribution of that scoring. The Capitals have five players on pace to score eighteen goals or more this season (Ovechkin, Backstrom, Grabovski, Ward, Chimera). Most teams that enjoy post-season success have a similar distribution of their goals: roughly five players  at or over eighteen goals, with a superstar leading the charge.

Looking back at the last four Cup winners of full-length seasons, we see the same pattern. The 2012 Kings had four players with 18+, led by Anze Kopitar. The 2011 Bruins had five, led by Goon Squad president Milan Lucic. The 2010 Blackhawks had seven, led by Patrick Kane, and the 2009 Penguins had four, led by Evgeni “Dude Where’s My Browline” Malkin. This five-spoked offensive is a winning formula, but we’ll see if the Caps can sustain it for more than a quarter of the season.

And with that, let’s now go ahead and turn to a segment that Toronto mayor Rob Ford called, “that good shit:”

LIABLE TO LIBEL: A BAKER’S DOZEN LIES ABOUT THIS WEEK’S OPPONENTS

1. After working all night and pooling their collective corn-fed intellects, the fine folk of central Ohio came up with the following cheeky nickname for Bobrovsky, their goalie: Bob the Goalie.

2. No, Blue Jackets defenseman Jack Johnson will not sing you “Sitting, Waiting, Wishing.”

3. Winger Marian Gaborik thought that “being traded to the Blue Jackets” meant the Rangers were wearing their third jerseys that night. He was horribly, horribly wrong.

4. The Blue Jackets have the third highest sporting attendence in the Columbus metropolitan area, just behind the weekly Wart-Out ™ No Bull Tractor Pull, and seven homeless guys playing hackey-sack behind a Big Lots.

5. Detroit leads the nation per capita in lying about being from Detroit.

6. Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg think they’re the cuter Russian-Swede superstar pairing but they totally have no idea and like seriously anyone in the entire school would agree.

7. Todd Bertuzzi absolutely did not cripple a defenseless fellow player with a sucker punch to the head in 2004 and is an all-around swell guy and pillar of the community.

8.  Daniel Alfredsson, unlike the City of Detroit, can still get credit for his goals.

9. Goalie Jimmy Howard was named to the Detroit City Council in July, in that hopes that, “at least someone can save something around here.”

10. The St. Louis Blues have reached the high plateau of being the best professional hockey team in Missouri.

11. Blues center Derek Roy and Avalanche coach Patrick Roy are both active in internet forums debating the proper pronunciation of their last names.

12. Contrary to popular belief, the St. Louis Blues are not named after the city’s rich music history, but rather the feeling people get when they come to St. Louis.

13. Winger Magnus Pääjärvi is half man, half umlaut.

Well, that about wraps it up from here. May all your calls to Toronto go your way and all your zone clearances deflect off the glass first. And as always, goodnight, good luck, and Go Caps.

“In an effort to bolster fans after Thursday’s 4-1 loss to the Calgary Flames, the Detroit Red Wings Twitter team sent this message out: “The last time the Red Wings dropped six straight games was February 7-17 of 2008. The end result of that season wasn’t too shabby.”

You can’t deny that stat: the 2007-08 season ended with Detroit bringing the Stanley Cup home. Still it’s been a tough couple of weeks in the land of the Red Wings. As we all know, the team started with perfection, a 5 game winning streak.

That streak died a nasty death on October 22 with a devastating 7-1 loss to the Washington Capitals.  That was just the start of the dark period as losses to Columbus (who the Wings had beaten just the day before the Capitals game), San Jose, Minnesota (once in a shootout and once in OT) and Calgary followed.

The Red Wings snapped the losing streak Saturday night by shutting out Anaheim 5-0. All of this has dropped the Red Wings into 10th place, wedged between Colorado and Vancouver, in the Western Conference. They’re tied in points, 13, with Vancouver.

Yes, the season is only just begun, with most teams having played between 13 and 15 games out of the 82. However, this harkens back to what I wrote about in my first Red Wings post—the team’s inconsistent play is its biggest obstacle to success. This has been all too evident during these six games in which the Red Wings were missing all of their key components to greatness, especially their ability to shoot and score.

Zetterberg, Franzen and White

Just look at the boys stats 12 games in. The guys we should be seeing the most out of: Franzen, Datsyuk, Filppula, Zetterberg, Kornwall, and Hulder have extremely low number of points. Frazen is tied with Lidstrom with 10 (both 5 goals/5 assists) and Hulder’s got only 4 (2 goals/2 assists).

Compare this to the top of the NHL stats and you can see the hole in the Red Wings are in. Across 14 games, the top player is Toronto’s Phil Kessel has 10 goals and 11 assists for 21 points.  Meanwhile, the top Red Wing, Franzen, is ranked #60 on the NHL’s player’s stats. For a little perspective, Zetterberg finished last season #9 in the regular season stats with 80 games played, 24 goals and 56 assists. Top 10 is certainly where you expect to see members of the Wings given their skill level.

MoJo scores on TyCo - AP Photo

Granted it doesn’t necessarily take a lot of goals to win a game. But Detroit’s defense and goal tending needs to get itself together. After shutting out Colorado on October 8, Ty Conklin was back in net for the Capitals game to let Jimmy Howard rest up. It was a disastrous game as he gave up seven goals. Conklin played again in Columbus and gave the Blue Jackets their first win of the season. Of course, the goalie is a last line of defense, so that begs this question: Where is the Detroit defense?

Jimmy Howard

Nowhere was the question more valid than the second Minnesota game on November 1.  The Wings scored in the first and held the 1-0 game until one minute to go in the third when the Wild’s Mikko Koivu got one past the D and Howard. It only got worse in OT when Franzen got a goalie interference penalty, which to me was a dicey call for the refs to make, and the Wild won on the subsequent power play.

This game was the classic example of the Red Wings having, and then losing a lead.

So where does this leave us now? The Wings are headed into a run that pits them against Colorado tomorrow night followed by Edmonton, Dallas, St. Louis, San Jose, L.A. and rematches against Anaheim and Calgary. That all leads up to a national TV match up against Stanley Cup defenders Boston on the day after Thanksgiving (NBC at 1pm ET).

To say that I’m concerned is an understatement. To have goal scorers that aren’t scoring, defenders who aren’t defending and goalies who aren’t making saves is a recipe for bad hockey—just ask Columbus which only has 2 wins to its credit.

Looking at this coming week’s games. The Avs are in the same spot as Detroit and will certainly be looking for a win to bolster their record. I do think this game goes to Detroit as they will be back on their game after Saturday’s shutout. Edmonton stands at 8-3-2 and will face Montreal and Boston before the Red Wings. Their season is full of close games and two shut out wins so this will likely be a dangerous game for the Wings. The guys will have to be at their best to get this win. Dallas leads the West, winning 10 of 13, and I frankly expect them to win against Detroit unless something radical changes in the Wings game play.

Coach Babcock

What happens between here and Thanksgiving depends on if Mike Babcock and the team find the right on ice recipe to clean up the problems that sent them from perfect to a 6-5-1 record. It would certainly be a great Thanksgiving gift for the boys in red to win the majority of the nine games leading into the battle against Boston.

Captain Lidstrom said this mid-last week: “”I don’t think we’ve been as hard on the opponents’ net as we have to be to get those rebounds and goals. That’s where we have to drive hard to the net and get the rebounds and second chances.”

Drive hard, Red Wings…. Drive.”

Follow Jeff on Twitter at @hockeyguynyc