NHL Winter Classic Preview: Washington at Pittsburgh

2011 NHL Winter Classic: Washington Capitals vs. Pittsburgh Penguins

Since 2008, the NHL’s annual Winter Classic game has become the marquee hockey event in North America. The game, which has been held at a variety of outdoor facilities over the last few years — Ralph Wilson Stadium in Buffalo, Wrigley Field in Chicago and, last year, Fenway Park in Boston — always draws a gigantic crowd and puts the National Hockey League under the biggest of spotlights.

This year, the Winter Classic will be played at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh — home of the Steelers — as Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins host Alex Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals.

It’s appropriate that the NHL’s marquee player will be participating in the league’s marquee event. Crosby has been nothing short of fantastic this season, scoring points at a torrid pace to put Pittsburgh atop the NHL standings. The Pens currently sit with a two-point lead (53 pts) in the Eastern Conference, ahead of bitter in-state rival Philadelphia, and are one point ahead of Western Conference-leading Detroit in the chase for the President’s Trophy. Crosby is the NHL’s leading scorer with an astounding 65 points in 39 games played — he only recently saw a career-best 25 game point streak come to an end when he was held of the sheet by the New York Islanders. Simply put, Crosby has been outstanding this year.

The same cannot be said for his Winter Classic rival Alex Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals, however. December was an especially tough month for the Caps as they recorded an eight-game losing streak and lost grip on their first-place standing in the Southeast Division, a spot they’ve held for most of the past three seasons. That said, the Caps have rebounded as of late, winning four of their last five contests with the lone loss coming in a shootout to the Penguins on December 23rd. A big reason for that turnaround? The play of Ovechkin, who broke an eight-game goalless streak by scoring tallies against Carolina (in a 3-2 Washington win) and Montreal (a 3-0 Washington win).

On Saturday, Crosby and Ovechkin will engage in the latest chapter of their ongoing rivalry. Largely considered to be the two best players in the NHL, Crosby and Ovechkin are hoping that the Winter Classic will be a preview of the 2011 Eastern Conference finals, a place the Penguins are familiar with (they beat Carolina there in 2009 en route to the Stanley Cup) and the Capitals are not. Under head coach Bruce Boudreau, Washington has only advanced past the first round of the playoffs once; last year, they were eliminated in shocking fashion by the 8th-seeded Montreal Canadiens in one of the greatest postseason upsets in NHL history.