#Nastya Ovechkina | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

andrebearakovsky · 7 months

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(cont. ask) first of all NOOO don't apologize i was looking for a long post, this is why i came here! i've been lurking way back! i remembered your blog name! 2. wow??? this is such a comprehensive answer!!! 😍😍😍😍😍😍🤗😳 thank you so much! 3. any content you want to post i am here for! 4. i can't believe there are so many new guys, like yes of course, but i can't believe it! 5. Oh yeah the details of the Holtby thing are coming back to me, i seem to have repressed it.🙈

Aw that's so sweet of you! A longtime viewer! (Viewer? What am I, a YouTuber? Calm down.) It's sweet of you to remember me and I'm delighted that I am apparently famous and evidently famous for making long/extensive posts lol. Which I'm about to do again.

I talked about Strome, Milano, Sandin, and alllll those young guys on my last post, as well as Darcy and TvR. [And Dowd but you already knew him.] The rest of the guys currently on the team I haven't really touched on yet that joined post-Holtby era are Nicolas Aube-Kubel, Anthony Mantha, and Charlie Lindgren. I'll get into them in a bit, but I gotta get into some other things first.

You said you haven't really watched since the Holtby era, so I'm going to assume you know everything that happened/all the people we had up til that final season, and that you know little/nothing of what has happened since then. So I'm gonna give a quick recap of some of the big things that have happened in that time:

You missed the ENTIRETY of the Sammy and Vitek goaltending era, which was kinda turbulent. Sammy was gonna be the starter with Henrik Lundqvist as the backup, but then it turned out Lundqvist had a heart condition and had to retire and never played a game for the Caps. This forced Vitek into action, and we had 2 years of the Sammy and Vitek goaltending duo. I, personally, loved it. Some people did not. I still hold that they were BOTH GOOD!! They split time, neither one ever TRULY grasped the starting reigns. There was also when Vitek got taken by the Kraken in the expansion draft and then immediately traded him back to us. Also they were besties, which started when they were a duo down in Hershey. It's also why my blog is titled "goalie best friend tandem," though it also currently applies to Darcy and Chuck who are besties. You can search the "goalie best friends" tag on my blog for cute Sammy and Vitek content. Neither of them are here anymore, but they're still friends - I remember seeing a quote Vitek gave to some Devils people talking about him and about still being friends and such.

Players you knew back from the Holtby era who are no longer with us: Lars Eller, Richard Panik (useless), Jonas Siegenthaler, Travis Boyd, Christian Djoos, Michal Kempny, Radko Gudas, Garnet Hathaway, Dmitry Orlov [don't talk to me about these last two I'm sad]

Players that played with us for multiple seasons after the Holtby era who are no longer with us this year: Justin Schultz, Conor Sheary, Daniel Sprong, Matt Irwin

COVID robbed us of our time with Brenden Dillon and I'm sad about it

We had Zdeno Chara for 1 year, and he straightup fixed Nick Jensen. Jensen was abysmal before that, then Chara was his defense partner for the whole year, and Jensen is good now. I no longer dread every time he touches the puck, I trust him. Also he has a personality now! Idk what kind of dark magic Chara used, but I will be forever thankful to him for it. 1 year of Chara absolutely 1000% worth it just for fixing Nick Jensen

We got Marcus Johansson back! :) And then we traded him again

We traded Jakub Vrana for Anthony Mantha, who is useless and unfortunately still here. He never fit in with the team vibe of "sexy idiots," he's not loud enough or slutty enough.

In March 2022 Carl Hagelin suffered a really bad eye injury during practice. I think the butt end of someone's stick got into his eye? (We were never told whose stick it was, I'm sure they have to feel absolutely terrible about it.) He's lucky he didn't lose his eye. He tried to come back, but he never played a game again after that. He was technically on the roster all of last season, but he never got into any games, and he just announced his retirement this summer. A really sad end, tbh. And RIP to the 4th line of dreams.

We were GONNA have Connor Brown for the 2022-23 season, and he was gonna play with Dylan Strome whom he's friends with and played in juniors with. But he played for like 2 games and then got hurt and was out for the season and never played for us again. I think he's in Edmonton now.

You know about goal songs, right?? I think the last year of Holtby was the first year of goal songs. I have a Spotify playlist of goal songs if you wanna check it out

There have been SO many injuries the last 3 years. 2021-22 was what I like to call the year of babies. I don't even remember who exactly was injured but there were so many injuries it necessitated the callup of SO many rookies. TWELVE rookies played that season: Martin Fehervary, Connor McMichael, Beck Malenstyn, Garrett Pilon, Hendrix Lapierre, Brett Leason, Aliaksei Protas, Axel Jonsson-Fjallby, Zach Fucale, Joe Snively, Alex Alexeyev, and Lucas Johansen. All of whom made their NHL debuts that season except for Fehervary, McMichael, Malenstyn, and Pilon. Of those rookies, Fehervary and McMichael were the only ones who were really supposed to make the team that season; they stuck around the whole season, while Leason and Protas played 30+ games, AJF played 20+, Snively and Malenstyn played more than 10 each, and the rest had 6 or less. It was truly the year of babies. Some of those guys aren't in the organization anymore, but I think this is the year the rest of them finally make the leap and are true full-timers. [Except for Fehervary, who already is]

More injury news: Nicky and Tom were injured for like the first half of last season. And in December, John Carlson broke his fucking face. He got hit in the face with a puck and it broke his entire face, like it was really bad, and he hardly played again. I think he came back for like the last few weeks, but tbh his injury was when the season went downhill. [I say "broke his face" but the official reports are he had a fractured skull and severed temporal artery. Yikes! He's fine now though]

Ovi just keeps breaking goal records. He got 800 goals and then passed Gordie Howe last season!!! He is now number 2 all-time in goals!! He currently has 822. Watch out, Gretzky, he's comin' for ya

Oh yeah the Hershey Bears won the Calder Cup this year!! It was absolutely epic. They played the Coachella Valley Firebirds (Kraken AHL team) in the finals, and it was an awesome finals. It went to Game 7 overtime. GAME SEVEN OVERTIME!!!!! Do you know how rare that is? It's only the 2nd time the Calder Cup Finals has gone to overtime in Game 7, with the first time being in 1953. In the NHL, it has only ever happened in the Stanley Cup Finals TWICE. EVER! By the Wings in 1950 and 1954. So the Bears won the Calder Cup in Game 7 overtime and it was exciting as FUCK. And a lot of guys who might make the Caps roster this year were on that Cup-winning team: Snively, Protas, McMichael, Malenstyn, Johansen, as well as top prospects Lapierre and Iorio. They're the oldest franchise in the AHL, and that was their 12th Calder Cup, which is the most in AHL history.

And you said to feel free to post some content so I am going to POST some CONTENT. Starting with:

✨Darcy Kuemper✨

I fucking love Darcy, so much. I've already said that I've liked him for a long time, and I'm absolutely elated to have him on the team. He won the Cup with the Avs in 2022. He is also very tall, he's 6'5", one time he hugged TJ and it made TJ look like a child. He's so sweet, and he's so dumb. He's like a giant labrador. Some of my favorite assorted Darcy things and moments include:

In one of his first interviews after signing he said he was gonna visit every museum in DC, and I'm like no you're not, Darcy, that's not possible. Our first sign that he was a big dummy

One time suplexed Matthew Tkachuk into the ice

Got a shot on goal during a game last year

The time he tried to "interview" Nick Jensen at the outdoor game practice while giggling incessantly

Here's him at NHL media day last year, featuring him kicking a soccer ball like you see in my profile pic :)

Says one of his life goals is to bring back the dinosaurs. Please see this post for the full story on that one

Is absolute BESTIES with Charlie Lindgren, the backup goalie. Like, so much so that they and their wives constantly take their dogs on walks together, the dogs are reportedly besties as well, and the Kuempers dog-sat Chuck's dog over Christmas. They also kind of have matching dogs, I'll include a picture below. Chuck also called himself and Darcy two of the "more normal goalies in the league" which is an absolute lie after the dinosaurs thing, so clearly Chuck doesn't have that many brain cells rolling around up there either. They also did THIS at media day this year. Their friendship is just so pure. You can read more about it in this article. And like, they didn't know each other before signing here. According to the article, evidently after they signed, they texted each other and then literally the scene from stepbrothers happened

And then TvR 🥰 Mine own love TvR. I adore Trevor van Riemsdyk so much. He's just got incredibly good vibes. I also have a bit more of a personal attachment to him, because he and I have the same birthday (July 24). He's a bit soft-spoken, especially compared to some of the other freaks on this team. Possibly one of the only ones with any semblance of a brain cell. He's not flashy; he's a steady-eddy defenseman, almost always on the third pair barring injuries. He's not gonna score a bunch of points, but he plays hard defensively every game (one of the reasons goalies love him), he's reliable, and he blocks SO many shots. He's also one of THE guys on the penalty kill. The penalty kill is TvR, Jensen, Fehervary, and Dowd, those are the main guys. We also officially claimed him as our own. As of this year, he will have played more years with the Caps than with anyone else, he currently has more goals, assists, and points with us than with anyone else, and after about 40 more games he will have played more games with us than with anyone else.

Also the ENTIRE team is absolutely fucking OBSESSED with him. There aren't like that many big specific things I can point to, it's just how I've noticed them treating him over the years, and how they talk about/to him and the general energy. They all love to shout "REEEEEEEEEEEEMERRRRRRRR" at any and every opportunity. And like you can just tell that every single one of them is deeply in love with him. They are all constantly tripping over themselves to give him the player of the game award in the locker room, even when other guys have a bunch of points in the game and it feels like they're the obvious choice but no they all want to give a love letter to their collective crush. The goalies especially love him. (Here's Chuck giving him the POTG, Nicky giving him the POTG, and a recounting of Sammy's love affair with him two seasons ago). The coaches also love him, sometimes too much for their own good - there have been times in the last few years when they've put TvR on the power play and in the shootout (??) when he had no business being there lol. And like I don't blame them lmao. He's grown to become a leader on the team (and occasionally gets As on his chest during preseason games and when a bunch of dudes are injured - another thing that confirms to me they're all in love with him, he got real high up on the chain of command real quick), he's super consistent (there was one game last year when there were so many injuries on D that the defense was quite literally just TvR plus a bunch of rookies - I said that day that the defense was "TvR and a dream"), and he will absolutely never put his mouthguard in his mouth. So as the year goes on, and as you watch games and social media content, just keep your eyes peeled, watch TvR, and you'll see that the entire team is so fucking horny for TvR specifically. I made this meme awhile back, which is exactly how the Caps feel about TvR:

Other miscellaneous fun facts about the team and players that I think you should know:

Our backup goalie is Charlie Lindgren, but we all call him Chuck. It suits him better, especially with his mustache. He also catches right-handed, which is different than practically every other goalie in the league. So like if you look, he and Darcy wear their catching gloves on different hands.

There are a LOT of NHL brothers on this team. Dylan Strome's older brother Ryan plays for the Ducks, and his younger brother Matt actually plays for the Hershey Bears. Trevor van Riemsdyk is also the middle child of three hockey-playing brothers: his older brother James plays for the Bruins, and younger brother Brendan doesn't play in the NHL but played college hockey. And Charlie Lindgren is the oldest of 3 hockey brothers: Andrew played college hockey but never made the NHL, and youngest brother Ryan plays for the Rangers.

Kuzy has been doing some wacky shit in the shootout the last few years, just go look it up on YouTube

Here's a video of the mentors trip this year so you can see Sonny Milano's father who is simply exactly who I envisioned him to be in my head

Nicolas Aube-Kubel (NAK), a French-Canadian fourth line winger that the Caps picked up on waivers in November last year, is Sergei Ovechkin's (Ovi's son) favorite player. We learn this in a video feature with Ovi's wife and kids (I'm including the link to this gifset from the lovely @thornescratch which is where I first saw this). The producer asks who Sergei's favorite player is, and Sergei immediately answers "Aube-Kubel." Not only is Aube-Kubel his "guy" according to Nastya, but then we also see that a selfie of Sergei and Aube-Kubel is the lock screen of Sergei's iPad. And Sergei calls Aube-Kubel his "best friend." Learning this information is such a curveball, because it's like the last person you'd expect Sergei's favorite to be. It's not somebody Russian or even European, it's not somebody old or someone who's been on the team a long time, it's not one of his dad's closer friends, and it's not even one of the stars of the team, it's a young Canadian dude who plays fourth line if he's in. Aube-Kubel must be REALLY friendly, otherwise why else would he be Sergei's favorite? You know it has to be absolutely devastating to Tom Wilson to not be Sergei's favorite lol. [I'm also convinced this is why they re-signed NAK so quick in the offseason, you HAVE to bring back Sergei's favorite player!!]

Speaking of NAK: remember how I said Beck Malenstyn was Nic Dowd's chosen winger? NAK is his OTHER chosen winger. Those two are twin shitstarters and Dowd loves them and I know he absolutely wants both of them on his line this season. They're gonna be a great 4th line. I could talk all day about Dowd and his 4th line duties, and you can ask me to do that if you want but I'm not gonna do it here

I also know everyone's zodiac sign because I'm a freak. I can also get more into that in a separate post if you want

There's probably more stuff, but this is all I can think of for now. Please feel free to ask me more stuff, I love diving into things. Stuff about the team, players, my favorites, whatever. I hope this is both informative and entertaining!