David Steckel was heading to the doctor's office from practice. He said he thinks he can be ready to play tomorrow night and would like to if he is cleared. Bruce Boudreau said, "It would be pretty hard to take anyone out of the lineup at this stage, so I don't know." Chris Clark also said he skated Sunday after taking about a week off, and he hopes to try to play next week should the Caps make the playoffs.
Boudreau also said he thought 92 or even 90 points would have been enough to get in the playoffs a month ago when he sat down and tried to figure out what it would take with 16 games to play. At that time, the Caps had 70 points and he thought 10-6 might be enough. If they win tomorrow, the Caps will have finished 12-4 and that still might not be enough.
Also, Boudreau said there has been no word from the league about any potential fallout from the chippy play last night. The league could look at Matt Cooke's hit on Vincent Lecavalier, but it was a shoulder-to-shoulder hit and Bouudreau again said he was trying to get to Michel Ouellet (who had the puck) and Lecavalier was just in the way. The Lightning could also face league action after racking up 39 penalty minutes in the final 23 seconds, including three misconducts and a too many men on the ice infraction that Boudreau claims was Tampa Bay sending a player off the bench to fight, which if true would probably elicit a suspension or fine of some sort.
Finally, tomorrow will be the final regular season game Curt Millar, the team's massage therapist. He will retire at the end of the season after 16 years on the job. That's 1,197 games (and counting if the Caps make the playoffs) and he's only missed one during that span.
"He's been here so long and a lot of us have developed a great relationship with him," Mike Green said. "We have a lot of guys that use him and he's our massage guy, so he gets our legs going before the game. Not only that, he's been a pleasure to have around the room. We give him a hard time, but he knows we're going to miss him."
Millar is known for his, um, interesting concoctions that are otherwise described as healthy drinks of some kind. After games, he is often walking around with a cup full of some sort of purple-ish substance in it.
"He's got me going on some stuff, that he says is going to keep me looking young like him," Green said. "He doesn't look a day over 70, so that's good."
