Given how extensively the Canadian hockey media is in the tank for Pittsburgh forward and oiled-up barely-legal model Sidney Crosby, it would take truly remarkable Crosby-worship for one Canadian journalist to rise above the rest. And yet Jeff Marek, a CBC radio host and tweeter, has managed to differentiate himself from his peers. His Crosby-fluffing medium of choice: Twitter.

Marek's Crosby worship took off during the Canadian Olympic orientation camp when his Crosby-obsessive Tweets spawned a mini-competition to see who could RT them and make fun of them first and best. Here's a quick recap:

• @JeffMarek started slowly -- "Crosby looks excellent. But then again, didn't he just win the cup yesterday?" -- but quickly ramped up;
• "Crosby leading the stretch at centre. Very exciting tweet that was";
• "Team White skate over. Crosby was the class of the skate again. Wash - rinse - repeat.";
• "I should have the new line combos in a couple of hours. Will be curious to see if the keep crosby/nash together. They've been magic." (Magic? In a pre-season, pre-camp, pre-practice practice? Is Marek 12 years old? Does he believe in dragons?);
• "Crosby is killing everyone in the faceoff drills. So much for that being a weak part of his game."; and
  
• "I hope you all get to see this pass Crosby made to Derek Roy tonight at the scrimmage. Best pass of the camp hands down." (Seriously? Rating passes at pre-season, pre-camp, pseudo-scrimmages?)

@JeffMarek's fluff job became so epic in the Twittersphere that even NHL public relations staffers have piled on. After @JeffMarek tweeted this last night -- "Crosby w/a pair tonight vs Jackets. I'll repeat again, he was the best player at [Team Canada] orientation camp." -- Caps PR chief Nate Ewell couldn't take it anymore and tweeted back: "Heard you the first 457 times, Jeff."

Amen.

The guys who I'd be happy to see end up going to WSH at No. 24, plus some must-reads/follows

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Sometimes it is difficult to detail how important a third-liner is to a playoff team's success. Not when it comes to David Steckel, the Caps' wunder-killer and hard-hat wearer.

In two games against PIT, Steckel is 2-0-2, +2, and has won 21 of 30 faceoffs (70 percent). He has been the Caps' best penalty-killer: In both games Steckel led the Caps in short-handed time-on-ice. Despite killing penalties against the opponent's top power play unit, Steckel rates out as the Capitals' best PK forward in terms of goals-against-per-60-minutes-on-ice (among forwards who kill an average of two or more minutes per game). The only PIT PPG for which Steckel has been on the ice was last night's 6-on-4 goal.

And what about Steckel at 5-on-5? Against the Rangers, Steckel was a bit of an adventure 5-on-5: He was the Caps' top-rated offensive forward in terms of GFON/60 and he was the worst-rated defensive forward in GAON/60. (True: His job is to match up against the opponents' top line.)

But against PIT Steckel has been simply phenomenal 5-on-5: Once again, no Capital forward has been on ice for as many 5-on-5 goals per 60 minutes than has Steckel, not even Alex Ovechkin. Throughout this series Caps coach Bruce Boudreau has matched Steckel up against the Crosby line. Boudreau said after Game Two that Steckel was on ice for all but two of Crosby's EV shifts. No matter: PIT has not scored an EV goal with Stecks on the ice. (As noted above, the only goal PIT has scored with Steckel on the ice was in a 6-on-4 situation.)

I'm not the only one noticing that Steckel has been the Caps' second-best forward in this series: Boudreau played Stecks for 19:11 in Game One and for 16:31 in Game Two.

Ovechkin and Simeon Varlamov are getting the headlines, but the Caps wouldn't have won either of the series' first two games without Steckel.

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