Talk:2011–12 Washington Capitals season/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: Harrias (talk · contribs) 18:56, 19 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Lead
 * "Washington's defeat of the Bruins marked the first time in NHL history which all seven games.." This sentences seems to be missing a word: suggest placing "in" before "which"?
 * Done


 * "Facing the East's top seed in Conference Semifinals, Washington was also defeated in seven games by the New York Rangers." Again, missing a word: "the" before "Conference". As Washington won the last series in seven, rather than lost in, the use of "also" isn't really appropriate: I'd suggest removing it.
 * Added "the" and removed "also"


 * "Washington won their first seven games setting a franchise.." Insert a comma after "games".
 * Done


 * "Bruce Boudreau won his two-hundredth game as an NHL head coach achieving the feat faster anyone in league history." And a comma after "coach".
 * Added comma


 * "..prompted the benching of offensive star players.." The term "benching" needs explaining, either through a link or a note.
 * Let me think about the best way of doing this, I don't know that the phrase "benching" will have a page for its self so I want to poke around and see if there is something that would be accurate before I insert a note. linked Wiktionary.


 * "Under Hunter the Capitals battled the Florida Panthers for the Southeast Division ultimately losing out on.." Comma needed after "Division".
 * Done


 * "Two days after Washington's playoff elimination, Hunter stepped down as head coach...Adam Oates was hired as his replacement." I've never seem ellipsis used like this in a Wikipedia article: I'd suggest a semi-colon instead.
 * Changed to Semi-colon


 * The second paragraph is a little stilted in general, perhaps try to make it flow a little better.
 * Reworded


 * Off-season
 * "..way they should have been" which were the two biggest reasons.." I think you need to clarify "which he claimed were the two biggest reasons..".
 * Indeed they are his thoughts and not facts.


 * "While teammate Mike Knuble noted that the language barrier affects the way that Semin is perceived and the comments were something Bradley regretted." I might be reading this wrong, but this sentence doesn't make sense to me I'm afraid.
 * Let me think about how to rephrase this, I think the problem is that I'm to familiar with the subjects. Semin is Russian and speaks little English Tried to clarify.


 * "Including Bradley the Capitals lost six players who played for them in the playoffs as well.." Comma needed after "playoffs" and maybe "Bradley" too.
 * Added both commas


 * Regular season
 * "In the season opener against the Carolina Hurricanes Boudreau made.." Comma after "Hurricanes".
 * Done


 * "..and helped the Caps to a franchise record.." Probably shouldn't use "Caps" which isn't really encyclopaedic language.
 * I knew I would do that sooner or later, tried to make a conscience effort not to. Did a search on the article should be the only time I used Caps.


 * Link "overtime" on its first usage.
 * Linked


 * "Following the benching incident the Capitals went 2–5–0.." 2–5–0 needs explaining, perhaps in a note, for those not familiar with this notation.
 * Added a note about the denotation of records and what they mean.


 * Similarly, a layperson wouldn't really understand "For the game Boudreau made headlines again for sitting one of his star players, this time making Semin a healthy scratch." I would suggest using less jargonny terms in this sentence.
 * Changed things around, there is no true link to healthy scratch so I linked the the disam where there is an explanation and put a brief explanation after the term.


 * "Boudreau previously bench Semin.." Past-tense; "benched".
 * Done


 * "The Hockey News' Ken Campbell applauded the benching of Ovechkin stating.." This sentence seems to be referring to the Ovechkin incident that was mentioned in the last paragraph, rather than the benching of Semin which is in this one, and hence should be moved into that previous sentence in my opinion.
 * Moved to the end of the prior paragraph. Originally wanted to keep the two comments together since they since they were both about the benching incidents, but I see your point.


 * "Following a Neil hit on Ovechkin, the pair skated up the ice when Neil fell to the ice following the alleged spear." "when" seems to be the wrong work to use here: "whereupon" seems to fit better?
 * Changed


 * "Later in the game Ovechkin scored the eventual game-winning goal. It was his first goal in six games." Perhaps merge this all into one sentence: "Later in the game Ovechkin scored the eventual game-winning goal; his first goal in six games."?
 * Combined the two sentences


 * "The December 28th game vs. the New York Rangers.." should be "The December 28 game against the New York Rangers.."
 * Ugh, another bone head mistake. Fixed


 * "..seven game point streak that featured.." Link or note required to explain "point streak".
 * Added a note for point streak


 * "Bourque was suspended five games for delivering the elbow." Perhaps "suspended from five games"?
 * Changed


 * "Compounding the Capitals' injury problem was the loss of Green in just his second game back, he re-injured his groin during and was placed on long term injured reserve." During what? Presumably during the game?
 * I changed during the contest, because I didn't want to use game twice in the same sentence seem rather repetitive, if that doesn't work I can change it.


 * "Towards the end of January the Capitals received a suspension of their own." Not really encyclopaedic language, a bit to journalistic I think.
 * Removed, I was trying to make more of a transition, but I don't think it is really needed.


 * "Despite having a down season.." Not sure if "down season" is really encyclopaedic language, perhaps just "poor season"?
 * Changed to poor.

Review completed to the end of "December – January" section, more to follow. Feel free to start working on these points in the mean time! Despite the number of issues, they are all pretty minor, and I have to say that the article is a pretty tidy piece of work.  Harrias  talk 19:31, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I've hit up some of the quicker notes. Anything I haven't specifically commented on I have read and will fix soon. Thank you for the review. --Mo Rock...Monstrous (leech44) 22:32, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Oops, forgot about this (embarrassingly). Will continue the review later today.  Harrias  talk 07:06, 26 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Further comments
 * "..the Capitals blew a two goal lead late in the game.." Not sure that "blew" is an encyclopaedic term in this usage.
 * Changed to lost


 * "The loss knocked the Capitals out of first place in their division and dropped them from third to ninth in the conference." Would this read slightly better as: "The loss knocked the Capitals out of first place in their division and they dropped from third to ninth in the conference." (No complaints if you leave it as it is though.)
 * Changed


 * "..as the teams back-up." Should be "..as the team's back-up."
 * Fixed


 * "They would not remain there long however, .." Wrong tense, should be "They did not remain there long however, .."
 * Fixed


 * "Washington's final game of March marked the return of Backstrom after missing 40 games with a concussion." Could perhaps be rephrased as "Washington's final game of March marked the return of Backstrom, who had missed 40 games with a concussion."
 * Changed


 * "..with a 4–2 win of their own. The win also gave the Capitals a chance at winning the division with a win in their final game. During the win Neuvirth.." Repetition of "win"; five examples in a few sentences.
 * Changed up the wording to be less repetitive.


 * "A win by the Panthers in their final game prevented Washington from winning their division for a fifth straight season and moving to third place." – This is a little ambiguous: it could mean that Washington had won the division for the previous four years, or that for the previous four years they had been prevented from winning their division, the language needs tightening.
 * Re-worded


 * "Finishing as the seventh seed Washington matched up with the defending champion Bruins." Perhaps: "Finishing the regular season as the seventh seed, Washington was matched up with the defending champion Bruins."
 * Changed


 * "With Vokoun and Neuvirth still injured Holtby was forced to start game one." – I'm sure Holtby was very happy to start the game, so this may be the wrong way of phrasing it. Maybe: "As Vokoun and Neuvirth were still injured, the Capitals were forced to start Holtby in game one." Or something along those lines.
 * Sounds good. Changed


 * "Though the first two periods Boston.." Should presumably be "Through.." ?
 * Yes, you are correct. Lousy typo :) Fixed


 * "Game three was a three overtime affair.." Not really encyclopaedic language.
 * Changed affair to contest as to avoid repeating game


 * "I don't think "Season" should be capitalised in the "Post Season" section.
 * Fixed


 * "..and the defense first system of Hunter." I think "defense first" needs to be placed in speech marks as so.
 * Added


 * "While Ovechkin noted that he was.." No need for "While" in this sentence.
 * Removed


 * The grey row in the "Eastern conference" table means that it does not sort correctly by Wins, Losses etc. Only sort by Rank works correctly.
 * "bold - qualified for playoffs" Per MOS:BOLD, bold text should only be used in very certain circumstances, and should not be used to indicate something like this. I would suggest using something like an asterisk * or dagger † instead. Or, given the notation already used; an "x".
 * This was a template so it had to be transposed, but I was able to find a way to make the suggested changes.


 * The coloured headings in the Player stats tables make the sorting arrows impossible to see; I would suggest simply removing the colouring. Or at least make a note that clicking the header sorts by that category.
 * Removed the coloring.


 * You note at the bottom: "†Denotes player spent time with another team before joining Capitals. Stats reflect time with the Capitals only. ‡Traded mid-season Bold/italics denotes franchise record" But as far as I can see, none of these are used in the article.
 * These pages are usually set up by one user at the beginning of the year and I simply forgot to check the footnotes. Thanks for catching that.


 * MOS:FLAG suggests that flags should have the country name near them in case of confusion (not everyone is a flag expert!) That said, this is clearly an external template that it would require a degree of conversation to change, so I'm not going to be too fussy about it.
 * Another user transposed the template at the end of the season, and I couldn't figure out a way to get the country name included. I didn't really see the value in it since the stats cover who played during the season so I have removed it completely.


 * I don't think that "Draft" should be capitalised in the title "2011 Draft picks"
 * Fixed


 * "Heading into the draft the Capitals had only five picks thanks to a variety of trades, .." Replace "thanks" with "due".
 * Changed

And that concludes my review! Or mostly anyway. I'll leave you to address these points, and have a look through the references in the mean time. Feel free to ping me on my talk page if I forget about this again, but hopefully I won't!  Harrias  talk 17:35, 27 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Okay I think everything has been addressed, let me know if further changes need to be made to the "fixes". I'll keep an eye out for any ref comments and fixes. Thanks, again for the review. --Mo Rock...Monstrous (leech44) 20:26, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Generally the referencing is very good. I haven't gone through every single reference to check that what you claim the source is saying is true, but spot-checks reveal no problems at all, and similarly no apparent problems with copyvio or close-paraphrasing. There are some minor inconsistencies in your referencing though. To cite a couple of example: Refs #25 and 26 don't have the newspaper in italics. I may have missed other instances of this. Also, you are very inconsistent over whether you list the papers as "Washington Post" and "Washington Times" or "The Washington Post" and "The Washington Times". The references also link National Hockey League on some occasions but leave it plain on others. I'm also not convinced that it is necessary to link Washington Capitals at all in the references, given that it is linked throughout the article.  Harrias  talk 22:13, 27 November 2012 (UTC)
 * References
 * I went through and made the refs uniform. I added the to all of the Washington papers to math the WP page titles. I unlinked the the Washington Capitals and the National Hockey League. I have run across an issue with the NHL links in templates before, so I unlined them all to ensure they were all the same. Cheers. --Mo Rock...Monstrous (leech44) 03:06, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for all your work during this review. I'm now more than happy to promote this article to Good status; well done!  Harrias  talk 21:16, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Thank you for taking the time to do an extensive review. Cheers --Mo Rock...Monstrous (leech44) 21:46, 28 November 2012 (UTC)