Bad Ice, Bad Blood, and Blood on the Ice in Washington for Rangers Series

"We've got ice in our veins and blood on the ice," hockey players have said and that could prove true in the first-round NHL playoff series between the New York Rangers and the Washington Capitals.

The teams did not have much recent history to incite animosity, but the first game of the first round of the playoffs created bad blood between these two teams and foreshadowed blood on the bad ice in Washington.

The Caps had not seen the Rangers since they added the fiery John Tortorella and Sean Avery, at the start of March. Now they have seen them, and they cannot possibly have liked what they saw.

The Caps are called an emotional team, but they did not have much to get emotional about until their playoff series began.

Henrik Lundqvist was the king of the first game while Jose Theodore was shaky, so there's bad blood there. Sean Avery bothered Theodore, as he does all goalies, so there's even more bad blood there.

Mike Green landed a monster hit on Fredrik Sjostrom and Avery dumped Green into the Rangers players' box, in that game, so there's more bad blood there.

Avery also made Green trip and fall while trying to stay onside and that led to the big goal by Scott Gomez, so there might be even more bad blood there. Green battled with Avery most of the night and wound up a minus 2, so, you know the score.

Markus Naslund took three penalties, including one for breaking his stick over Alex Ovechkin, so there might be some bad blood there.

Capitals Captain Chris Clark missed Game one, and he is known as a gritty player, so he might be making up for lost time trying to even the series with the Rangers on Saturday.

The Capitals' enforcer, Donald Brashear, also missed the first game, speaking of blood on the ice in future games. Brashear says he doesn't like "chirpers" and the Rangers have at least one guy who likes to chirp a lot.

Colton Orr saw some ice time in the first game and could be used even more to keep Ovechkin in check.

How did that old Neil Sedaka song go? "Bad (ba-a-ad) blood (blo-o-od)
Brother, you've been deceived ...."