Oh, to be young and in a playoff race...

We’re in the last 25 games of the regular season, and for the first time since the 2002-2003 season, they are games that will matter to the Caps.

For this squad, though, it is uncharted territory. Only four players currently with the club dented the statistics of that last playoff season season for the Caps…Olaf Kolzig was, of course, the cornerstone netminder. Michael Nylander, who would leave for Boston and New York before returning this year, played in 71 games and was 17-39-56. The other two – Steve Eminger and Matt Pettinger – combined to play in 19 games. Eminger played in 17 games while spending most of the year in Kitchener in the OHL, and Pettinger played one game for the Caps, spending most of the year in Portland of the AHL.

These guys haven’t been to war together…at least not at this level.

We bring this up because with all the attention being paid to Alex Ovechkin lately, he’s likely to get even more as the focus of a Caps team that is a legitimate contender for a playoff spot. We’ve talked about his remarkable consistency before, and it merits some attention in terms of what might be expected as the Caps head into the home stretch. If one looks at the NHL season in terms of its prelude and its home stretch, the boundary of which is the trading deadline, then Ovechkin registered goals/assists/points-per-game in his first two years is as follows:

2005-2006

Before deadline (60 games): 0.70/0.62/1.32
After deadline (21 games): 0.48/0.81/1.29

2006-2007

Before deadline (63 games): 0.56/0.62/1.17
After deadline (19 games): 0.58/0.37/0.95

The points-per-game was rather consistent in the stretch of his rookie season (fewer goals, more assists). In his second season, there was a considerable dropoff in his assists and points-per-game, but the Caps were not a team of gifted finishers, either. Chris Clark benefited from skating on the opposite wing, but there wasn’t much to spare in terms of a center who could score, and the Caps defense was goal-challenged all year.

So what? Well, if folks are looking for a let down or Ovechkin hitting the wall, his brief history in the NHL suggests otherwise. He’s been scoring at precisely a goal-a-game pace since Thanksgiving (33-20-53 in 33 games). There is little to suggest that his 1.61 points-per-game pace since late November is an aberration.

Add that to a club that is following the script of having important cogs growing together (and winning a championship) in Hershey, then you’d have to think that as this precocious group of kids faces their first stretch run test, the game plan is unfolding as it was drawn up.