Not a smile in the bunch

We thought we'd mosey on over to practice this morning to see how the morning after a poor effort would be rewarded. It went pretty much as we thought it might...skate, skate, and skate some more. There was a minimum of "down time" to lean in and see what Coach Boudreau had for the next drill. There were a lot of whistles (to start guys on the next round of drills) and a lot of barking (from the coach).

There weren't any smiles, and from where we were, it didn't even seem as if there was much talking among the players. It was just a case of hold your nose, and open wide, 'cuz here comes your medicine.

Now THIS is a draft history...from Hell

We usually bring up Larry Brooks in the context of, "he said what?!" But for those of you Caps fans who sit up late at night sticking pins in little George McPhee and Ross Mahoney dolls, read our pal Lar's tiptoe through the Ranger wreckage of drafts over the last dozen years...

What a roster of first-rounders it is:

1996: Jeff Brown
1997: Stefan Cherneski
1998: Manny Malhotra
1999: Pavel Brendl, Jamie Lundmark
2000: no pick
2001: Dan Blackburn
2002: no pick
2003: Hugh Jessiman
2004: Al Montoya, Lauri Korpikoski
2005: Marc Staal
2006: Bobby Sanguinetti
2007: Alexei Cherepanov
2008: Michael Del Zotto

...yeesh.

Don't look now, but...

Washington: 5-4-1 (11 points)
Tampa Bay: 4-3-3 (11 points)

Mike Smith: 3-2-2, 2.07, .941
Olaf Kolzig: 1-1-1, 2.67, .925

But hey, it's still early...

...right?