The 2009-2010 season, by the "tens" -- Wingers: Mike Knuble

Mike Knuble

Theme: “Dictionary is the only place that success comes before work.”
-- Vince Lombardi

Mike Knuble was a fourth round draft pick of the Detroit Red Wings in 1991, selected just before he embarked on a hockey career with the University of Michigan Wolverines. He spent four years in Ann Arbor, scoring 103 goals in 157 games. He then went on to serve his apprenticeship with the Adirondack Red Wings, recording 51 goals in 154 games (regular season and playoffs). It was during that second full season in Adirondack that he finally got his first cup o’ coffee in the NHL, getting nine games worth of a look at age 24. It wasn’t until the next season, at age 25, that he became a semi-regular in an NHL lineup, getting 53 games of regular season work and three more in the playoffs in what would be the Wings second consecutive run to a Stanley Cup.

The point is Mike Knuble spent a fair number of years as a comparatively unheralded draft pick working hard and climbing the ladder to what would become for him a solid NHL career. He is no stranger to hard work, and it is that ethic – and the style with which he applies it – that made him an attractive free agent to the Capitals last summer.

As you can see from Knuble’s progress in ten-game segments, success was not swiftly coming this past season, and it involved a few detours along the way…

He had five goals and ten assists in his first 18 games – a more than respectable scoring pace – and was on a three-game scoring streak (2-4-6) when he took the ice against Minnesota on November 13th. Then, in the first period of that game, Knuble crashed the net on a power play in the first period – something he’s done a lot of over the years. This time, though, he landed awkwardly in the net, breaking a finger in the process. He would undergo surgery and miss 12 games over the next four weeks.

Coming back in mid-December, he was slow to get his rhythm, going 2-2-4 in his first 11 games after returning to the lineup. But over the last 40 games of the season (in which he played in 39), Knuble recorded 22 goals, five of them power play goals and three of them game-winners. What the Caps were looking for in Knuble came out clearly in the last half of the regular season after injury and a slow start after his return. But in those last 40 games Knuble was the role model for any hockey player whose ticket to success in the NHL is hard work and finding gold in rocky places.

Overall he had a solid record against teams making the playoffs. Against the other 15 teams that made the post-season, Knuble had a “minus” record against only Vancouver. Overall he was 12-10-22, +18 in 33 games, 10-6-16, +17 in 23 games against the other seven teams in the Eastern Conference playoff mix.

Knuble had an especially noteworthy record against the Penguins – 4-2-6, plus-6 in four games, a power play goal, a power play assist, a game-winning goal, and 19 penalty minutes, that last number coming in largely as a product of 17 minutes earned in a 5-4 overtime win at Verizon Center on February 7th. Knuble took an instigator, a fighting major, and a ten-minute misconduct in jumping Craig Adams after Adams sent Alex Ovechkin into the boards shoulder first. Knuble had the last laugh, though. He scored the game-winning goal in overtime.

One would be hard-pressed to find a position at which the Caps realized more of an upgrade than at right wing on the top line. Consider this comparison of Knuble and last year’s incumbent at the position, Viktor Kozlov…

What’s more, as we noted above, Knuble scored 22 goals in the last 39 games he played in the regular season. Last season, Kozlov notched a total of six goals in his last 39 games, only two in his last 22 games.

In the playoffs, Knuble did not have an especially bad series against the Canadiens, but he did not finish nearly as much on a hot streak as he did to finish the regular season. At first blush, a 2-4-6, plus-2 line could be considered productive. But there were the facts that he scored both goals in Game 4 – a 6-3 Capitals win that would be the Caps’ last win of the series, and that he recorded only one assist over the last three games while going minus-3 and registering only seven shots on goal. It was part of the larger disappointment of the top line getting only one goal among them in the last three games of the series, all Caps losses.

Knuble was just what the doctor ordered in his ability to get goals from tight places. And his strong finish gave every indication that the spring would be even more productive. But like the rest of the Caps, it seemed, Knuble could never get the right bounce, find the right spot, or otherwise find a way to solve Jaroslav Halak in the Montreal series. In that respect he was hardly unique. But it was a sour ending to what had become for him a sweet season, one of the best in his career. It just means there is some more hard work ahead before the Caps – and Knuble – can realize the success they are aiming for.

Grade: B+

Sittin' at the end of the bar...

Some interesting numbers from last night's Montreal/Pittsburgh Game 7 and for the series...

-- Blocked shots... Montreal 26 - Pittsburgh 3
-- Turnovers... Pittsburgh 20 - Montreal 1
-- Pittsburgh's fourth line (Rupp, Talbot, Adams)... a combined 17:42 in ice time
-- Montreal's fourth line (Metropolit, Darche, Pouliot)... a combined 7:41 in ice time
-- Number of too-many-men-on-the-ice penalties... two, both by Pittsburgh
-- Penguin power play, Game 1... 4-for-4 (100.0 percent)
-- Penguin power play, Games 2-7... 4-for-25 (16.0 percent)
-- Number of games in post-season Montreal has scored a power play goal... 10 (of 14 games played)
-- Number of games in post-season Montreal scored more than one power play goal... one, last night
-- Shots on goal by Sidney Crosby in Ottawa series... 24 (six games, five goals)
-- Shots on goal by Sidney Crosby in Montreal series... 17 (seven games, one goal)
-- Marc-Andre Fleury, Games 1-3... 2-1, 2.01, .957
-- Marc-Andre Fleury, Games 4-7... 1-3, 3.54, .875
-- Evgeni Malkin, number of even-strength goals in post-season... 1
-- Matt Cooke, number of even-strength goals in post-season... 4

Law and Order: NHL Unit

In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the police, who investigate crime; and the district attorneys, who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories…

Scene: 66 Mario Lemieux Place

Pittsburgh, Hill District

Det. Lennie Briscoe: Whaddawegot here?

Det. Ed Green: Penguins… nothing but dead penguins. Have to be really sick to pull this off.

Briscoe: Cause of death?

Green: Looks like asphyxiation.

Briscoe: You mean someone gassed ‘em?

Green: Can’t tell… looks like they might have done it themselves.

Briscoe: You mean, they choked?

Green: Looks that way….

Doink-doink…

Scene: Precinct Headquarters

Lt. Anita Van Buren: Anything on the Hill District Penguin case?

Briscoe: We have some leads, could be a gang of thugs in red-white and blue colors… similar to a case outta DC, same MO. These guys went right for the head guy, too… some Penguin they call “Crosby.” Took him right out, probably first one to choke. Then we found a really grisly scene around the one they call “Gonchar”… undressed, an athletic supporter lying next to him.

Van Buren: You can say ‘jock’ in here, detective.

Briscoe: Right… well, there was this one Penguin we found over on the bench, curled up, wearing pads and a baseball cap. Whatever they did to him must have been really nasty.

Van Buren: that one have a name?

Briscoe: Fleury… Marc-Andre Fleury.

Doink-doink…

Scene: One Chatham Center, Pittsburgh, Penguins Administrative Offices

Briscoe: Sir, my name’s Detective Briscoe, and this is Detective Green… we’re investigating a possible multiple homicide last night at Mellon Arena. A number of your Penguins were found dead on the ice. Were there any strange comings and goings around the arena?

Administrative Flunky: Well, we did have a hockey game last night. I hope you’ll understand, folks are pretty upset this morning… we were eliminated last night.

Briscoe: Eliminated?

Flunky: I take it you’re not much of a hockey fan, detective.

Green: Lennie, he’s referring to the Penguins. They played the Montreal Canadiens last night… got beat 5-2 to end their season.

Briscoe: Yeah, well, I’m a Yankee fan. And do you think the events are related, sir?

Flunky: Well, I don’t know. Have you talked to the coach?

Briscoe: The coach?

Flunky: Yeah… Dan Bylsma. He was behind the bench last night. He might know.

Doink-doink

Scene: Office of Head Coach Dan Bylsma

Briscoe: Coach Bylsma?

Bylsma: yeah…

Briscoe: I’m Detective Briscoe, and this is Detective Green. We’re investigating a possible homicide at Mellon Arena last night and…

Bylsma: Can this wait? We just had our season end last night, and we’re packing things up for the summer.

Briscoe: I’m afraid not. Sir, you were behind the bench last night. Would you say that there were any strange happenings while you were there?

Bylsma: You could say that. We stunk. Crosby takes a penalty ten seconds into the game. They score 22 seconds later. Then Cooke takes a penalty… puts us behind the eight ball.

Green: And this is unusual behavior?

Bylsma: We’re the Stanley Cup champs! Well, we were until last night. Then we go and play stupid. You’d think they were choking right there on the ice.

Briscoe: Choking?

Bylsma: Choking, gagging, taking it in the throat. You want me to draw you pictures, detective?

Briscoe: That won’t be necessary. We’ve heard that there were others in the building… a gang wearing red, white, and blue colors. You know anything about that?

Bylsma: The Canadiens.

Briscoe: And they would be…

Bylsma: The other team. The one that beat us.

Briscoe: You mean with a blunt instrument?

Bylsma: Not unless you consider a hockey stick a blunt instrument.

Briscoe: Well actually, we do. But about those…

Bylsma: Canadiens

Briscoe: Canadiens… did you actually see them beat your Penguins?

Bylsma: Like a bunch of whipped dogs. It was ugly. I had to get Fleury out of there. They were all over him.

Briscoe: Fleury?

Green: The one we found over at the bench in the baseball cap.

Briscoe: I see… and do you think these Canadiens had a motive for this beating?

Bylsma: Sure… they want to win the Stanley Cup, just like we did… well, I thought we did, but not the way we played last night.

Briscoe: And these Canadiens, could you tell us where they might be now?

Bylsma: Probably in Montreal getting drunk, waiting to see if they’ll be heading to Boston or Philadelphia.

Doink-doink

Scene: Office of the District Attorney

Executive Assistant District Attorney Jack McCoy: What do you have for me detectives?

Briscoe: Looks like it’s pointing to a homicide. Right there in the middle of the ice. A gang that calls themselves the “Canadiens” were after this cup…

Green: Stanley Cup

Briscoe: Right… and the Penguins were the bunch that had it. Robbery seems to be the motive. But there seems to be something strange about this.

McCoy: What’s that, detective?

Briscoe: These Canadiens. They’re hardly in hiding. They’ve been all over ESPN this morning and this NHL Network. Not exactly the sort of behavior you would expect of killers.

McCoy: Not exactly. Anything else you’ve been able to turn up?

Briscoe: We did some digging into their backgrounds, and it seems that last night was the seventh time these gangs locked up in the last couple of weeks – in Montreal and in Pittsburgh. No one got killed, but there was a guy who was sliced and another one who tore up his knee. The more we dig into this, the smellier it gets.

McCoy: What do you mean, detective?

Briscoe: We looked at a few of these Penguins. Take this one they call “Malkin”… won an award last year – most valuable Penguin, for all I know…

Green: …he had only one goal and two assists in the first six games. And Gonchar…

Briscoe: He’s the one we found undressed with the jock lying next to him…

Green: A couple of goals in the first six games, but he didn’t get a point last night and was on the ice for three of the first four goals the Canadiens scored. Ponikarovsky – a guy they traded for – no goals in the four games leading up to last night, and he put up another zero last night. Another one… Talbot – a hero last year, unheard from last night. But here is the strangest one. Crosby – he had three points in the last six games of the series, didn’t get any last night, and he was on the ice for three of the first four goals the Canadiens scored and was in the penalty box on the other one.

Briscoe: He’s the only one I heard of… I thought he was supposed to be clutch.

Green: Well, apparently not. Last night was the seventh time he played in an NHL playoff game where his team faced elimination. And after last night, his teams are 3-4 in those seven games, and he has only two goals and four assists in them.

McCoy: Not too clutch, if you ask me, and it sounds as if you don’t have much of a case against these Canadiens for murder. It sounds to me as if these Penguins just choked… Gonchar getting undressed out of his jock… Crosby not delivering in Game 7… Fleury getting yanked to the bench… Malkin, well, who knows what he was doing. No, I don’t think we’re looking at a homicide here, detectives. Not one I could prove in court, at any rate. They did it to themselves.

Briscoe: So you’re just sayin’ they choked? Right there on the ice?

McCoy: You said it, detective, I didn’t (smiles).

Doink-doink…

The 2009-2010 season, by the "tens" -- Wingers: Brooks Laich

Brooks Laich

Theme: "The ordinary man is involved in action, the hero acts. An immense difference."

-- Henry Miller

OK, “hero” is a bit much for a 25-goal scorer, but if that day comes when the Caps do win a Stanley Cup, we’re going to bet that Brooks Laich will be right up there among the reasons they do so. On a team with young guns such as Alex Ovechkin, Alexander Semin, Nicklas Backstrom, and Mike Green, Laich held his own statistically. He finished fifth on the club in goals, fifth in assists, fifth in points, tied for fifth in power play goals, tied for fifth in takeaways, second in power play goals, second among forwards in blocked shots, third among forwards in shorthanded ice time, fourth among forwards in power play ice time. His ten game segments, though, were somewhat uneven…

…he had the appearance of a strong start (10-15-25, plus-5 in his first 29 games) and a strong finish (14-14-28, plus-15 in his last 31 games – he missed four games at the end of March). He was 1-5-6, minus-4 in the 18 games in-between, from December 7th through January 15th.

Against Eastern Conference teams making the playoffs, Laich finished 10-10-20, plus-5 in 26 games – a 32-32-64, plus-16 pace, not all that different from his overall season results. But underneath what looks like consistency is the same sort of roller coaster kind of ride that reflected his overall numbers. Against Boston, Montreal, and Philadelphia, he was 10-6-16, plus-8. Against the other four playoff teams he was 0-4-4, minus-3.

Laich is something of a hidden weapon in one respect. Of all NHL forwards finishing the year with at least 25 goals, Laich tied for third in the share of his goals coming with the man advantage – 48.0 percent. Only Tomas Holmstrom (13 of 25) and Teemu Selanne (14 of 27) had a larger share of their goals come on the power play. Not bad, considering Laich finished 95th among forwards in average time on ice on the power play (2:57/game). Over the last three years, Laich has 29 power play goals among his 69 total tallies (42.0 percent).

The uneven manner in which Laich posted his numbers came back to haunt him in a key respect. One might have foreseen this as the regular season drew to a close. It started at a practice on March 23rd, when Laich was hit in the cheek by a shot from John Carlson that hit the crossbar and ricocheted into Laich’s face. He missed four games (the only ones he’s missed in the past three seasons), and he finished up with a goal and two assists in his last six games after returning to the lineup. The dip in production carried over into the playoffs as Laich was held without a point in five of the first six games of the series against Montreal. Fittingly, it seems, in the game in which he did score he recorded the game-winning goal in a 5-1 win. He would score one more goal in the series – in Game 7 – but by the time it came, with barely two minutes remaining in the Caps’ season, it ended up coming too late.

Laich’s progress has been steady and sure in the most often cited numbers. In five seasons since the lockout, he has improved his goals scored from seven in the 2005-2006 season to eight, 21, 23, and 25 this past season. Assists – 14, 10, 16, 20, 34. He was a “minus” player in that 2005-2006 season (gee, who wasn’t?), but was a plus-16 this past season. Power play goals increased – one, two, eight, nine and 12 over the last five seasons. He had 11 game winning goals over the past three seasons. And this statistic might end up being the most important one going forward – he finished third on the club with 222 shots on goal, behind only Alex Ovechkin and Alexander Semin. As a player who was famously quoted as saying, “"If you want money, go to the bank. If you want bread, go to the bakery. If you want goals, go to the net,” he spent a lot of time baking this past season, and he could be a critical net presence for the Caps in the future. On a team that features players who take a large number of intermediate and perimeter shots, having that presence is crucial to the team’s success.

Over the past five seasons, Laich has emerged as a clubhouse leader, one who was frequently mentioned as a potential team captain. That he does not wear the “C” does not diminish his capacity to lead, and his example on and off the ice suggests a maturity greater than one might expect from a player who is still only 26 years old. His adventure after the Game 7 disappointment against Montreal is already something of a legend. His humility in the face of such a gesture, remarking that “it was just a tire, it’s not that big a deal,” only adds to his “hero” narrative.

Yes, “hero” is probably too much of an adjective to describe the sort of season and career arc Laich has had, but he is the kind of player that is both consequential on winning clubs and the kind of person that would appear to make teammates – not to mention a couple of fans – happier for having him on their side.

Grade: B+

And in other news...

That research is going to come in handy, we suspect...

The 2009-2010 season, by the "tens" -- Wingers: Alexander Semin

Alexander Semin

Theme: “All genius is a conquering of chaos and mystery.”

There is perhaps no more mysterious player in the NHL than Alexander Semin. A genius with the puck – shooting it or passing it – he is also perhaps the most confounding of Caps. 2009-2010 was Semin’s best year statistically, and it would have seemed to be the springboard to even bigger things, as the ten-game segments suggest…

After missing seven games with a wrist injury in late November, Semin closed the regular season by going 31-36-67, plus-35 in 55 games (a 48-56-104, plus-54 pace). And it didn’t stop there. For the season, for those wingers playing in at least 40 games, Semin finished at 5-on-5 (numbers from behindthenet.ca)…

-- Second in goals/60 minutes (1.71, to teammate Alex Ovechkin)
-- Third in points per 60 minutes (1.71, behind Ovechkin and Daniel Sedin)
-- Third in plus/minus per 60 minutes (behind Ovechkin and Sedin)

Semin also improved in his ability to protect the puck. His 0.79 giveaways per game was the best such value since the lockout and represented a 25 percent improvement over the 2008-2009 season. And, this was his second consecutive season in which takeaways outnumbered giveaways.

Semin had a spectacular record against Eastern Conference teams this season, going 33-35-68, plus 28 in 55 games (a 49-52-101, plus-42 pace). He hardly skipped a beat against teams that made the playoffs, too, going 14-16-30, plus-11 in 24 games (a 48-55-103, plus-36 pace).

Even the injury bug failed to pay Semin its usual frequent visits. He missed two games to illness and seven more to a wrist injury, but then played in the last 55 games of the year without incident. This after 11 separate occurrences over the previous three seasons in which Semin missed a total of 44 games to injury or illness.

And there was another aspect of Semin’s game that presented itself this season – penalty killer. On a team that had a generally weak penalty killing performance for the year, Semin took a semi-regular rotation among the forwards called upon to kill penalties (of Caps forwards spending the entire season with the club, Semin was seventh in average shorthanded ice time). And his goals against (on ice) per 60 minutes of 4-on-5 ice time was better than that of Jonathan Toews, Sidney Crosby, Henrik Zetterberg, Joe Thornton, and Patrick Sharp, to pick from among a number of forwards with roughly equivalent or more shorthanded ice time.

There is an aspect of Semin’s game, though, that is (and continues to be) disturbing. He took 33 minor penalties this season, most since he took 45 in the 2006-2007 season. It isn’t the “how many” as much as the “what,” however. Of those 33 minor infractions, 20 of them were for “obstruction” types of fouls (tripping, interference, holding, hooking). He had 22 such penalties last year (14 for hooking alone), 14 the previous year (13 for hooking). He also took 21 of his 33 minor penalties in the last 42 games of the season. Whether this is a product of a long season (fatigue, loss of focus) or just harebrained play is an open question.

The playoffs this year were, as any Cap fan knows (and still gnashes their teeth over), another frustrating story. The second round is almost over, and Semin remains ranked fifth in shots on goal (44). For all that apparent effort – no goals (and only two assists, while we’re counting). He had 24 of those shots on goal in the last three games of the Montreal series (nine of those shots coming on Capitals power plays, more than any Cap had in those games). If Semin had scored goals consistent with his shooting percentage for the season (14.4 percent), the six goals it would have meant over the series would have us not writing this just yet.

Alex Ovechkin gets the ink and pixels, Nicklas Backstrom is this year’s most known unknown player. But Alexander Semin is an elite offensive talent who has the capacity to be consistent 100-point scorer (over the last two seasons, that is the pace at which he has put up points). He also has the capacity to be a passable, if not above average two-way forward. But he has a penchant for taking the odd and seemingly lazy sort of penalty, and he need to establish himself as a player who can survive the grind of the NHL’s season without lapsing into periods of ill focus.

As for the playoff situation, not getting a goal in 44 shots is not necessarily symptomatic of his being a player who comes up short in the playoffs routinely – he did have eight goals and 14 assists in 21 playoff games over his previous two seasons. But his absence from the score sheet was keenly felt in this year’s post season.

Next year, Semin will be playing for what might be the biggest payday he will enjoy in his NHL career, as he embarks on a contract year (he is on a one-year deal for $6 million). If he does take his place among the elite, he could conceivably price himself out of a contract with the Caps after next season, but if it comes as the product of a big season and a Stanley Cup, all sides will likely be happy with the result. This year was a step toward that end, if an incomplete one.

Grade: B+

The 2009-2010 season, by the "tens" -- Wingers: Alex Ovechkin

Alex Ovechkin

Theme: “…if you listen real close, you can hear them whisper their legacy to you...Listen, you hear it? ‘Carpe’…hear it? ‘Carpe…carpe diem.’ Seize the day boys, make your lives extraordinary.”

-- John Keating (“Dead Poets Society")

It is hard to think that a player who registered his fourth 50-goal season, his fourth 100-point season, finished a plus-45 (2nd in the league), finished with seven game-winning goals (tied for 4th), had 13 power play goals (tied for sixth), had 14 multi-goal games, and was 30-4-7 as captain of the club could be said to have an unsatisfying year, but there it is. His ten-game segments look rather impressive

And those numbers don’t tell the whole story. Among wingers playing in at least 40 games, Ovechkin finished at 5-on-5:

- First in goals/60 minutes of ice time (1.90)
- Third in primary assists/60 minutes: (1.32)
- Second in points/60 minutes (3.75)
- First in plus/minus (on ice) per 60 minutes (+2.80)
- Second in plus/minus differential per 60 minutes, on ice/off ice (+2.69)

Stiffer competition appeared to bring out the best of Ovechkin’s game. In 25 games against the seven teams that would make the playoffs in the East in addition to the Caps, he was 20-22-42, plus-36. He scored 12 goals against the Pennsylvania teams alone, seven of them against Pittsburgh. His durability was never in question, either – he had 10 goals in 11 games he played that were the second half of back-to-back games.

But Ovechkin, in addition to all those gaudy numbers, missed ten regular season games (four of which came as a result of two suspensions), played in only four games at the Vancouver Olympics because Team Russia was plastered across the Canada Hockey Place ice by Team Canada in the playoff-round of that tournament, and did not manage to drag his Washington Capitals teammates out of the first round of the Stanley Cup tournament.

It’s numbers versus hardware, and Ovechkin’s season will include much more of the former than the latter. No Olympic medal, no Stanley Cup, no Ross (won by Henrik Sedin), no Richard (won by Steven Stamkos and Sidney Crosby), and the possibility of not taking home either of the two individual NHL trophies (Hart, Lindsay) for which he is a finalist.

What happened? Well, the obvious fault line on which Ovechkin’s season appears to have fractured is the Olympics. Before the Games, he was 42-47-89, plus-43 in 54 games. Had he played the last 20 games after the break at that pace he would have finished 58-64-122, plus-59. And if anything, that is a conservative estimate. Over a 32-game stretch that began with his first game back after serving his first suspension and ending with his penultimate game before the Olympic break, Ovechkin was 24-35-59, plus-30 (a 62-90-152, plus-77 82-game pace).

However, he played in 18 of the last 20 games – he served the second of his two suspensions after a hit on Chicago’s Brian Campbell that broke his collarbone – and went 8-12-20, plus-2. That would be a fine pace for 95 percent of the players in the league, but it wasn’t “Ovechkinesque,” and it would be a signal of the frustration that would be the end-game of his season.

OK, if the Olympics was the obvious bright line separating the two parts of his season, was there a less obvious reason for his results? The two suspensions might have affected him in a way that is hard to quantify outside of this obvious statistical measure. His hits-to-games played ratio this season of 2.57:1 is his lowest such number since his second season (2.24:1). Hits are, to a significant extent, an arbitrary measure dependent on what the scorer sees. But the suspensions seem to have discombobulated Ovechkin in terms of how far he could push his game, and they brought upon him some negative press that seems to have flummoxed him just that much more. His game ended up lacking a certain rhythm to it that was there when he was on top of his game.

Ovechkin did a lot of things right this season. There are the obvious things – the goals, the points, the plus-minus. He took over the captaincy, and the club responded with a remarkable 30-4-7 record. But there was a less obvious signal of a maturity in Ovechkin’s game, and that was his safekeeping of the puck. His 76 giveaways in 72 games represented a 21 percent reduction in giveaways, measured in giveaways per game. It was the best year of his career in that respect. And, he was clutch in terms of when his goals game. 34 of his 50 goals came with the Caps tied, behind by one, or ahead by one.

But having collected all those numbers, it is still the team prize that eludes him. It was all on display in the first round of the playoffs. Games 1-4… four goals (on ten shots), eight points, plus-eight, and the Caps had a 3-1 lead in games. Games 5-7… one goal (on 24 shots), two points, minus-2, and the Caps were sent packing after losing three straight.

Ovechkin’s fault? No, but he is the Captain, too. And if you want to give him the lion’s share of the credit for that 33-5-7 run as captain that took the Caps to the brink of advancing to the second round of the playoffs, then that is the share of responsibility he must bear for the last three games. He had numbers (he is still tied for 21st in scoring and tied for ninth in goals scored, even though he has played at least two fewer playoff games than any player in front of him), but he is playing in the World Championships this week – a rather cruel naming convention, given the fact that most of the elite talent in the world of hockey is still playing in North America.

Last year we said of Ovechkin…

“Next year will be a telling year in the career of Alex Ovechkin. He will be 24 years old when the season ends. That’s barely getting started in most walks of life, but looking at the greats – Gretzky won his first Cup at age 23, Mario Lemieux at 25, Maurice Richard at 22, Bobby Orr at 21, Gordie Howe at 21. The window is open for Ovechkin to join those greats, and to be mentioned in the same breath as them, he will have to have his name engraved on the same piece of hardware.”

Well, the clock is ticking – loudly – on Ovechkin’s chances to lead a team to a Stanley Cup. He has been compared with those all-time greats of the game – Gretzky, Lemieux, Richard, Howe. Ovechkin will be 25 years old on Opening Night of the 2010-2011 season. By that age, Gretzky had two Cups, as had Richard and Howe. Lemieux would finish that season winning his first. There is also the matter of his nemesis – Sidney Crosby – having already won a Cup at age 21 and in the running for another at age 22. Not every great player who wins their first Stanley Cup does it at the age of 31, as did Steve Yzerman in 1997. Ovechkin has but one number left to collect of meaning…

One, as in “one” Stanley Cup.

Grade: A-

The 2009-2010 season, by the "tens" -- Centers: Boyd Gordon

Boyd Gordon

Theme: “The back bone connected to the neck bone, the neck bone connected to the head bone…Dem bones, dem bones, gonna walk aroun', Oh, hear the word of the Lord.”

A traditional spiritual song and hockey might not seem to go together, but Boyd Gordon’s back didn’t seem to get along much with hockey this season, either. Gordon missed 41 games in three different stints due to back injuries. It was very unfortunate for Gordon, for not only did he never really get much traction in cementing a place in the lineup, the statistics he did put up put him on a pace for one of, if not his best offensive season. His ten-game segments went like this…

…and what one can see is that he closed relatively strongly. Those fifth, sixth, and seventh segments were especially strong for him. Over that stretch he played 26 games and went 4-4-8, plus-7. That’s not a pace that is going to challenge for a Ross Trophy, but it would be a pace for a 13-13-26, plus-22 season. His best offensive season prior to this was his 7-22-29, plus-10 season in 2006-2007 in which he played 71 games.

And it is the last part that was the problem. Gordon managed to dress for only 36 games this season, only eight in the 2009 portion of the season. He did not manage his first goal of the season until getting the first one in a 5-2 win over Ottawa on January 7th, the Caps’ 43rd game but only the tenth for Gordon on the year. All four of the goals he would score came in wins, and all four came in situations when the Caps were tied, behind one goal, or up one goal.

The frustrating part is that Gordon showed up in some odd, or what might strike Caps fans as odd for him, places. Looking at the numbers put together at behindthenet.ca, Gordon had a “goals against on ice per 60 minutes” number (2.01) that was roughly comparable to that of Detroit’s Pavel Datsyuk (2.06). Yes, Datsyuk does play against better competition (.036 to -.069), but Datsyuk is the two-time defending Selke Trophy winner, too.

Gordon’s “plus-minus on ice per 60 minutes” was seventh best among all centers playing in at least 30 games. OK, there is that quality of competition thing, again, but Gordon still managed to hold his own in the situations in which he played…well, to a point.

Although he had that seventh-best plus/minus number, he one of only two centers in the top 24 to have a lower plus/minus number on ice than off ice (and that assumes that Brooks Laich was a “center,” which for most of the season he was not).

Gordon continued to be something of a wizard in the faceoff circle. He did not qualify for inclusion among the league’s faceoff leaders for the season, but his 61.0 percent would have led the league over a full season (Scott Nichol led the league at 60.6 percent). In fact, in only eight of the 36 games that Gordon played did he finish below 50 percent on draws. But… he was only 35-34 on draws while shorthanded.

Gordon had some odd splits in his abbreviated season. He played 18 games against teams that made the playoffs this spring, and he finished 3-3-6, +4 in those games. He was a “minus” player against only one of those 11 playoff teams he faced (minus-2 against Philadelphia in two games). But then there was his finish against also-rans Carolina, St. Louis, Florida, Toronto, and the Islanders – 0-0-0, minus-6 in eight games.

He ended up dressing for six of the seven games against Montreal in the opening round of the playoffs, and the six games mirrored his season. One goal, the first one in a 5-1 Capitals win in Game 3. Five times in six games he finished 50 percent or better on draws (67.9 overall), although he was only 8-for-15 in shorthanded situations. He had no giveaways in 66 minutes of total ice time. He was eighth on the team in hits, which might not sound like much (he was credited with eight overall), but it was more than Jason Chimera had.

Gordon is at something of a crossroads. At 26, he has – in theory – a fair number of hockey years ahead of him. But over the last five years he has lost 83 games to injury. He is a good defensive player, to a point (he had the best goals-against on ice per 60 minutes on the penalty kill for Caps centers, but he still ranked 37th highest among 160 centers in that statistic), an efficient faceoff man. But he has provided little offense, and there is the uncomfortable feeling that Gordon may have come as far as he is going to go. And, there is the lingering issue of his durability. He is not likely to command a large contract (he is a restricted free agent), but with David Steckel’s $1.1 million contract over each of the next three years about to kick in, there might not be a spot for Gordon on this club.

Grade: C+

The 2009-2010 season, by the "tens" -- Centers: David Steckel

David Steckel

Theme: “What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence”

-- Samuel Johnson

When first we saw David Steckel this season we thought that perhaps this was it; this would be the season when he added some offense to his abilities as a defender, penalty killer, and faceoff specialist. When last we saw him, we didn’t. Steckel did not dress for Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Quarterfinal series against the Montreal Canadiens. In fact, he dressed for only one of the last five games, a victim of numbers and perhaps the small, mobile character of the Montreal forwards he would have been asked to match up against.

It was a year in which Steckel appeared to move neither forward, nor backward, but rather sort of sideways. His 5-11-16, plus-4 in 79 games looked a lot like his 8-11-19, plus-2 in 2008-2009. He improved some on his faceoffs, winning 59.2 percent of the 1,076 draws he took versus 57.9 percent of the 886 draws he took in 2008-2009.  His ten-game segments looked like this...

Overall, you might say his defense improved, too. Comparing last season to this, his goals against/on ice per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 dropped from 1.94 to 1.82. His plus/minus on ice per 60 minutes improved from -0.16 to +0.50 (all numbers from behind the net.ca).

Looking at his ten-game segments, he evidenced better offensive production as the year moved along, but you also had the feeling that there was more there. Not that the Caps needed it, given the team’s finish at the top of the scoring heap. But Steckel recorded 13 fewer shots on goal for the season (about a quarter of a shot on goal a game).

He had reasonably good numbers against higher caliber competition. In 38 games against teams that made the playoffs, Steckel finished 3-5-8, plus-4; he was 2-6-8, even, against everyone else. Like a lot of Caps, he saved his best for the Atlantic Division, against which he was 1-4-5, even, in 20 games, registering at least a point against every team in that division except, perhaps curiously, the Islanders.

Perhaps one reason his offensive production did not improve was that he failed to score against Tampa Bay. In his previous two seasons, Steckel was 6-5-11, plus-7 in 12 games against the Lightning. He finished this season 0-1-1, even, in five games.

Steckel struggled some at home. In 39 games played at Verizon Center, he was 2-5-7, minus-3, the two goals coming despite managing 52 shots on goal. And, in what would be a harbinger of things to come, the only three games he missed during the season came in the post-Olympic portion of the season (he played in 17 of 20 games), a product of the crowded situation at forward following the trading deadline. It also was accompanied by his failing to hit the 50 percent mark in faceoff wins in eight of those 17 games that he did play.

The playoffs were something of an odd circumstance for Steckel. He played in only three of the games, two of which Montreal won. In those games, Montreal scored a total of 12 goals. Steckel was on the ice for one of them – the first goal the Canadiens scored in the series, a power play goal by Mike Cammalleri. Seven hits, four blocked shots, 18-13 on draws (58.1 percent).

Last year we said of Steckel, “Steckel has fewer than two full years of NHL game experience (155 games). This was only his second full season with the Caps, and in just about every statistical category you’d care to name, he improved on his first full season. He did show an ability to score at the AHL level, and one might hope that he continues improvement along those lines…” That improvement was very much incremental this year and uneven as well. The improvement in offense over the last part of the season gave way to an unremarkable playoff (0-0-0, plus-1 in three games, no shots on goal in 31:25 of playing time).

Last year at this time, one might have had a clear picture of Steckel’s role on the club moving forward – centering a checking line, being effective in the defensive end and in the faceoff circle, perhaps a bit of an improvement in the offensive end. But this year, that picture is cloudier. He took a seat for four of the last five games of the series against Montreal, which raises questions about where he is on the Capitals’ depth chart. But he has a three-year contract kicking in next year, and he is one of only seven forwards under contract for next season.

It was something of a “sideways” season for Steckel, but he has the ability to do the little things well. And those will be skills the Caps could use if they are to take the next step.

Grade: B-

Sittin' at the end of the bar

We were just sittin’ here thinking…

-- If we had a Conn Smythe vote this early, our finalists would be… Jaroslav Halak, Joe Pavelski, and… Miroslav Satan?

-- Satan has five goals and ten points in nine games, three of his goals being game-winners. Three of his goals gave the Bruins a lead in games, the other two came with the Bruins up a goal.

-- Find it a little odd that at this juncture of the playoffs, not one goaltender has a GAA under 2.00 (last year, Tim Thomas had a 1.85 GAA in 11 games, and Chris Osgood had a 2.01 in 23 games). Only Tuukka Rask is close at this point – 2.18.

-- How little does goaltending seem to matter this spring? Evgeni Nabokov and Marc-Andre Fleury, both of whom are still playing, and neither of whom backstop a team trailing in their respective series, have save percentages under .900. Four goalies have save percentages above .920, and two of them are on teams that have been eliminated (Buffalo’s Ryan Miller and Colorado’s Craig Anderson). And the guys ranked fifth and sixth – Brian Boucher and Jimmy Howard – are on the brink of elimination.

-- Johan Franzen, 6-11-17… Henrik Zetterberg, 7-8-15…, Pavel Datsyuk, 6-7-13… Nicklas Lidstrom, 4-6-10… Brian Rafalski, 2-8-10. They’re getting the scoring. So why are the Wings on the brink of elimination? Well, they’re allowing San Jose 33.5 shots a game (compared to their regular season average of 29.4). The puck control team isn’t controlling the puck as much as it needs to, and the rookie is seeing too much rubber in goal.

-- Yeah, Philly is missing Jeff Carter and Simon Gagne. But when the snow settles back onto the ice, one is going to wonder… where were Scott Hartnell (no goals) and James Van Riemsdyk (no goals)? And between them, they are a minus-10. OK, Van Riemsdyk is a rookie, but when Daniel Carcillo and Arron Asham are in your top six in scoring… not good.

-- It has become blindingly clear at this point… as Crosby goes, so go the Penguins. No one else is stepping up consistently. And he is 0-3-3, minus-2 in his last five games with only 11 shots on goal (five of those last night). Is Sid finally getting tired?

-- OK, who what deal did Mikael Samuelsson make with the Devil? The guy has eight goals (career playoff best) and 12 points (within one of a career playoff best), and he’s done it in nine games. He might not be this year’s “John Druce” (he did have 30 goals for the Canucks this year), but you wouldn’t have picked him to be second among all players in postseason goals, now, would you?

-- OK, hits are something of an arbitrary statistic, dependent on what the official scorer sees, but tell me you had “Darren Helm” leading the postseason in hits.

-- And in the “take one for the team” category… Hal Gill, first in blocked shots… Josh Gorges, third… Roman Hamrlik, fifth... Ryan O’Byrne, ninth. There are more blocks there than the Redskins offensive line had against opposing defenses last season.

-- Not liking that John Carlson still leads all players in giveaways (ok, he’s tied). But hey, what’s Duncan Keith doing up there only one behind?

The 2009-2010 season, by the "tens" -- Centers: Brendan Morrison

Brendan Morrison

Theme: “Promises are like the full moon, if they are not kept at once they diminish day by day”

It might be a German proverb, but it seems to capture the season Brendan Morrison had on the ice for the Caps. Morrison was signed as a free agent in July 2010 from what might be called the “ding and dent” aisle. The former Hobey Baker Award winner had wrist and knee injuries that limited him to 39 games with Vancouver in 2007-2008. The following year might have been a recuperation year for Morrison, for even though he played in 81 games between Anaheim and Dallas, he mustered only 15 goals and 31 points, which was not much of an improvement over his 39-game totals of the previous year (9 goals, 25 points). It was his lowest goal total for a full season since 2000-2001 and his lowest point for a full season for his career.

Signing Morrison, especially given the potential for rekindling some magic with former Michigan Wolverine teammate Mike Knuble (already signed to a deal as a free agent), looked like a potential bargain. It started that way, too, but as you look at his ten-game segments, you will also see that like the full moon, the promise of his being a bargain diminished, if not day by day, then ten-game segment by ten-game segment…

Morrison started out 9-14-23 in his first three ten-game segments, putting him on a pace for a 25-38-63 season. If the Caps realized that level of production, it would have been the highest point total for a Capitals’ second-line center since Joe Juneau put up 64 points in the 1995-1996 season. But something happened starting with the 30th game. While Semyon Varlamov was shutting out the Tampa Bay Lightning, 3-0, in St. Pete Forum, Morrison was going without a point and losing nine of 12 draws in 15 minutes and change of ice time. It would be the first game of a considerable drought for Morrison, who would go 1-5-6 over his next 22 games.

It would not get much better after that. Starting with that 30th game of the season, Morrison would go 3-16-19 over his last 45 games (he missed eight games to injury and scratches), a 5-35-40 scoring pace. While his season totals represented an improvement over his 2009-2010 season in some respects (total scoring, plus/minus, faceoffs), but the season that started so well ended rather poorly.

It did not improve during the playoffs. He was not given a sweater for Games 1 or 6, and he was ineffective otherwise, registering one assist in the five games he played in an average of 12 minutes of ice time.

What makes Morrison’s numbers even less satisfying is that he was 5-14-19 in 23 games against Southeast Division competition, not exactly the most fearsome the NHL had to offer. He was 7-16-23 in 51 games outside the Southeast, not the sort of numbers that you would expect – or, in fact, need – to have from the second line center.

If you are looking for a statistical comparable, at least in the usual sorts of general numbers you see in the tables, Morrison’s line (12-30-42,105 shots, 15:44 average TOI) resembles that of Steve Reinprecht of the Panthers (16-22-38, 124 shots, 16:05 average TOI), and you could probably explain away the differences in their plus-minus (+23 vs. -1) as being a product of the Caps being the Caps and Panthers being, well… the Panthers. Morrison might have been the better economic bargain ($1.5 million cap hit vs. $2.05 million for Reinprecht), but all in all, we think of Morrison’s year as being something of a disappointment…

-- He did not record goals in consecutive games.
-- He had a total of six multi-point games, two over his last 47 games.
-- He failed to record a shot on goal in nine of his last 30 games and had one shot on goal in eight others.

On the bright side, though, Morrison did provide one of the highlights of the season for the Caps…



It was the game winning goal in the last game before Christmas. Alas, Morrison would score only two more goals over the rest of the season, and only three times would he record points in consecutive games (twice getting points in three straight).  The hunt for a productive second line center continues.

Grade: C-

The 2009-2010 season, by the "tens" -- Centers: Nicklas Backstrom

Well, it starts a lot earlier than we might have envisioned, let alone liked. But here we are to take a look back at the 2009-2010 season by “the tens.” We start with the centers…

Nicklas Backstrom

Theme: “Improvement starts with ‘I’”

Sometimes, it is hard to fathom that Nicklas Backstrom just completed his third year in the NHL and that he is just 22 years old. His play this season was more like that of a 32-year old in many respects. But in this, his third season, he could lay claim to having improved his game to where he could be mentioned as being among the top five centers of the game. First on the list of improvements, his consistency, as reflected in his tens…

For the third consecutive year Backstrom played in all 82 games, and the hallmark of that effort was in not recording fewer than ten points in any ten-game stretch of the season. Even within this season-long run of consistency, though, Backstrom showed improvement. He started the season in a manner quite different than how he started the 2008-2009 season. In his sophomore campaign, he had but one point in his first six games and didn’t register his first goal until Game 15 of the season. This year, he came out blazing – eight assists in his first three games, four goals (and 18 assists) in his first 15 games.

The four goals would be a signal. After potting a pair in each of his first two ten-game segments, Backstrom would then record 22 goals over the next four ten-game segments. In those middle 40 games, Backstrom was 22-31-53, plus-31. The key there would be his goal-scoring. He would pass his previous career high (22), set the previous season, in the 55th game of the year, against Tampa Bay on January 31st.

What distinguished Backstrom’ season was how clutch a player he had become in just his third year. For example…

-- Of his 33 goals, six came with the Caps trailing by one goal, seven came with the Caps leading by a goal, and 12 came with the Caps tied with their opponent. 25 of his 33 goals came in situations where the outcome was uncertain.

-- Against the other seven teams that made the Eastern Conference playoffs, he finished 10-29-39, plus 23 in 28 games, a 29-85-114, plus-67 pace. He hardly padded his stats on a collection of stiffs.

-- He seems to have had an especially surly attitude with respect to the two franchises in Pennsylvania, going 3-16-19, plus-13, in only eight games against the Flyers and Penguins.

And, he had a finishing kick – he did not go consecutive games without a point over his last 40 games (18-37-55, plus-23, and three of his four game-winning goals). In fact, beginning with his 1-4-5 performance against the Flyers on December 5th, he went lower than having recorded nine points in his previous ten games played only three times (covering 54 individual sets of ten game elements).

His durability is most obviously reflected in his having completed his third consecutive 82-games played season. But here is another reflection of that durability – Backstrom was 5-9-14, plus-7 in 13 games that constituted the back end of back-to-back games.

Backstrom also has shown improvement in the little things, one of them a bit surprising. First, his faceoff winning percentage, while not yet fearsome, has improved – 46.3 percent in his rookie year, 48.7 percent last year, and 49.9 percent this season. But the improvement is much more pronounced on the power play, improving from 46.5 percent in 2007-2008 to 50.3 percent last year, and then to 57.6 percent this season.

Backstrom, as part of developing two-way game, also improved his blocked shot totals. In 2007-2008 he blocked a total of 34 shots, improving to 46 last season. His total of 62 blocked shots this season represents an almost doubling of his blocked shots over his rookie season.

Then there is the matter of an emerging physical game. Backstrom is a far cry from the 34-hit center he was in his rookie year. The 90 hits he recorded this season does not put him among the league-leading centers (say, a Ryan Getzlaf), but he did record more hits than Vincent Lecavalier, Eric Staal, Sidney Crosby, Jonathan Toews, and Evgeni Malkin.

In what would become The Nightmare on Seventh Street against the Canadiens in the opening round of the playoffs, Backstrom still displayed an ability to be clutch and produce in numbers. In Games 1-4 he was 5-4-9, plus-8 with one of the Caps’ three game-winning goals. But then, his production disappeared (0-0-0, minus-1 in games 5-7, all Caps losses). The hint at what might have been the problem was reflected in one statistic. In Game 1-4 Backstrom had 20 shots on goal, while in the last three games he managed only seven shots. The problem might have been a shoulder injury suffered earlier in the series that incapacitated an important part of his game, one that was critical to the Caps’ success this season, his ability to relieve Alex Ovechkin of some of the goal-scoring burden.

Backstrom has improved consistently and measurably in almost every aspect of his game from last year to this. He is in the conversation when one ponders the top five centers in the game. It makes one wonder what sort of things we might be writing next year, when Backstrom is not yet 24 years old. Hopefully, one of the things we will be writing about is his being a critical cog in a Stanley Cup champion. Sign him, George!

Two years ago we wrote of Backstrom…

“Improvement and consistency. These are precisely the things one might ask for in a student. Nicklas Backstrom came a long way this year, and while he has a long way to go, he learned his lessons well."

We repeated the sentiment last year. Well, like clockwork, or his reliably being in the lineup and producing, it is once more the statement that seems an apt description of Backstrom’s season in 2009-2010.

Grade: A

If you read nothing else today, Caps fans...

Read this, and the link in that entry to this column.

The Caps are not a team that merely needs to stay the course -- there are elements that do need adjustment (even in their "style").  But for those of the TRADE GREEN, TRADE SEMIN, FIRE BOUDREAU school, well... step back, take a breath, and think about it.  Is it a matter of personnel (who do you get back for Green or Semin, and who takes over behind the bench)?

Or is it a matter of time?

Nothing is assured in these things, but oh, how eerie are the similarities between an underachiever long ago and another one from last week.

Now What?

That’s going to be the question that haunts Caps Nation until this time next year. When a season of such hope and expectation ends so suddenly and emphatically with a loss in the first round of the playoffs to a team that finished 33 points behind you in the standings, that’s a question that betrays a lack of certainty as to just the “what” is supposed to be.

But out of the wreckage of the bomb that was set off in Verizon Center on Wednesday night, there are still sturdy shoots of hope popping out of the rubble. First, let’s get something out of the way at the start. In our last entry we said, “the only people who could call this season successful on any score are either drawing a paycheck from the club, or they are suffering serious delusions. Tonight, the season stands as a failure. Period, and point blank."

We stand by it. It is precisely because the aspirations of this franchise are to great things, not mediocrity, and because the expectations were so high, not merely to make the playoffs but to carry a Stanley Cup around the Verizon Center ice. If those are your ambitions, anything less is, by definition, “failure.”

The best that can be said is that “failure” is not a moral judgment. One of the things that comes out of this season is that the Caps seem to be, individually and as a group, as well-grounded a bunch of young men as there are in the league – thoughtful, earnest, diligent, all those virtues you hope for and expect in athletes you root for, at least given the fact that many of them are early 20-somethings who might do some things that old farts like us would cringe at. “Failure” isn’t a value judgment, either. Despite the way the season ended, this is one of, if not the most, talented teams in the NHL.

“Failure” is an event. It is a condition that can be corrected. It is an opportunity.

And it begs the question posed above… “now what?”

The groundwork to be laid in answering that question came from The Boss, himself, who wrote…

“We won’t do anything rash or make any decisions out of emotional angst. We will collect our thoughts. We will be energized by our failure. We will seek to improve. We will be diligent in our research and we won’t deviate from our plan. We still intend to build around our core. We will make adjustments. We will keep our upside. We will accentuate the positives and we will tweak and change around the negatives where needed.”

There are a lot of action statements in that quote, a “plan within a plan,” as it were. The Caps “will” and “will not” do things going forward. What might those things be?

Ever hear the old saying, “marry in haste, repent in leisure?” Well, a similar thought applies here… act in haste, regret in time. Blowing things up based on the Montreal series – what appears to pass for a plan among an awful lot of Caps fans – is an option. It also happens to be a really bad one. One of the things that went wrong early for the Caps in this regime’s tenure was going for the quick fix, then compounding it by trying quick fixes to fix the quick fix (the “Snyder Syndrome”). That pertained to adding assets. Now, a lot of folks in Caps Nation seem to want to pursue the reverse – get rid of Flesichmann, trade Semin, what can we get for (fill in the name of your favorite Capital here)? Sort of the quick fix by elimination, which will be compounded (we have little doubt) later with calls to get rid of more players.

Lessons learned in the past half dozen years point to what will certainly be patience in evaluating what happened here, and more important, how it can be corrected. Caps fans will be impatient, but that evaluation and implementation is probably going to take the entire summer and beyond. Yes, there will be players on expiring contracts who will not be offered new deals, or will be given perfunctory offers, but radical, sweeping changes? We think that unlikely and bad strategy to boot, at least in the fresh pain of defeat.

What would “improvement” look like? Well, it might look very strange to Caps fans who just saw a 120 point season go up smoke. First of all, there might not be a 120-point season… ever again. Maybe President’s Cup teams don’t win Stanley Cups as often as you might expect for a reason. Seasons have eddys and currents to them, ups and downs. Maybe those teams have enjoyed their best too early to be able to sustain it into the early summer. But for the Caps, it seems the problem is a lot less esoteric. Their style slammed right into a wall – literally, a wall – through which they could not penetrate effectively. You could convince yourself that three goals on 134 shots in the last three games against Montreal is just having had to face a “hot goaltender.” Well, that’s a part of it, but not all of it, and perhaps only some of it.

Despite the presence of Mike Knuble and Brooks Laich to do a lot of dirty work in front of the net, this club was either not engineered for or was just not constitutionally capable of doing any of the dirty work in other areas of the ice that one has to perform to succeed at this time of the year. It seemed as if too many Caps were pushed out of their productive areas of the ice and didn’t push back hard enough to assert themselves into those positions. Here is an example – Montreal blocked a ton of shots in this series (182 in seven games, almost as many as they had shots on goal in the series – 194). That suggests a herculean effort by the Montreal defense, throwing themselves without regard to welfare in front of Capitals’ shots. Well, it suggests something else, too. It is a lot more likely a shot coming from 50 feet will be blocked than one coming from five feet. Looking at the shot charts from the last three games, there were too many of the former, and not enough of the latter.

As much as we are loathe resurrecting the comparison with Pittsburgh, again, one of the things that set the Penguins apart from their competitors last year in winning the Stanley Cup was the appearance that everyone bought into the idea of fighting for control of the 200-foot ice sheet, of everyone making things uncomfortable for opponents -- forechecking, going to the net, fighting for and winning loose pucks in corners and along the wall. In the regular season, you can give up some of that. You can win games on the sole basis of having superior skill. In the playoffs, as seems all too clear now, you cannot.

The Canadiens took the “regular season” sort of game away from the Caps, and the Caps did not (or could not) reach down find that reservoir of will. Now, are the Caps as currently constituted capable of finding that reservoir of playoff-style will? Is it a matter of players finding that next rung on the ladder of maturity? Or will it require retooling, or to “tweak and change,” to put it another way? We’ll see, but what changes come cannot be with the October-to-April part of the season in mind.

You would think that players coming through the system via Hershey will get a long look, perhaps a longer one than one might usually think. Hershey is, after all, a critical part of “the plan” to which the Caps have adhered for the past several years. John Carlson and Karl Alzner are almost locks to stick with the parent team next year, and both of them look to have not only talent, but the indefinable sense of being “winners.” You have to ask the question whether there are others in Hershey who can provide that “playoff-oriented” style that seemed so lacking on the big club this spring.

Given the way the Caps approached the regular season, style wise, this could be a rather significant shift in attitude. It does not necessarily mean an abandonment of the fighter-squadron attack style that made them the entertainment darlings of the league this year, but rather adding an “infantry” element to their game – one that they seem to need to push through in the playoffs. Adding that to their game might result in some fits and starts along the way that make a 120-point regular season beyond their reach. But if they’ve added that to their repertoire by the spring, not getting 120 points, or 110, or even 100 won’t matter.

The evolution of this team reflects a core of players around which players will be added or subtracted. OK, so what is that core this morning? Clearly, Alex Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom are a part of that core. You can’t fault either for the Caps’ loss, even if they had stretches where they weren’t heard from. Until the Montreal series, you wouldn’t have wasted a half-second in answering “Mike Green and Alexander Semin” as part of that core too. But what about those two? Here, the Caps patience is being and will be tested. Green is the best offensive defenseman of this generation, or so the prevailing narrative goes (to which we have made meager contributions). But in his last three playoff series, he is 1-8-9, minus-4. He has been a non-factor in the offensive end of the ice and has been something of a liability in the other end. Does the light go on over his head at some point like it does for a lot of defensemen who need to serve a rough playoff apprenticeship? An example. There is a defenseman in the NHL of some renown these days who, in his first two playoff seasons playing on a team that won 90 regular season games combined over those two years, went 1-3-4, minus-7 in 18 playoff games. Who was that?

Nicklas Lidstrom

Does Green have it in him to become something approaching that kind of player in the playoffs (Lidstrom has 167 points and is a plus-54 in 224 playoff games since)? You’ll have to be patient with him to see.

Alexander Semin is a much tougher nut to crack. Look up the word “enigma” in the dictionary, and there is his inscrutable face peering out at you. How can a player scoring 40 goals in the regular season then lead the NHL in playoff shots on goal (44) and not have one hit the back of the net? Well, you might have to be patient with him in the same fashion you will have to be with Mike Green, and perhaps for similar reasons. Let us look at another player – a player who when he came into the league was thought to be a bit too frail, a bit less sturdy than folks might have thought necessary to be successful, one who in his first four playoff years went 3-9-12, minus-1 in 42 games on a very successful team (205 regular season wins in those four years, one Stanley Cup), and this despite 81 goals and 241 points in his first four regular seasons. But today, he is thought of as one of the best two-way players in the league, whose skill and determination in the playoffs are questioned by no one. Who is that?

Pavel Datsyuk

We’re not trying to sell you an argument that Mike Green is Nicklas Lidstrom in waiting, or that Alexander Semin is the next great two-way Russian. They could become that; perhaps they will not. That is the sense in which the Caps are going to have their patience tested. There are no sure things, unless you move them, in which the certainty is that they won’t be doing it here.

Then there is the coach.  Two years ago at this time, Bruce Boudreau was the toast of the town, the savior who rescued the season, whose style and just-folks attitude was the bee's knees.  Today, there are questions whispered about whether he is the right coach for this team, if he is a "regular season" coach who doesn't have what it takes to take the final step.  We admit to some uncertainty as to the answers to those questions.  Certainly, the Caps never adjusted to what Montreal's strategy was (at least not effectively), and there was a certain lack of nimbleness in responding to the in-series changes that Montreal made tacically.  We think that can be fairly laid at the coaching staff's feet.  But does that stamp "failure" on Boudreau's resume? 

No coach can win a Stanley Cup until he does.  No coach has "Will Win Stanley Cups" accompanying his resume as he comes to the NHL.  But Boudreau has won championships in two other leagues and added another finals appearance in the AHL.  He has the bona fides as a coach capable of leading a winning team.  He is in his third year with this group, and while there might be grumbling about a window closing on his opportunity from other quarters, we think it unlikely in the extreme that he will be relieved this summer.  That's not to say that his continued employment is a certainty if either the Caps start poorly next year, or the Caps pull another one-and-done act next spring.  But firing a coach for a singular failure (we do not think either of the last two playoff exits were failures as much as losing to teams that were better) seems incomprehensible for a club whose philosophy is rooted in more long-term considerations.  All that said, we are reminded of Bryan Murray -- a Caps coach of considerable accomplishment in the regular season during the 1980's who spent years with this club living year after year of playoff disappointment.  We do not think folks will be so tolerant as to get into that kind of habit once more.

In a sports-talk, internet-infused sports environment, the pressure is on finding answers and making decisions now. For the first five years under this regime, the Caps reflected that. Trade for Jaromir Jagr, sign Robert Lang, create buzz. We will admit being swept up in it at the time (we thought trading for Jagr was a good thing). We all see how that worked out. Enter “The Plan.” Draft well, build a foundation, adjust here and there to fit, build a “system” that includes a philosophy permeating all of its elements from Washington to Hershey. In this era, it’s boring. But it might yet be boring in that “Berkshire Hathaway” sort of way that made investor Warren Buffett and a lot of his shareholders very rich. If you are investing for long term growth, you are going to suffer losses along the way. This, obviously, was a big loss that hurt from the fan watching at home on TV to the owner’s suite at Verizon Center. But “failure” is, as noted above, an event. It is an opportunity. We will see now what the Caps do with that opportunity.

This morning, the Caps are a punch line in the world of hockey. Folks are taking shots at the club that they seem to have been saving up since Alex Ovechkin won his first Hart Trophy. Fine. To that, we’ll quote a proverb first quoted in French literature (for the benefit of all the Canadian press who seem to be taking a special glee in the fall of the Caps)… "la vengeance se mange très-bien froide."

“Revenge is a dish best served cold.”

Hockey, as you recall, is played on ice.