Tuesday night's game account for the Washington Times yesterday was filed by Bruce Garrioch of the Ottawa Sun, filling in for the ailing Dave Fay. In it he pointed to tonight's game in Carolina as a crossroads one, suggesting that a Caps' loss may well spell the end of any viable postseason aspirations. My initial reaction to Garrioch's claim was defensive -- Hey, outsider, bug off! Fifteen minutes later, however, with some introspection's fuller inventory of all that hails and ails our squad, I confess to subscribing to Garrioch's thesis.

The truth of the matter is harsh, if not immediately apparent: the Caps this morning are lodged in 13th place, just 5 points out of 8th in, as everybody knows, a tightly compressed Eastern conference hierarchy. But take a closer look at an important discrepancy between the Caps and the team immediately above them in 12th place, the Islanders. The Caps have surrendered 162 goals, the Isles 134. At least three teams between 8th and 12th in the East do a lot better job at keeping the puck out of their own net than does Washington. That isn't a formula for a great deal of leap-frogging in three months' time.

Add in the facts that the Caps remain badly banged up (Mike Green the latest to go down), that their offensive production is wildly unbalanced, and that 9 of the team's final 14 games are on the road, and things look grim.

But your next reaction ought to be this: no worries, mate. The reality that I would suggest is settling in is the one that ought to be: the Caps are right about on schedule in the rebuild. They are not last season's early season pinata, nor are they the battering ram they look to be in about 24 months. They are somewhere in between.

If we take a deep breath and a crossover stride back, we can acknowledge the razor-thin-margin-for-error, all-the-cards-have-to-fall-perfectly-in-place scenario that would have delivered the Caps to 8th in the East on April 8. They signed Richard Zednik to bring some veteran presence and offensive balance, both lost with his long-term injury that coincided with the meat and rigor of the Caps' schedule. And he was playing outstanding hockey when he went down.

The other long-term injuries don't bear the impact of absence individually that Zednik's does but rather harm in an accumulative way: the Caps simply don't have the depth to address a bevy of injuries anywhere in the lineup. And acquiring that depth is a mission secondary to securing the core pieces for long-standing playoff viability.

Meanwhile, in season two of the rebuild, some superb pieces to the puzzle have been added. A thought-to-be burst of offensive pizzaz -- but a potential "troublemaker" to go along with -- has in Alexander Semin turned out to be a wrecking ball of a gamebreaker, a first-tier All Star candidate for the next 10 years. And his teammates like having him around.

The all-important captaincy for a young rebuilding team was sagely set upon the shoulders of courageous, accountable, and productive Chris Clark (his predecessor has 16 goals in his last 115 games). Many wondered if last season's 20 goals were a fluke of flanking Ovechkin. This season, he's a mortal lock for 25. From this vantage, it isn't difficult envisioning a 32-year-old Clark leading the Caps in the playoffs. He is simply the finest captain the team has had since Dale.

On the blueline, two important subtractions took place in the offseason and were replaced by Brian Pothier and Mike Green. The organization knows that more shuffling on the backline will have to take place this offseason, and that it has yet to acquire a shut-down no. 1.

On the near horizon is the arrival of highly drafted, heavy artillery that will positively remedy some of the present woes. (The bulked-up Eric Fehr to the right of Semin next season?) That doesn't lessen much the sting of real-time defeats, but how often is glory's path paved with rose petals and fried turkey?