On Frozen Blog

The stench of this season’s concluding quarter is eerily reminiscent to ‘03-’04, when the Halpern-Battaglia-Jean Luc Grand-Pierre Caps made gamedays mornings and evenings of ennui. The two sets of conclusions are united in aesthetics: they aren’t very pretty. My blogger colleague Empty Maybe calls it “playing out the string,” but it’s actually something worse: doing so with defeat inevitable. This morning, as with those three springs back, one cannot find much fault with the roster’s effort; it is now nightly matched against superior talent. But it hasn’t quit on its coach.

Fifteen games remain, delivering 15 instances of underdog status. This morning it is difficult imagining the Caps meeting or slightly exceeding last season’s 70 points. The Flyers aren’t quite as Philthy as they were at the end of ‘06; it isn’t inconceivable that the Caps easily qualify for the entry draft lottery . . . and draft ahead of Philly.

Quite simply, this dour denouement can never happen again.

Ahead looms, from my vantage, the most important offseason in at least 20 years for this organization. Going forward, General Manager George McPhee must ensure that no manner of injuries and “business decision” selloffs ever again render the Washington Capitals non-competitive on a nightly basis. Quality depth must be accumulated, the duration of important contracts must be adequately staggered, Plan Bs and Cs must contain quality and chemistry. To put it bluntly: what has been asked of Caps’ fans by management for the past four calendar years has pushed what is plausibly and reasonably sports-humane to the brink.

If management doesn’t believe me, perhaps it will listen to its star player. In this morning’s edition, Alexander Ovechkin told the Toronto Sun “We have to sign good players and I hope we do . . . I want to play on a good team.”

Yesterday Ted told the Washington Post that attendant to offseason personnel investments certain “financial losses” will be incurred. The fanbase backlash on line was swift and strident, and this morning I side with them. Now is especially not the time to be talking dollars and cents. Ours is a fanbase fatigued by the team’s forgotten child status, battered by years of local media hostility and indifference.

Now is the time to talk exclusively of a single subject: the architecture of winning . . . buttress columns for which, we should be told, will be moved into place this summer.

The ways with Washington media are weird. Ted is in the unenviable position of needing to mainstream his message of “Better days are coming” but ever confronted by an MSM dismissive of his endeavor. Last week a ludicrously self-absorbed George Michael (was/is there any other kind?) purchased a half-page space in WaPost congratulating himself on his career. He’d never do it, but when Ted’s rebuild is complete, I’d love to see his full-page ad there illustrate him in his customarily nattily attired style, holding a copy of the daily fraud that yearly hemorrhages tens of thousands of readers, bearing the concise accomanying text “F You . . . Thanks for nothing.” Hmm, maybe a blogger’s coalition can carry that off.

From Ted’s chat with Tarik published yesterday to GMGM’s open letter to fans on the team web site last week, it’s clear that management senses the arrival of a critical juncture in its existence. Both communications, however, struck me as fulfilling approximately two-thirds of the needed mission. Management, it seems to me, has to be bold, even creative, in its communications as another harsh reality settles in on springtime hockey in D.C. The fanbase so desperately wants to hear it. It needs to hear management say something on the order of “Our Alexanders are traveling to the Worlds next month, for the last time.”