We were asked this past week to pen a first-quarter-of-the-season summary for the Caps by the blog Illegal Curve. IC’s idea was clever — to have a blogger who’s been following each Southeast division team chime in with a state of the season to date summary. Ours began thusly:
“The Capitals through the first quarter of the season have ample
concerns — health foremost among them — but competing in a weak-again
Southeast division, likely they need be only moderately good the rest
of the way to win the division. If they heal up and improve their
penalty killing, they should win the division going away.
“At Thanksgiving the Caps stood at 12-7-3, three points better than
the Carolina Hurricanes, with a number of key performers shelved by
moderately serious injuries. Early in December the Caps should have
Mike Green (shoulder) and Alexander Semin (back) back in the lineup.
Sergei Fedorov, who began the season as the team’s best two-way
forward, is struggling to overcome a high ankle sprain. It would be
wise for the Caps to be patient and perhaps even overly cautious with
Fedorov’s recuperation, as he stands again to be a key postseason
performer.
“Michael Nylander, however, does not. Deep in the autumn it’s become
abundantly clear that Nylander is not a good fit for Head Coach Bruce
Boudreau’s system, and Nylander’s name has appeared in a frenzy of
trade talk throughout November.”
Read the rest of the OFB summary here.
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