These local Bruins fans are hoping for some more home ice magic tonight to force game 7.

I should hate the Bolts; they just beat our ass badly, after all. But they’ve dusted off the Caps twice in a decade, and when you think about it, who hasn’t? None of their fans came to Verizon Center for games 1 and 2 of round two, and small wonder — they’re like a thousand miles away.

Ah, the absence of Tampa fans; it’s a prime theme in a brilliantly conceived and devilishly cunning Boston Bruins ad campaign — or it was, rather, until a Tampa tirade of telephone calls closed it down. Meaning, I’m resurrecting it here.

The Bs of course have carried off this fabulous mascot-driven humor campaign in print and video spots the past few seasons. We’ve sung its praises here. It’s simply magnificent. And it bloomed beautifully in Beantown for this year’s Eastern Conference finals, but as Greg Wyshynski noted in his treatment of this matter, the Bs have run it for each and every postseason opponent the past two springs. It’s Tampa’s hockey fans who singularly took offense to it. The aforementioned DJ, for whom I haven’t enough respect to ID, led a campaign of on-air ire against it, and urged his listeners to swamp Bruins’ telephone lines with complaints. Enough of them did, the Bs probably figured it was easier just to take the ads down and be done with the diaper set from the South, and that’s that. Some fun was had, but it should have continued.

Still, let’s enjoy more of this spirited smack — and you can find a helpful gallery of the art at massholesports.com.

To state the obvious, no way you’d hear any outcry about this sort of campaign from fanbases in Philly, New York, or Pittsburgh. Those are real hockey communities with appropriately toughened sensibilities. Tampa surely bettered D.C. where it counts, on the ice, but at least we have our dignity. Finally, though, I’ve found rationale to take interest in a Southeast foe’s fate in spring. Go B’s.

Indeed.

Maybe the Bruins ultimately make a series of it, maybe they don’t. But down 2-1 after 20 minutes last night, against the hottest team in the NHL postseason, and confronting the harrowing reality of dropping the series’ first two games on home ice against the Bolts, just as the Caps did two weeks ago, the Bs went Commando on Tampa in the second frame, scoring five times. Gut check. Series on.

The deeper we get into the 2011 postseason in Washington, which of course affords us additional context with which to compare the Capitals’ shortcomings, as more accomplished organizations play on, all the more that troubling questions related to team leadership arise. “Team leadership” here encompassing the captaincy, the coaching, and the management. I’m ok with the equipment guys.

Now it seems almost preposterous to ponder the preoccupation some in media articulated back last autumn: that by virtue of youth and inexperience in net, the Capitals could have their spring short-circuited. The Capitals didn’t lose prematurely early this spring, or last, or the spring previous to that, because of their goaltending. They did lose because they’d been out-worked, out-coached, and out-led every spring. They consistently confronted teams in possession of superior leadership. In an era of parity, that’s certainly a differentiating quality.

Conventional wisdom, as recent as perhaps just a few years ago, was that a team needed a star stopper between the pipes to get it done in spring. To be sure — and you need just ask Flyers’ fans — you can’t go Johnny Pedestrian in net. But there are probably 20-plus netminders around the league today more than adequate to the task of guiding a team through three or four postseason rounds, and one or more of them is likely already under contract in Washington.

But what does it matter if you’ve talent and poise in net if your hockey club has a deficit of leadership everywhere else?

• In the spring of 2009 virtually everyone in hockey recognized that warrior right wing Bill Guerin was a coveted commodity likely to be moved by the Islanders to a playoff-bound team serious about contending. The Capitals then had serious production deficiencies on the right side of their lineup, and they were a young playoff team. There was rampant media speculation, especially in Washington, that Guerin should have been a primary acquisition target for George McPhee. Instead, Guerin ended up in Pittsburgh. The Penguins of course beat the Capitals in seven games that spring. The Penguins of course went on to win the Cup that spring. Bill Guerin played a significant role for the Pens.

• Does it mean anything that Dan Bylsma came in from the American League and immediately enjoyed notable success in Pittsburgh, and does it mean anything that Guy Boucher came in from the American League and immediately enjoyed notable success in Tampa, while our American Leaguer behind the bench has spent the past four springs underwhelming us?

• Does it mean anything that literally 40 minutes into his Washington Capitals career Jason Arnott was so troubled by the culture he surveyed in his new room that he felt compelled to stand up and . . . lead?

• Those HBO ’24/7′ cameras were rightly lauded for taking us on the innermost inside of hockey last December, and when they captured the Capitals’ inner sanctum at the season’s most vexing moment, what was, for you, the leadership portrait offered? Were you, like me, more than mildly surprised that it was Mike Knuble standing up and blowing a gasket in the Boston visitor’s locker room? Perhaps more revealing moments of player reaction were left on the cable outlet’s cutting room floor, but I doubt it.

• Another curious ’24/7′ snapshot: The head coach and GM meet one morning at Kettler to post mortem the extraordinary losing streak, and the GM states that the team’s prolonged losing could actually be beneficial in the long run. I remember reacting in that moment: ‘WTF???’ Interesting that other managers don’t typically pursue that as strategy for long-term success.

• The GM also responded to critics, particularly in local media, who were appropriately questioning the team’s leadership in late December with the snide and derisive rejoinder that were such voices qualified to weigh in on hockey personnel they’d be employed in the game. The hirer of Bruce Cassidy probably ought to have brought greater humility to that moment.

My new media colleague and friend Ed Frankovic of Baltimore WNST, in his latest blog entry, ‘Caps Off-season Focus Should Be on Leadership,’ tackles terrifically the Capitals’ deficit of leadership: “There is no doubt some on the ice upgrades are necessary to improve [the Caps'] chances for success. But to me, what this organization seems to need more than anything, is an infusion of leadership. Simply put, they need to add personnel with Stanley Cup winning experience at the management level [emphasis OFB's] and on the ice. The role of those additions would be to help Ovechkin and many of the talented younger players on the team to understand the process of what it takes to capture a Stanley Cup, the hardest trophy to win in all of sports.”

I really admire what Frankovic next does in his narrative: he traces the leadership bona fides of previous Cup winners, noting that even the lavishly talented Edmonton Oilers clubs of the 1980s were laden with Cup-winning resumes from the ’70s. He then goes ’24/7′-inside the 1999 Cup-winning Dallas Stars team with former Stars executive Craig Button, now of the NHL Network. Lots of talent on that Stars team, but it was carefully acquired veteran leadership that ultimately allowed Dallas to break through a formidable Western conference and win the big prize.

“Washington has seen firsthand . . the impact of what a proven winner like Steve Yzerman can do to help turn around a struggling club,” Frankovic concludes. “With the Wings former #19 at the helm in Tampa Bay, the Bolts added some key people with leadership experience (i.e, defensemen Pavel Kubina and scout Pat Verbeek) and Yzerman was also able to get one of his existing star players, team captain Vincent Lecavalier, to elevate his game to a level he hadn’t really been at since the Lightning’s 2004 Stanley Cup victory. As a result, a team that relies on key young players Steven Stamkos and Victor Hedman is still very much in the running for this year’s Stanley Cup just one year after finishing 41 points behind the Capitals in 2009-10.”

Sound familiar?

Seven games in and in all but one of them (New Jersey) the Caps have underwhelmed. Maybe they’re playing possum. Maybe they miss Mike Green that much. Or maybe, just maybe . . . George McPhee is savagely wrong, and it wasn’t merely a five-day anomaly last April that undid the Caps; maybe instead they’re a fundamentally flawed club as they’ve been assembled. They’ll outgun the majority of opponents they’ll face this regular season, but that means nothing in the big picture.

The center position right now is a royal mess. We’re as excited as anyone about the toolbox Marcus Johansson brings — and he was a lone bright light on Thursday night in Boston — but at an important position on an ostensibly contending club he’s engaged in on the job training. Necessarily. He has a grand total of one point in six hockey games, which isn’t so good if you’ve got him as a fantasy player. Explain to us please why he isn’t apprenticing in the American League? Caps’ brass articulated a conspicuous commitment to Johansson prior to his even taking Development Camp ice back in July. Apparently we’ll just have to live with his growing pains and wait to see if production eventually follows. But from where we sit the more experienced and productive center was jettisoned to Hershey by virtue of his optionable contract. Meanwhile, Nick Backstrom is AWOL; Tomas Fleischmann is what he’s always been in his pro career: quite impressive one night, quite invisible the next. The position, which was fairly identified as a vulnerability in the offseason, looks in disarray early on.

About Mike Green. We know better than to attempt to divine the actual extent of his shoulder injury. But it is a shoulder injury, and thanks to Chris Pronger, Greener has a vulnerability there. Stinger . . . slight separation . . . worse . . . who knows? But this finesse blueline can’t go long without him.

The Caps’ top line eventually will get its MoJo back, but while it’s absent, this perimeter hockey club will struggle.

• The Bruins, by virtue of their size, are a “tough matchup” for the finesse Caps, we heard much of Tuesday night in the Verizon Center press box. Well, the Capitals could face Boston in the postseason; Tuesday night suggested that that wouldn’t be much fun.

• More Lucic: his goal in the first period — the Bs’ second of the game — was the game winner, and it occurred in warrior’s alley, smack in front of the Caps’ net, with top-pairing defenseman Jeff Schultz perfectly positioned in the slot. Sarge didn’t make a bad play on the goal — he made no play. But that’s his game; it’s positional, not adversarial, in areas of the ice where defenders are best served being brutes. And most of the Caps’ defenders play this way.

• Eighty-plus hockey game seasons deliver their share of it’s-just-not-our-night outings, and Tuesday seemed that way for the hosts. Already without Mike Green and Matt Bradley, the Caps lost their top performer on the young season, Michal Neuvirth, in the first frame. He departed the game with dizziness and a headache and what the team called flu symptoms after surrendering two goals. Semyon Varlamov came on in relief and yielded a single goal on which he was thoroughly screened, and otherwise played rock solid. Meanwhile, his teammates pumped plenty of rubber on Tim Thomas (36 shots, including 18 in the third), and their head coach wasn’t displeased with his skaters’ effort. “I thought in the first 10 minutes, we played as hard as we played all year. But you make a mistake and it’s in the net,” Boudreau told the media afterward.
  

• Alexander Semin was the Capitals’ best forward. Yes he took a bad penalty in the offensive zone, and yes he had a couple of turnovers, but he made a ton of plays, and he pelted Thomas with 10 shots, many of them of high quality.

• On the good news front: the Caps’ penalty kill — among the league’s worst a season ago — continued its remarkable makeover in 2010-11, going 4-for-4 on the night and maintaining its perfect performance on the season (25-for25).

Narration of their feat of Wednesday for the Capitals-Bruins rematch in Boston is not meant to breed petty jealousy; let us instead draw inspiration from it.

My friends, you should know, are naturally advantaged for such adventure: they are retirees, and young still both in calendar and especially spirit. For most of the past 25 years they resided on Capitol Hill, and, over the past 10-plus years most particularly, rarely missed a Caps’ game. Additional distinction: they’ve a vacation home in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, and within it is a sizable shrine to Alexander Ovechkin, for all the neighboring Sidney lovers to behold with each and every visit. Mike is especially disciplined about running errands up in the Great White North of Sidney Sympathizers while outfitted in a Capitals’ baseball cap.

Early in their retirement relocation to Maine Mike and Marleen learned of the Amtrak Downeaster. This conveyance demands all of $39 each for coach accommodations and delivers the Mainer literally into the belly of TD Garden, home of the Bruins and Celtics, and home again afterward. In other words, to Boston and back, in complete, spacious comfort, for about the price of parking your car at Dan Snyder’s mausoleum. Mike and Marleen’s fare was slightly discounted by their purchasing their tickets three days ahead of departure. So departing at 2:30 from Portland Wednesday afternoon they left the driving to a conductor, and Mike in particular took advantage of the arrangement.

The Downeaster, you see, offers premium refreshment: Shipyard Export, a Maine delicacy, and Sam Adams, regular and Light. The whistle-wetters are reasonably priced, too: $4.25 — “about half the cost demanded of the same brew inside TD Garden,” Mike reported. I inquired of Michael’s tally of handcrafted ales on his train ride down to Beantown for exhibition hockey, but fruitlessly: “In my retirement I do not count,” he replied.

Using Stubhub, Mike and Marleen were able to procure seats nine rows from the glass — preseason face valued at $89 — for merely $22. They secured a third ticket for their B’s fan friend Mary, and their tickets were overnighted to them.

They arrived at Boston’s North Station at 5:05, conveniently timed to coincide with Boston happy hour. They then reported to Boston Beer Works for additional sustenance. That venue boasts an onsite brewery. Michael enjoyed a five-selection sampler. Bs-sweatered hockey fans crammed the joint. Both Mike and Marleen found the food reasonably priced, and distinctive: “the biggest chicken quesadilla I’ve seen in my life — maybe an inch thick,” Michael reported.

More tavern tourism followed: Mike and Marleen and Mary set off for the Fours — “the best sports bar in America,” as voted by Sports Illustrated, its website boasts. A great sports town has a great sports bar, and my friends confirmed the Fours being that, though they noted the prevalence of Mike Milbury paraphernalia about the joint. All of Boston’s professional sports teams are celebrated at the Fours.

You won't find this offered on Metro

Wednesday represented a number of firsts for Mike and Marleen besides their maiden voyage aboard the Downeaster. Most dramatic among them: taking in a Caps’ game in a road building while wearing the sweaters of their passion. Marleen fancies a Backstrom, Mike an Ovechkin. And while they saw no others of uniform on the Downeaster, inside TD Garden it was quite a different story.

“Literally every section in the rink had Caps’ fans in it, and of course in red,” Marleen told me. Mike and Marleen saw scores of young Caps’ fans moving about the building, most wearing some manner of Ovechkin-themed fashion. In their movements about the arena concourse Mike and Marleen frequently encountered their kind, smiles and high fives quickly following. My friends estimated Wednesday night’s Garden crowd at about 15,000.

It’s highly likely that Wednesday’s attendance was swelled to some degree by a hope on the part of Boston hockey fans for seeing Ovechkin and Semin and Backstrom and Green, but Wednesday also represented a final opportunity for the locals to see the Bs play in Beantown for some while. Immediately after the game the team boarded a plane bound for Belfast, where on Saturday they’ll play an exhibition game against the Belfast Giants Select, an all-star team made up of the best players from the Giants and the rest of the UK Elite League. Then it’s on to Prague for a pair of season-opening games October 9 and 10 against the Phoenix Coyotes.

Mike and Marleen were treated respectfully and even with warmth while attired in their allegiance by surroundings Bs’ fans. Few of them understood the game-opening assault Matt Hendricks authored on Greg Campbell. Michael, well suffused with spirits by this time, spiritedly explainined the moral appropriateness of the action as frontier justice for Tuesday night’s late-game mischief by Campbell.

“He did well!” Marleen exclaimed of Hendricks’ handiwork.

Their Bostonian friend Mary didn’t take Wednesday’s outcome so well, but Mike and Malreen knew how they had to acknowledge the victory: back to the Fours, for postgame gloating toasting. They had an 11:20 train home and some time to kill.

“We absolutely loved the experience,” Marleen told me. “Their in-game experience is exceptional — lots of classic rock, and not just snippets but extended samplings of a minute or more. And no silly Dance-Cam, no Kiss Cam. Lots of hockey-themed video and great, great music. We can’t wait to train back for the game on December 18.”

King did make a mental note of the incident, however.

“It’s tough watching when you’re not even on the ice or anything [and] you see him go into the boards like that,” King said. “It’s something you put up in the head there, and then the next time you play them and you get a good chance of running someone, you can get a good hit on someone.”

Boudreau is already showing appreciation for King’s 6’3,” 230-pound intimidating frame and recognized that he’s something the Capitals lacked last season.

“We never really had that tough, physical presence last year,” Boudreau said.

King also fought during the first period with Boston’s Shawn Thorton, and though King eventually brought Thorton to the ice, King said afterwards the fight wasn’t in “mid-season form.”

King said he decided to drop the gloves because he thought the Caps needed some momentum. He also wanted to get that first game fight out of the way for himself.

“I’m not gonna lie – I do look at the other teams’ roster and I know there’s a lot of big boys out East,” King said. “It’s going to be a battle every night.”

The Capitals will see the Bruins again tonight in Boston for what will be Washington’s fourth preseason game.

[For photos of the fight, click here.]