Typically I’m a passive observer of the Western conference’s opening round matchups. For one thing, the Caps typically exhaust my energy with their springtime high drama in Eastern time zone starts, leaving me with little in the tank to follow West Coast affairs. But this Hawks-’Nucks series has me seriously sucked in. I may Red Bull it around 9:30 tonight.

The central storyline for me in this series extends far beyond this year’s President’s Trophy winner potentially out-gagging last year’s. With apologies in advance, you’ll recall that last year’s Capitals became the first ever no. 1 seed to lose an opening round series after securing a 3-1 lead in games. This year, the Canucks are trying to one-up the Caps in postseason infamy.

Selfishly, we ought to welcome it.

The Hawks of course are the reigning Cup champions, but young general manager Stan Bowman looked anything but Scotty-like as he jettisoned key support components from his Cup-winning club last summer, in dire acts of cap compliance. They limped into the Western conference’s eighth seed this spring. There was no swagger whatsoever to their Cup defense. The Canucks came to Washington back on January 14 and were never seriously challenged by the in-transition Caps in a 4-2 game. I watched that game from on high in Verizon Center with my new media colleagues and joined them in unanimous assessment: Washington wanted no part of this Canucks club this season. And so I picked the Canucks to sweep the Hawks in round one this month, and a week ago that forecast looked like something I should have taken to Vegas.

But then Dave Bolland returned to Chicago’s lineup for game 4, and this series hasn’t been the same since:

• The Hawks are hitting

• The Sedins are shrinking

• The uber goalie is gagging

• Alain Vigneault looks like he’d rather be coaching hockey in the Middle East. If he loses tonight, he might be.

Now here’s where the fun really starts with this series for me. The Hawks of course have bested Vancouver in each of the previous two springs. Prior to this spring, the matchups came in the Western conference’s second round. This year of course it’s no.1 vs. no. 8. There’s clearly a referendum on the Vancouver organization with this third straight postseason matchup with the Hawks, with President’s Cup pedigree (or is it curse?) engulfing the Whale. There’s a real feud forging that always happens with the NHL postseason whenever two organizations are frequently pitted against one another — and especially when it’s lopsided in outcome and the expectations for the vanquished are annually significant.

Remind you of any other postseason rivalry of the past?

Should Chicago pull off the unimaginable tonight — win a fourth straight over the West’s no. 1 seed, with a watered down lineup relative to what they triumphed with last spring — wouldn’t we in Washington have, at long last, a new template for postseason fanbase terror, a new benchmark for perpetual postseason underachievement? Wouldn’t we have a new poster child for playoff choking? Losing a bunch of 2-0 and 3-1 series leads against you know who is intergenerationally wretched to be sure, but the Caps never gagged on a 3-0 burst of series opening dominance. And like the Caps, the Canucks have never won a Cup (although they did force a game 7 against the Rags in ’94).

Should they prevail tonight, wouldn’t the Hawks be the Pittsburgh postseason party-pooper to the Whale as Washington? (And shouldn’t it mean the demise of Mr. Bettman’s trophy?) And wouldn’t Vancouver, unlike Washington in all of our Pittsburgh-perpetrated agongy of the past, burn down late tonight if that happened? I don’t know if Vancouver even has a CFL team, but if they do, they surely don’t care about them with a scintilla of the passion they do for the Whale.

Yesterday I surveyed 20 members of the hockey media here from print, broadcast, and new, and I could find only six who picked the Whale to win tonight (I was one of them). I found that astounding. The Hawks will have had to win four straight games against a 117-pt. club — all of them elimination games! Vigneault, the mastermind behind the Canucks’ remarkable goaltender drama, was already ghost-white at the conclusion of game 6 Sunday; what might his complexion be tonight if the clock winds down and Chicago has done in his squad again?

Must-see TV . . . even for the middle-aged and morning-ed gym weary.

I will have to keep pried open my eyelids with toothpicks tonight to take it all in. Should Chicago pull off one of the all-time great NHL postseason comebacks — and I think get us in D.C. a bit off the hook in the process — we’ll have reality TV that’s really real: a heavy Canadian reckoning in hockey in spring.

Postscript: Today’s National Post weighs in on the plight of the Canucks. A loss tonight would represent “the worst collapse in team sports history, or thereabouts,” claims columnist Bruce Arthur.

Besides, more postseason Preds likely means more television screen time for the only country music performer I’d try and purchase front-row seats to see.

Poile I guess is regarded as a “builder” of NHL franchises as opposed to say a guider of one to glory. I’m not sure that’s fair; he’s only worked in two “small” markets in the NHL, though Washington today certainly can’t be regarded a small market any longer — thanks in no small part to Poile’s work here. He surely built the Caps up from laughingstock to contender. He has also answered the management call of our country for the World Championships on a number of occasions. Did you know that Poile has the word ‘Caps’ tattooed on a discreet region of his frame? So out West it’s easy for me to root for the Preds.

* * * * *

I left the Caps-Rags series with a heightened appreciation for John Tortorella. It was Torts’ Tampa club that took out a Jagr-led Capitals’ team in the 2003 postseason after the Caps won the first two games in Tampa by a combined 9-3 tally, the Bolts winning that series’ next four games. In 2009, Torts’ underdog Rags club pushed the Caps to seven games. And while this year’s Caps-Rags matchup lasted just five games, they were wars, all of them; only in the middle portion of game 5′s third period did you genuinely have a sense that one team was clearly going to get it done comfortably. Totorella seems to me to be a coach who knows not only how to maximize the talent of his roster but tailor his strategy to close talent gaps in series like we just witnessed.

Tortorella’s post-series press conference Saturday evening was chock full of commendably dispassionate analysis and frank introspection. He acknowledged, for instance, his club’s inherent shortcomings: “I don’t think our team is fully built. The Washington team was, for a number of years. You look at how that team is built with their draft picks . . . we’re not there yet. We have to play a certain way [because of limited talent].”

The coach correctly lauded the sacrifice and effort made by Dan Girardi, who was I thought the series’ finest performer.

“His finger was all over the place,” Torts acknowledged of his brutally beat up no. 1 rearguard, who had a finger dislocated above the knuckle. He also had an ankle X-ray-ed Saturday evening, the coach reported.

* * * * *

The Philadelphia Flyers may well survive the first round. Game 7 against Buffalo is tomorrow night in Philly. But this team will not see a follow-up Stanley Cup finals this spring, as its goaltending is, even by Flyers’ standards, shockingly horrific. (Ryan Miller hasn’t been much better, incidentally.)

* * * * *

With no small trepidation I’ll pick the Canucks in game 7 tomorrow night, mainly just cause of home ice and a sense that the odds are so overwhelming against seeing a second consecutive spring with a team overcoming a 3-0 series deficit to prevail. My new media colleague Ed Frankovic was the first I’d heard positing that Roberto Luongo isn’t 100 percent, and may even have yanked himself out of game 5 because of his condition. If you watched game 6 last night in Chicago you saw Cory Schneider get dinged up on Michael Frolik’s penalty shot. So the ‘Nucks appear to be a mess in net. Still, winning four straight over the President’s Trophy winner? If it happens, will any club ever accept that trophy again?

The Hawks’ fortunes have changed dramatically largely because Corey Crawford has been solid in net and the impact return of center Dave Bolland. The Sedins have a combined 12 points in the series’ 6 games, which is nice, but are skating a combined -6. Bolland, in just 3 games, has 7 points and is skating a +6. One man wrecking crew.

* * * * *

In the first four games of the Pens-’Bolts series Steven Stamkos had a lone assist. Game 5′s 8-2 Tampa drubbing saw Stamkos pot 2 goals and an assist. If he’s achieved some comfort in his first NHL postseason after the rough start I think he’s the difference in the remainder of the series.

With a little bit of luck we could witness the two Pennsylvania teams eliminated in game 7s on consecutive nights this week. It doesn’t get much sweeter than that.

* * * * *

Antero Niittymaki’s only had two games between the pipes for the Sharks, so I don’t put his stats on par with Michal Neuvirth’s, yet. If you look at goalies who’ve worked most or all of first round series, Neuvirth’s at the top of all key categories: .946 save percentage, 1.38 goals-against, 4-1 record. His most impressive stat, though, for me: he’s now 15-for-15 in postseason play in his North American professional career. Wow.

Fleeting elation?

The Stanley Cup has been hoisted by the Chicago Blackhawks, the NHL has doled out its awards, a fresh set of 18-year-olds has been welcomed, and free agency is in full swing. Despite all the time that has passed, many Washington Capitals fans are still left yearning and badly bruised from the far too early first-round exit from this year’s playoffs. They are left thinking to themselves that could have been us, we do have a lot of the same qualities as the Blackhawks, and yet we didn’t go all the way. And yet, after what the Hawks have had to do in the last few weeks, do Caps fans really wish they were in the same boat as Chicago?

Washington has four top offensive producers in Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, Mike Green, and Alexander Semin, who share many of the same qualities as Chicago’s Marian Hossa, Patrick Kane, Duncan Keith, and Jonathan Toews. In fact, Washington’s big four may even be better than Chicago’s. Both teams have some of the best young d-men in the league. Chicago haa a blueline anchored by Keith and Brent Seabrook, and talented but inconsistent Brian Campbell. The Caps counter with the up and coming John Carlson, Karl Alzner, and Mike Green. In fact, both teams even share similarities in net. Semyon Varlamov exploded on to the NHL scene in 2009 with a stellar playoffs and followed up with a great encore performance this year. To some extent Anti Niemi could be thought of as the Western Conference equivalent of Varly. He had a great regular season, supplanting Cristobal Huet, and the Hawks road him to the Cup finals.

Here, however, is where the similarities end.

The Caps have some great role players in Brooks Laich, Mike Knuble and Matt Bradley, but Chicago’s were just better, deeper. When Chicago’s first line struggled at the start of the Cup finals, offensive contributions came elsewhere. Role players are the glue that holds a team together. In hockey we know that superstars alone cannot win championships; there has to be a combination of talent, speed, goaltending, grit and above all chemsitry, commitment, and luck. Without a solid set of above average guys who can bang the puck home on the doorstep or sacrifice their bodies in their own end Stanley Cup aspirations are futile. Call this a blue collar ethos surrounding the skilled stars.

 The Caps perhaps could have had a few more of those guys last offseason if they had gotten creative with their salary cap and signed guys like Ovi and Semin to long deals that resulted in small cap hits during their first season or two of the new contracts. Instead, they decided to be fiscally responsible and sign players to deals that made sense in the long term. Chicago on the other hand did not.

Due to their shortsightedness and fiscal ineptitude Chicago now has to essentially sell off a large part of the soul of their team. First it was the auctioning of Dustin Byfuglien, who is now an Atlanta Thrasher. Then it was young standout Kris Versteeg, who was sent to the Toronto Maple Leaf’s for the equivalent of nothing. The final trade in the first round of cuts was a deal that sent another younger winger in Andrew Ladd to the Thrashers. Brent Sopel and Ben Eager have also been jettisoned. Suddenly the glue that held Chicago together was softening.

Soon the Hawks will begin praying someone comes calling for Cristobal Huet. The franchise is barely $6 million dollars under the salary cap and still has to sign Niemi as well as fill out the roster, which will be a task in itself. In reality, Chicago is going to have to take the players that completed their team and virtually give them away. All of this is the result of the Blackhawks management mortgaging the future to win now.

Is that a hockey franchise Caps fans want to cheer for? In the grand scheme of things, is one Stanley Cup followed by years of fighting of mediocarity — or futility — worth it to Caps fans? There is really no way to swing this as a good way to manage a team. Of course, the Hawks do have that Cup that’s ever eluded the Caps.

Next season will roll around and, while most often defending champs are regularly picked to contend, objectively it will be difficult to do so with the Hawks. The reality is that Chicago will again likely return to being the little brother of Detroit while much of the rest of the Western Conference upgrades. Meanwhile, Washington will again be a lead favorite to win the Eastern Conference. Sure, there will be questions, apprehensions, but most teams have those at the beginning of the season. Wouldn’t fans much rather be in the Caps’ current predicament of having to decide whether Semin or Green is worth keeping in a year’s time instead of having to watch both of them leave? And more.

The short and sweet of it is, Washington should want nothing to do with Chicago’s managerial style. While ominous clouds circle over the Hawks’ Cup defense the Caps will keep building, winning, and gaining experience, working towards the goal of a championship. Key pieces are needed, yes, but just as importantly kep pieces don’t have to be offloaded like a summer yard sale.

Eastern Conference

Prediction: Caps in 5; (Alex however has a Caps’ sweep)

The first round matchup between the Philadelphia Flyers and the New Jersey Devils is full of questions. Will the goaltending hold up for both teams? Will Ilya Kovalchuk emerge for the Devils? And of course, the inevitable question of whether Daniel Carcillo, also known as the cleanest player in hockey(note sarcasm), will earn himself a suspension.

While there are so many questions in the series, picking the winner is really a no-brainer. Philadelphia is just lucky to be in the playoffs, and they may steal a game or two in the series, but there is no way they will prevail. The boys in orange and black just don’t have enough offense and goaltending is just a wee bit of a question mark.

On the the other end of the ice is the New Jersey Devils, a team filled with All-Stars, Olympic medalists, and some guy named Martin Brodeur. Sure, Marty hasn’t been stellar in all high pressure situations, but he remains a top-5 goalie in the league. Not only that, but he has a solid defensive corps in front of him. By no mean do any of them stand out as a top-5 d-man, but they certainly have the experience and hockey knowledge to take the team a long way.

In short, despite the inevitable antics, the Flyers do not have a snowball’s chance in hell to win this series. Rangers blogger for SNY, Jimmy Hascup, described Philadelphia’s style of play perfectly. He said, “they don’t even play hockey, they should be in the MMA Octagon.” That is exactly why they will not win this series.

Prediction: Devils in 5

Ryan Miller moves from the pressure of the Winter Olympic Games to the pressure of the NHL playoffs. That said, the job should be a little easier for him this time around because he won’t be facing an offensive powerhouse like Team Canada. Instead, Miller and Sabres will be facing the Boston Bruins in a divisional matchup.

Fans will be lucky if Buffalo and Boston combine for more than 20 goals in this series. Both teams are built on their defense and lack a lot in the scoring department. Boston is led by Zdeno Chara and Dennis Wideman, while Buffalo’s defense features Calder candidate Tyler Myers and Henrick Tallinder.

In all reality though, both team’s live and die with their goalies. Miller is right at the center of discussion for the Vezina Trophy and has even garnered discussion for the Hart. Tuukka Rask will oppose him  between the pipes for the B’s. He has had a solid season between the pipes, posting a 1.97 GAA and a .931 save percentage. That said, there was a stretch of time where he did lose nine games in a row.

All in all, the deciding factor of this series will be Ryan Miller. Tim Connolly, Thomas Vanek and Derek Roy will only have to provide modest offense if the Miller we have seen all year shows up. If he is not on his game though, this could be a longer series, with neither team lighting the lamp more than three times in a game. Sorry Boston fans, I know you were happy you made it, but the worst thing for a team to run into in the playoffs is a hot goalie. And in the case of Ryan Miller, maybe the world’s best.

Prediction: Sabres in 6

This matchup may be one of the most deceiving of all the Eastern Conference first-round pairings. On one side of the ice there is the Pittsburgh Penguins, the defending Stanley Cup Champion, and one which has been to back-to-back Cup finals. Opposing them is the somewhat undervalued Ottawa Senators. Ottawa flew under the radar for a lot of the season, but the talent and experience is in place to make a deep playoff run.

Pittsburgh has a star-studded lineup, but you don’t need us to tell you that. Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Sergei Gonchar lead a team with high expectations and fans with higher. Anything but a repeat will be unacceptable, and the biggest thing that might prevent them from hoisting the Stanley Cup sat on the bench during the Olympics. Marc-Andre Fleury is a talented but erratic netminder.

If Ottawa’s veterans can knuckle down and play the kind of hockey that once won them a conference title, then they have a fighting chance against Pittsburgh. Jason Spezza, Daniel Alfredsson, and Mike Fischer possess the skills needed to steal a game or two in Pittsburgh, and there’s always the human shot-blocking machine, Anton Volchenkov. A huge blow perhaps to Ottawa’s chances was the end of season injury to Alexei Kovalev — a torn ACL.

Still, Ottawa’s goaltending could be one of the more under-reported storylines of the first round. Brian Elliott doesn’t have to stand on his head, but he has to be better than Marc Andre Fleury. And he’s plenty good — one of the best goalies this past season. This is not the same Pens’ Cup-winning club of a year ago — it’s a team whose blueline doesn’t look nearly as strong and stable absent the departed Rob Scuderi and Hal Gill. Pittsburgh should be able to pull it out, but it won’t be without some nail biting in the closest series of the Eastern Conference.

Prediction: Penguins in 7

Western Conference

What’s not to like about the other conference’s first/last first-round series? If people are calling Montreal/Washington the David and Goliath first-round series, then this series might be more in the realm of Sparta versus Persia proportions. San Jose is the perennial second-round flop that everyone expects will do well and Colorado is the little engine that could, a team that wasn’t even supposed to be around right now, and almost wasn’t.

The reason we’ll take San Jose in this matchup is only because they normally lose in the second round (last year against Anaheim was an exception). The season series was even, and Craig Anderson had an outstanding first half but slipped up a bit this calendar year. Not forecasting necessarily that he will, but we’re also not going to be the ones to say he can’t pull off an awesome April turnaround. If Colorado’s young team, led by Matt Duchene and the trade deadline-acquired Peter Mueller, gells and is olivious to postseason pressure by virtue of their collective youth and inexperience, they stand a chance at upsetting San Jose and Dany Heatley. He might realize he should have stayed in Ottawa.

Prediction: Sharks in 7

If Chicago had reliable netminding we’d call this one of the early enders in round one. It still might be — that’s how loaded the Hawks are. But Nashville plays the Western conference’s most physical brand of hockey, and that could pose a challenge to Chicago’s fleet of skilled scoring forwards.

It’s Antti Niemi vs. Pekka Rinne in net — advantage Preds. Still, while Nashville has an unheralded corps of offensive weapons up front, and some terrific bangers on the back end, they’re no match for the elite Hawks.

Prediction: Hawks in 5

After scraping through with the Art Ross Trophy, Henrik Sedin and the Canucks will be at full force in the first round and a force to be reckoned with. But, if there’s one upset that is likely to occur in the first round, it’s gotta be this one. Los Angeles has an amazingly gifted young core, and more than capable goaltending in Jonathan Quick. They also have a great supporting cast in vets like Jeff Halpern and Ryan Smyth, who reignited his scoring touch with Anze Kopitar at center.

Vancouver’s lineup is as deep as they come in the NHL, but we’re not so confident that Roberto Luongo and the British Columbians will be as physical as Los Angeles. The secondary scoring on this team is fantastic, though, with last summer’s acqusition of Michael Samuelsson a clever signing. Alexandre Burrows, Mason Raymond and Ryan Kesler all had career years, and it seems they’ll continue their top-five goal production in the postseason. But we’re willing to take a gamble on Los Angeles and say they’ll wear Vancouver’s forwards down physically with the likes of Drew Doughty, Rob Scuderi and bone-crusher Jack Johnson on the blueline.

Prediction: Kings in 6

This may be the most intriguing first-round matchup — the Cinderella story Coyotes, owned and managed this season by the league, and flirting with no. 1 overall out West well into March, and the late-surging Wings, who’ve battled through ravenous injuries to earn an underdog-with-an-edge status this postseason.

The Coyotes will need Vezina candidate Ilya Bryzgalov to keep up his backbone backstopping ways in this series. Bryzgalov merely won 42 games in the regular season and posted an eye-popping eight shutouts. Detroit will counter with rookie netminding (and Calder candidate) sensation Jimmy Howard. All the experience in this series is obviously on the side of Detroit. All the MoJo appears to be with the Wings. But wouldn’t it be an amazing feather in the Phoenix cap if they took down the perennial conference power?

Prediction: Wings in 6

He haunts us still from his grave.

I can say this because when I asked the Capitals about the conspicuous absence of some of the team’s indisputably best games, I was told that video for many of them just wasn’t in their possession. And take note: The Chicago Blackhawks released their ‘Best of’ DVD collection last Tuesday just as the Caps did, and their collection has Stanley Cup finals footage from 1961 in it, as well as other cornerstone moments from the franchise’s history, such as saying farewell to Chicago Stadium.

That got me wondering: in a perfect Capitals’ DVD collection, should some manner of ode to the Big Pringle, the Capital Centre, be included? I think so. It was after all home to hockey in the Washington region from 1974 to 1997.

It certainly wasn’t the case that in working with the NHL on this project the Capitals didn’t want to include more vintage video. They simply couldn’t. It helps to have in place an ownership and management structure that cares about legacy and history.

Should the Capitals — again, under the previous regime — have allotted baseline resources to chronicling the team’s first quarter century of existence? I think so. Most grizzled veteran local hockey fans would probably agree with me. It would be interesting I think to survey what volume of video today exists for all basketball seasons within Washington Sports. But alas, this abject neglect of the hockey past, which one Capitals’ official described to me this week as “tragic” and “atrocious,” is what it is.

And here is what it is:

• 10: Ovi’s hat trick in game 2 against Pittsburgh last May, one matched by Sidney in  a losing effort;

• 9: Game 7 versus the Rags last April;

• 8: Game 1 versus the Flyers in 2008;

• 7: Caps winning the Southeast and qualifying for the postseason in the last game of the season against Florida, April 5, 2008;

• 6: Ovi scores 4 goals against the Habs while enduring a broken nose, January 31, 2008;

• 5: Bruce Boudreau’s first game behind the Caps’ bench, Novemver 23, 2007;

• 4: Ovi’s first Caps’ game, against Columbus, October 5, 2005;

• 3: Juneau catapults the Caps to their first-ever Stanley Cup finals, June 4, 1998;

• 2: Game 1 of the 1996 Eastern Conference quarterfinals when the Caps overcame a 4-1 deficit to beat Mario, Jaromir, and the Pens 6-4;

• 1: Huntsy vanquishes the Flyers in overtime of game 7!

No doubt, this compilation gets no. 1 of all time right, and by virtue of its inclusion, it’s probably a value buy at $50. Put it this way: in the dog days of this summer, when I’m seriously missing hockey, you think I won’t devote one July Saturday night to a six-pack and that game?

But Bruce Boudreau’s first game? And the Caps’ game 7 win over the Rangers last spring was an incredibly dull and discouraging affair through 54 minutes. It’s got one mega moment. A serious sigh of relief moment. But again, the Caps had their hands seriously tied in this endeavor.

Any ‘Best of’ list for a sports franchise in its fifth decade of existence must establish some baseline criteria by which to select 10 standout games. Without one, the list could veer wildly and indiscriminately from games featuring primarily great slugfests to symbolic affairs such as a first game in a new arena.

So about a week ago Ed Frankovic, Caps’ blogger for Baltimore WNST, and I decided to devise our own list of the 10 Greatest Caps’ Games of All Time. Ed was the perfect partner for this endeavor. For one thing, like me, he’s rarely mistaken for a youthful blogger in the Caps’ press box, and with experience comes fluency with the past. More importantly, he and his family have a rich association with the organization:  Ed’s father, also named Ed, covered the Caps for WMLD and then the Prince George’s Post-Sentinel upon its inception in 1974-75, dragging his son, who was just 9 years old in that first season, to numerous games and getting him hooked on hockey. From 1984-1988 the younger Ed began covering the Caps and other area teams, for the Prince George’s Post-Sentinel. In 1987, he earned an opportunity to work for the team on game nights doing statistics for the GM and coaches. That opportunity turned into a 10-year stint as a Washington Capitals statistician, from 1987 through 1997.

During his time as a Capitals statistician Frankovic worked for GM David Poile and each of the team’s various head coaches (Brian Murray, Terry Murray, and Jim Schoenfeld). In the summer of 2007, Frankovic was asked to write a blog on his newly founded website for WNST. He has turned that primarily into a hockey blog with a focus on the Washington Capitals.

Ed and I decided to try and identify 10 games that (1) carried inordinate significance for the franchise, and have aged as such, and (2) could offer compelling rationale for favored status among most fans. The Capitals’ Mike Vogel correctly pointed out to us that there are some wildly entertaining Caps’ games in which gloves and sticks were more often tossed about the ice than carried by players in play. But as a best game in franchise history? We didn’t think so. But a primary motivation for pursuing this endeavor is to invite readers’ compilations; we absolutely want to learn what games have meant the most to you over the years you have followed the Caps. We also feel strongly that no Capitals’ losses be included — who wants to watch that?

Ed and I agreed that a truly representative list of 10 best games would have to de-emphasize the Era of Ovechkin. No disrespect to the captain, but his reign, in the context of the overall life of the franchise, has been brief. We also strongly believed that the 1980s — the Era of Bryan Murray — needed greater representation. There were three 100-point Caps’ clubs then. Again, in our talks with the Capitals over the past week about this, they were in complete agreement with our thinking. Here then is the Best-Games list Ed and I came up with — and if you don’t check out the detail-rich reminiscing Ed has generated over at his blog in this endeavor, you’re missing out on a true Caps’ hockey historian’s gift to his readers:

• (10): The Edmonton Massacre. On February 5, 1984, the Capitals obliterated the Edmonton Oilers at Capital Centre by the score of 9-2. This was notable for a number of reasons. First and foremost, ’83-’84 was a pretty special Oilers club: they won their first Cup that season. And earlier in the season, the Caps had lost 11-3 in Edmonton. And back home a week later, the Caps lost 7-4 to Wayne & Co.  The Great One was sidelined with flu on Reckoning day, but the rest of the dynastic Oil was dressed — and pummeled. This was a major statement game for a franchise still struggling to gain recognition and respect.

• (9): Ovi’s four goals and a broken nose vs. the Habs, 1/31, 08. Here we’re in agreement with the Caps, just in a different ranking.

• (8): Game 3, April 12, 1986, Caps win 3-1 over the Islanders and sweep the best-of-five series. This was a landmark postseason triumph for the Caps over a Patrick division foe who’d tormented them over the first half of the decade, winning all three previous series. It was a triumph so special that Channel 20 remained live on air in the Capitals’ jubilant locker room for upwards of 45 minutes, recording the elation of player after player.

• (7): Gus goes for 5 against Philly — on just 5 shots! On January 8, 1984, Capitals’ center Bengt Gustafsson authored an individual scoring performance the likes of which had never been seen in a red sweater — and may not be seen ever again. He scored five goals in the Philadelphia Spectrum, on just five shots, leading a beautiful beatdown of the Orange and Black to the tune of 7-1.

• (6): Ovi’s debut, October 5, 2005. Here again we agree with the Caps in its inclusion, despite the fact that an opening night game can’t carry truly great importance. But symbolically this evening was monumentally important, and a soldout Verizon Center seemed to recognize it. Ovi’s two-goal, glass-smashing performance was prescient. A new and vastly improved era was dawning.

• (5): Druce on the Loose! On April 27, 1990, in game 5 of the Patrick division finals, John Druce scored his fourth game-winning goal of the early postseason, in overtime, catapulting the Capitals to their first-ever Eastern conference finals. After scoring just 8 goals during the regular season Druce exploded for 14 in the postseason, a clutch performance so singularly spectacular that it’s referenced still 20 years later. Druce’s exclusion from the official best of DVD collection is a high crime and felony against the Pollin family.

• (4): Flyers vanquished in first-ever postseason series win. On April 7, 1984, the Capitals defeated Philly in a series-ending laugher, 5-1, sweeping the best-of-five set in three games for their first ever playoff series triumph. Doing it in Philly was especially sweet. The game-winning goal came off the stick of Craig Laughlin.

• (3): Ovi matches Sid’s hat trick in Game 2, on May 4, 2009, but the good guys win. Here we are in agreement with the official DVD compliation, but we place a far greater weight to its importance.

• (2): Juneau sends the Caps past Buffalo and into the Stanley Cup finals. The DVD compilation is disappointing with this game in its meager offerings of the jubilation aftermath. I wanted to see Caps’ players and trainers and coaches hugging on the ice for minutes after Joe Juneau tapped in a loose puck past Dominik Hasek, just as ESPN originally showed. Anyway, I was in a Bethesda, Md., bar that night watching the game with a high school buddy, and the two of us kissed strangers well into the night. It might also have been nifty to include some footage of the remarkable reception the team received in the middle of the night upon its return to its Piney Orchard training facility. Local TV could have provided that.

• (1): Huntsy breaks Hexy’s heart in Game 7, April 16, 1988. The Marlboro moment for Capitals’ fans. Down three games to one in the series, and 3-0 in game 7, the Caps valiantly battle back, force OT, and then #32 ends it going 5-hole on he we so hated. So lovely.

So that’s our list. Come at us with your own. We really want to know what Caps’ games over the past 35 years you hold dearest in your hockey heart. And most especially, if you have video of these or other great Capitals’ games of the past, by all means get them shipped over to Kettler pronto. You have an ownership group there who loves hockey.

First up, the invaders from the District enthusiastically profane a Hawks’ monument out front of United Center.

Inside, the first puck sodas of the day have a way of easing tensions between foes.

Ovi invaded Chicago alright . . . and made short work of his visit.

United Center is a massive building — 22,000-plus cram it for hockey every night these days. Unfortunately, its rafters are clogged with too much hoops hardware.

Can there be a sweeter moment for a fan on a roadtrip than to have a great perch from which to see his team score the game-ender — the culmination of a remarkable last-frame comeback — and to stand up in the uniform of his heroes in salute amid a sea of despondent home fans?

You’re in no hurry to exit the rink while awash in victory’s glow.

When you do, Chicago’s got just a few good taverns to victory toast by. Even recently disappointed young Hawks’ fans could see past defeat and be charmed by an invasion of a company of the Red Army.

Up to that moment of impact, I’d known quite well that AO was going to be a hockey player unlike any other we’d ever seen in D.C. But as opening acts go, Ovi’s was conspicuous in skill and ferocity. For the remainder of that Calder-winning rookie season the Gr8, as he almost instantly became known, carried forward both dynamic skill and an All-Pro linebacker’s mentality: he scored 50 goals and he crushed people, often dramatically, always cleanly.

By the completion of Ovechkin’s third season, in 2007-08, when he scored 65 goals and swept up virtually all available individual hardware (to recap: the Hart; the Richard, the Pearson, and the Art Ross trophies), savvy, knowledgeable folks in hockey were discussing Ovi in historic terms. He really did appear to be, in unrivaled fashion, a compelling hybrid hockey player: the type of performer who could beat you with his wrists on one shift and lay our your biggest blueliner the next.

The best part of his physicality was its brutality well within the confines of the league’s lawfulness. Even fans of the Capitals’ biggest rivals had to give Ovi his due, if they were serious hockey fans.

But from where I sit this morning, there appears to be something akin to a menacing spirit that’s infiltrated Ovechkin’s game, more a cavalier disregard for the welfare of his opponent than anything characteristically filthy, and it seems to me to have germinated in last spring’s playoffs, with Ovi’s knee-on-knee misfortune with Sergei Gonchar. Were that hit to have occurred in the regular season as opposed to the playoffs, Ovi may well have been suspended. Were it to have happened this week, in light of what’s transpired with him since, it surely would have been. But it was really with that hit, with so many people watching, that Ovechkin gave us hard evidence that something new, something unprecedented, and something potentially sinister was stirring within.

In relatively short order, the litany of Ovechkin’s misdeeds has piled up:

• A corner ploughing into of Jamie Heward that resulted in the Lightning rearguard departing the ice on a stretcher.

• A moderately questionable knee-on-knee collision with Sergei Gonchar. It looks worse in slow motion; in real time, the hit, while meriting a penalty, appears instinctive and reactive in its immediacy, rather than malevolent.

• A brutal boarding of Buffalo’s Patrick Kaleta that earned Ovi an ejection.

• Another knee-on-knee hit, far less questionable, on Carolina’s Tim Gleason, one that injured Ovi. When you watch the clip of it, notice how immediately the Hurricanes’ television announcer forecasts a penalty for the hit. The Kaleta and Gleason hits occurred within a week of one another.

• And this past Sunday’s collarbone-and ribs-cracking act of aggression against Chicago’s Brian Campbell, which may just end Campbell’s season. And Chicago’s hopes.

A few observations related to the totality of this litany. First, there can be no denying that Alexander Ovechkin plays with an edge that, when combined with his extraordinary — and extraordinarily strong — physique, renders him a unique, frankly unrivaled physical threat in the NHL. Anywhere in hockey, for that matter. And that’s part of his appeal.

It also seems fair and accurate to suggest that even in the totality of Ovechkin’s sanctionable hits there’s never been an instance when an observer could attribute, with any sense of reasonableness, any level of malice in Ovi’s play. But that doesn’t mean that what he’s been too commonly engaged in of late is right. Moreover, to state the obvious, to the extent that his style of play ushers in suspensions, he’s hurting his hockey team — the one he now captains.

What seems to have emerged in the last 12-15 months with his game is a peculiar and at least troubling lack of respect for his opponents. It’s a remorselessness. It was abundantly on display in video interviews of him in Sunday’s aftermath. At the very least, Ovi seems blissfully unaware of the novel physical advantage he enjoys in every matchup he’s engaged in. And he exploits it. There are other players in the league weighing 230 pounds; but there are none who skate like he does, nor possess the seeming genetic makeup to be a fast-moving armored tank on skates. He really is a physical freak. And that advantage has at times dire consequences.

I struggle with this basic question: why so much trouble for him of late, and why the comparatively placid power game of his first three seasons?

“He plays a reckless style,” Montreal’s Josh Gorges told TSN this week. “He’s going a hundred miles an hour, he’s hitting everything that moves, he’s going to the net, he’s burying guys . . . He plays that way, he plays with that reckless abandonment, and sometimes it’s right on the line.”

By 8:00 last night not only was the latest Ovechkin suspension the lead story on TSN’s home page but it was accompanied by damning video clips from the past and opinion pieces themed on whether or not Ovi was a dirty player.

“I want accountability for thoughtlessness,” Ray Ferraro wrote on TSN last night.

I do too. Sunday’s transgression was Ovechkin’s worst to date when measured by the barometer of thoughtlessness. It was simply a play that didn’t have to happen. Brian Campbell was without the puck, 195 feet from the Capitals’ cage. Ovechkin, his general manager claimed last night, was trying “to finish his check.” Notice that George McPhee didn’t claim that he was actually finishing his check — and we all know what that looks like — but rather trying to. Ovechkin in that moment had a judgment to make, and time to do it. He made a grievously, injuriously wrong one.

Josh Gorges aside, no one’s seriously claiming that Ovechkin is a reckless head-hunter. Not yet. But there’s an urgency to bringing Ovi back into the fold — back where he was with this organization during his first three seasons — on a night-in, night-out basis. Today Alexander Ovechkin is captain of his hockey team, and at the most crucial time perhaps in franchise history. There’s no guarantee of the Caps’ again being well distanced from the rest of their conference with the playoffs near, the team’s health outstanding, their Cup candidacy so vibrant and viable. Ovechkin’s franchise and its fans are tired of losing perennially in the postseason. He needs to be on the ice being his naturally brilliant and lawfully brutal self. Brilliant and brutal but fair. And respectful. We’ve seen that Ovechkin before, years’ worth. Hockey and the Caps are best served with his return to that form.