Without Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, and Mike Green, this Capitals team is surprisingly similar to the Capitals of almost a decade ago… a hard-charging team that both delighted and frustrated its fans.

How so, you ask? Read on… and while these comparisons are far from perfect, consider them food for thought:

It’s not a perfect match; the old-school Caps had no Karl Alzner, nor a spark-plug like Matt Hendricks, nor a promising young defenseman like Dmitry Orlov. Of course, that team of yore had a disenchanted but still-dangerous Jaromir Jagr—but the current Caps have Ovechkin… and however you feel about Ovie wearing the “C” he’s undoubtedly more deserving than Jagr was, and a wrecking-ball to boot.

Oh, and comparing the coaches falls down just a little bit… while Dale Hunter is another minor-league coach given his first NHL shot with the Caps, he kicks Butch Cassidy’s ass in pretty much every way.

When the 2011-12 team’s Robert Lang (Nicklas Backstrom) and Sergei Gonchar (Mike Green) return from injury, this roster can compete with any in team in the league. The team going through trying times with a depleted roster will build their chemistry and resolve come playoff time.

This limping Capitals team has earned three points in two games, including a tilt against the defending champs… and that’s without three of their big stars. Adding back a healthy Ovechkin, Backstrom, and Green down the stretch improves the team dramatically — but in the meantime, a team forced to play without its superstars is also forced to play a balanced, team-focused game.

If Coach Hunter and the locker-room leaders enforce that team-first mentality when their superstars return… watch out, ’cause these Capitals will be dangerous.

A devoted worshiper at the Church of Old Time Hockey, and imbued with resounding cynicism, I couldn’t help but think: We in D.C. have become so saturated with soft, perimeter play by our hockey players — most especially in spring — that it shouldn’t be surprising that some observers here find Callahan’s impression of William Wallace . . . so alien. One interpretation of the perpetual scratching of Jeff Schultz is that the Capitals’ new head coach thinks like I do.

An alternative interpretation of Callahan’s gallantry could go something like this:  That motherf*cker is damned tough to play against, and for the past couple of seasons, the talent-challenged Rangers have well reflected their captain’s grit and determination, by decree of their head coach, and given more talented clubs a real run for their money (especially in spring). Ryan Callahan is one hell of a captain. He will be one hell of an American Olympian captain as well.

Today, that talent gap with the rest of the East for New York has been closed quite a bit, and for me it’s no coincidence that playing inspired, finish-your-checks hockey the Rangers reside at the very top of the conference. Soon, they’ll get their best defenseman in the lineup (Marc Staal), for the first time this season, making them even tougher to play against. The Rangers are built the way serious contenders are — from the net out, big and brawny, with an unmistakable net-clearing ethos in front of the net, and mobile and skilled on the blueline. Served the Bruins rather well last spring.

Perhaps before we criticize another team’s captain and his teammates for excessive sacrifice and courage we ought to see to it that ours is within driving distance of the Viking, Alberta, meter of toughness and tenacity.

The Washington Capitals of the past five years haven’t exactly been known for the selfless sacrifice of their bodies for the betterment of the team, for finishing their checks. In fact, especially in spring, they have fairly earned the reputation of being a team that’s easy to play against, one that comparative lunch pale squads want to draw in the postseason. To state the obvious: there is today no Capitals player quite like Ryan Callahan, and there hasn’t been for some years. Once upon a time, though, there was. The good news is that the former Capitals’ captain is now behind the team’s bench. There, he’s attempting to change a country club culture.

He needs time — cultures, of course, aren’t changed in a week or a month.

Almost certainly, he also needs more Patrick division bodies. More on that in a moment.

Speaking of instructional moments, HBO’s ’24/7′ this month is again affording more stark relief for Capitals fans insofar as how the rugged East comports itself. Watching the intermission exhortations of John Tortorella and Peter Laviolette is not far removed from listening to the warrior words of William Wallace. At their conclusion I find myself clutching my abdomen on my couch to make sure no Rangers or Flyers stick blades make their way through the TV screen at me, and necessarily I’m reminded of the contrast Dan Bylsma brought with our guy on last year’s series (“Hit Green.”).

George McPhee hired Dale Hunter because he believed him to be the best possible coach for the Capitals at the present moment, and part of that formulation perhaps included his conviction that Hunter could be the architect for revamping both the style and ethos of the club. My guess is that Coach Hunter is taking inventory of the roster he has and will report rugged shortcomings to the GM in short order.

The arrival of 2012 really brings a demarcation moment for the Washington Capitals. To posit any plausible playoff success next spring the Caps necessarily will have to get past the pesky and gutsy and supremely sacrificing Rags, the larger and skilled Flyers and Bruins. I’m not sure that as comprised the Capitals would be favored in any series. But 2012 also brings Washington’s return to the reconstituted Patrick division. The Capitals of the past five years have been assembled to compete quite well in the softer Southeast. In the next calendar year the hockey for the guys in  red necessarily gets rougher and tougher.

Looking ahead to 2012 and beyond, there is cause for concern. When you inventory the Capitals’ prospects holdings at Hockeysfuture, with an eye toward who among just the top 15 qualifies as a North American forward prospect tipping the scales at at least 6 ’0, 180 pounds (hardly power forward in stature), the calculation is stunning: zero. Then for fun take a look at the size of the prospect holdings for the Rags, Flyers, Pens, and Devils — and just in their top 10. The Rangers are awaiting on reinforcements like Chris Kreider (6 ’2, 200), J.T. Miller (6 ’1, 198), and defenseman Dylan McIlraith (6 ’4, 215, nicknamed the Undertaker). Philly, ravaged by injury this season, has already received notable contributions from young, big-bodied North Americans like Brayden Schenn and Sean Couturier. The Pens have Eric Tangradi (6 ’4, 232), Dustin Jeffrey (6 ’1, 205), Robert Bortuzzo (6 ’3, 196), and Brian Strait (6 ’0, 200) in the pipeline. From the development perspective, we’re coming to the Patrick rechristening party next season with jockeys.

I still suggest that in hindsight it was right to draft the likes of Brian Sutherby, Nolan Yonkman, and Joe Finley. Things didn’t work out with them; injuries eviscerated their respective development. But the Capitals obviously have gotten away from drafting size and guile and grit, and beginning in 2012, they need it badly. Funny: The ‘New-look’ NHL at the top of the East these days rather resembles the old, in stature. The Capitals hold two first-round picks and potentially Colorado’s second-rounder next June. Those picks need to resemble NFL linebackers or safeties in size, and here’s hoping Dale Hunter — uniquely qualified to assess the attributes of top junior talent — is at the draft table for their selection, and subsequently their development.

By queer, delightful coincidence I decided at the last minute to don my Dale Hunter Quebec Nordiques sweater for my Sunday visit to Bugsy’s. I needed to remind the out-of-town friends I was meeting there that Bugsy’s was a hockey bar, even while every TV screen was broadcasting NFL football that day. I had a heavy flannel shirt on over my sweater, and the two hockey coaches were the first folks I saw in the bar as I walked in. I walked right up to the table where they were seated sipping cold ones and unveiled my allegiance.

“Now that’s old school!” the head coach said, smiling at his assistant.

I regaled the coaches with warm welcomes and then left them to their off-day relaxation. My friends, apprised of my stunning good fortune, implored me to return to the coaches’ table and request a photo, and for the legend to sign my sweater, and I confess, I gave it a brief moment’s consideration. But I’ve been imbued by a modicum of media professionalism working with the Capitals’ media relations team in recent years, and more importantly, I’m a big believer that our sports heroes need come space out in public to be just like us, free from memorabilia pleadings and such. For me on Sunday it was more than enough thrill to shake the legend’s hand and say, “Welcome home.”

If you’ve been to Bugsy’s just once you know that owner Bryan Watson has made it a shrine of sorts to our sport. My football-loving friends on Sunday were stunned by the framed photos of brutally beaten up ice warriors that gloriously clutter Bugsy’s walls. I’d forgotten, but Dale Hunter’s home white Capitals sweater is encased and hung prominently in the bar. Sunday I really enjoyed looking at that historic sweater and seeing the legend who wore it relaxing some 20 feet away. It was for me one of the more powerful proof points of our arrival as a hockey town. A hockey town needs a hockey legend, of course, and better if he’s actually in town and once in a while out and about so that soldiers can stop by his table and salute him.

I’ve been around Alexander Ovechkin, one of the greatest hockey players in the world, a great deal the past five years, literally hundreds of up close encounters in Capitals’ locker rooms. I’ve interviewed Sidney Crosby in the visitor’s locker room at Verizon Center. I’ve chatted up Bryan Murray and Peter Bondra and famous New York Times reporters while being credentialed to cover the Caps. None of those experiences delivered anything approaching the exhilaration I experienced with my proximity to Coach Hunter on Sunday. It seems silly, and then it doesn’t.

For the first time since I started blogging with credentials I felt awestruck Sunday, but in a good and healthy way. I was quasi-trembling for nearly three hours seated almost immediately next to the new coach. I knew that no other coach, no other figure from the Capitals’ past, could make me feel that way. Distracted as I was, I had difficulty listening to my friends’ conversation with any fidelity. Obviously I didn’t give a damn about the football overhead.

There’s just something about this moment, and that set of silver hair, and those steely blue eyes conveying still a warrior’s intensity, even in Sunday relaxation; just something almost notoriously novel in his being here, right now, taking charge of these Washington Capitals. I know that George McPhee believes it, but my belief is rooted largely in devotional faith, not any objective, dispassionate analysis. And I’m not apologizing for it.

On Sunday I liked a lot that over the course of about three hours the coach, seated with his assistant and later joined by Bugsy himself, never once glanced up at all the football on all the TV screens. The hockey men were there to toss back a few cold ones and . . . talk hockey. On their day off.

Understandably, at so critical a moment for the Capitals, we all want hard and fast evidence that this momentous change will deliver the goods, that this particular change is paramount among final tinkering by George McPhee with his grand design. It is our fervent hope. But of course we can’t know, not before next spring. Instead, we’re supposed to relish all the drama fraught with the unknown journey. For this hockey fan, Dale Hunter’s return home, to lead, is an unmistakable signal that our hockey culture is changing, already, and this Christmas that’s good enough for me.

A few quick thoughts:

• Is the Beast back? In a modest 18 minutes of ice time last night the Gr8 pumped 7 shots on the Senators’ cage, and they were all of the quality variety. It was vintage Ovi. Since the coaching change he has certainly been more an impactful performer, but last night he seemed to put it all together at last, and that dazzling, game-changing tally — and I think it belongs among his 10 best tallies ever as a Cap — may represent his personal crossing of the rubicon this season.

• Can someone please get Brooks Laich a stick that actually stays in one piece on the penalty kill?

• Props to Dale Hunter for trying out that Halpern/Johannson/Brouwer combination. That was, to my knowledge, one of the few combinations we hadn’t seen yet in Washington, but it was a nice mix of veteran experience and younger spark.

• Karl Alzner’s paycheck should get a bonus; there was one moment (I think it was on the penalty kill) where he threw his body on the right half of the goal line because Vokoun left it exposed while there was significant traffic and a battle for the puck going on in front of the net.

• More thoughts Ovi: I haven’t seen him play quite like that since before John Wall joined the Wizards. He’s actually getting to the net again on occasion when he charges into the offensive zone by himself, from out wide, where he generates lethal speed on a bull-rush, and his goal was a beautiful mix of skill, will, cunning, and flair. Ovechkin flair — which of course is unlike anyone else’s in hockey. He’ll probably be a stronger player for going through this protracted slump.

• 44 shots on goal. Not bad. A power play goal. Not bad. Still lots of work to do on the PK (bad). Allowing Ottawa to score on the power play to make it 4-3 late, needlessly injecting drama into the evening, falls (again) at the stick of the undisciplined and unpredictable Alexander Semin, but a crazy shot from John Carlson in his own zone that hit an empty net was a pretty fun way to get insurance.

• On Semin: Just as we may have witnessed Alexander Ovechkin chart a positive and productive new course with last night’s effort, I’m left wondering just how much more the new coach has to see of Ovechkin’s countryman before an ultimate verdict is rendered. At 4-2 deep in the third on the road, the game needs to go in lockdown, and that’s not a task you look to #28 to carry out.

• It’s actually difficult for me to pick a favorite goal in this game: the beauty by Ovechkin, the gorgeous pass by Laich to Backstrom as they came flying towards the net and the successful shot by Nick, and a somewhat similar goal off a pass from Johannson to Brouwer.

Perhaps a statement win for Dale Hunter. A relief win for the fanbase. Most importantly, perhaps: a night we’ll look back on and say, “That’s when Ovi got his groove back.”

There’s standup, and then there’s what Gabby offered the Washington Post’s Tarik El Bashir Wednesday morning — actually agreeing with Capitals management that it was time for a change behind the bench. He actually told General Manager George McPhee, “You’re doing what you have to do.” A company man in this sport if there ever was one. He’d just been terminated from his dream job, and still his thoughts were with what was best for the team.

On November 17 the Caps were in Winnipeg, and after they’d fallen behind 4-1 after 40 minutes, most listlessly, I sensed, really for the very first time, that we were watching the onset of destruction. The very next morning I took to Twitter and made explicit my concern: “The biggest indictment of this team was the final frame. Teams with pride and character make it 4-2 or 4-3, to build on for the next outing.”

I reference this moment because when Tarik yesterday morning asked Boudreau when he sensed that things might be slipping from his control the coach pointed to November 17 in Winnipeg.

Way back in January I published a highly unflattering, highly critical two-part read on the struggling, soft and identity-challenged Caps, calling them out for operating in a what I regarded as a “country club” atmosphere of luxury, comfort and precious little accountability that, from where I blogged, undermined an ethos of night-in, night-out hunger and drive — most particularly relative to the lunch pale Capitals rosters of 15-plus years ago. You know, the types of teams Dale Hunter played on here. And last season I also pulled no punches with respect to commenting on the increasing frequency with which Washington hockey fans were taking to social media to share photos and accounts of nightclub encounters with members of the team at troubling hours, and with troubling frequency. And so it was most interesting for me to take in the NHL Network’s coverage of Monday’s drama, Monday night, and hear Billy Jaffe suggest that under Dale Hunter there could be no serious commitment to winning when it mattered without the Caps mending their “clubbing” ways, while Joe Beninati not long later alluded to a “country club atmosphere” taking hold in recent years. The Washington Post’s Tom Boswell authored what I thought was the most severe indictment of the Boudreau era, but taking pains, to his credit, to also assign blame to upper management.

“During the offseason two ex-Capitals went public about the country club atmosphere that undermined discipline on the team. Once you’ve tolerated a star system for years, how can the same coach possibly reverse the trend?”

About a week ago, right as I began sensing that things were truly boiling over, I sent email to some reporters here suggesting that Jason Arnott would be in a unique position to comment on troubles that festered last season and perhaps metastasized this. Arnott had been afforded an inside look at the team last spring and then departed town — having arrived here with great fanfare at the trade deadline as a coveted leadership asset — with nary a word said about it, and having landed quite well in St. Louis this season. To his credit again, Tarik button-holed Arnott out at Kettler on Monday. You might say that in D.C. Arnott saw a loose ship being captained.

“It’s very hard. When you let guys do what they please, what they want [emphasis OFB's], then you come in and get hard on them, it’s pretty tough.”

But by no means should Bruce Boudreau alone be scapegoated for the country club atmosphere — and Boswell emphasizes this in his column. Boudreau wasn’t in D.C. when the Caps drafted Ovechkin and subsequently devised elaborate and clever and highly successive marketing campaigns for him his first two seasons. The coddling and deification of the extraordinary talent began from day one. With Alexander Ovechkin the Capitals, for the first time in their history, had an opportunity to create their Elvis (thin and fat), and they did.

There were no larger-than-life figures on that ’98 Capitals club, captained by the legend, that made it to the Stanley Cup finals, were there? Just food for thought.

So you know that my concerns with the Caps date back deep into last season and you should know too that I opened this season with a renewal of them — I titled my season preview ‘Questions for a Hockey Club at a Crossroads.’ In it I identified Bruce Boudreau as a figure who had to demonstrate marked improvement at his job: “Much as the Capitals’ core roster has experienced growing pains in its path toward legitimate contention, so too has Head Coach Bruce Boudreau. Put bluntly: he’s underwhelmed a lot of observers with his handling of the Capitals’ recent postseasons, and in fact in the judgment of many been out-coached by less experienced bench bosses of lower-seeded clubs.”

I didn’t write this sentiment for that preview file, but I did suggest to a few of my blogger chums here that it was not at all beyond the realm of possibility that the Caps could can Boudreau at about the 25-game mark. I specifically wondered how McPhee would react if, for instance, the Caps were behind Tampa Bay in the Southeast division then. Like I think everyone else, I had no idea we’d see what we have this season from the Panthers. Anyway, my hypothesis occasioned a torrent of email protest back from my chums: “No way; he’s years left on his deal; Ted’s too cheap.” (They really wrote me that.) The Moral: When a team goes bad any GM who values his job will pull the trigger, no matter (within reason) the financial fallout.

* * * * *

I’m closing this file with a very personal feel-good story. Last night the Buffalo Sabres recalled Joe Finley. In the summer of 2010 Fins kept a diary during Capitals’ Development Camp for OFB. It was a really fun project, and I enjoyed most that Big Joe had a lot of fun with it. Meeting him for that project remains one of the great rewards I’ve derived from this blogging gig. Big Joe is a true gentle giant, truly one of the friendliest people I’ve met in the sport.

During his development time with the Caps Fins suffered injury after injury, and finally, at the end of last season, the team did what most teams do after a first-round pick fails to show some durable glimmer that all of that development investment was paying off: they cut ties with him.

Buffalo invited Fins to training camp this fall, and he showed well enough to earn an AHL contract with the Sabres’ American League affiliate in Rochester. With the Amerks Fins has been what the Buffalo News this week termed “a revelation.” Through 18 games this season Big Joe has seriously thrown his weight around (57 PIMs), and played so strongly that he’s earned a shut-down designation with the top pairing on the Rochester blueline. His +10 is best on the team. It’s a terrific story, capped by his earning this week a three-year, two-way contract with the Sabres and last night’s callup. I sent him a congratulatory note the other day, in which I somewhat jokingly expressed remorse that the Caps hadn’t held on to him one year longer, given the arrival of the new sheriff in town. He agreed.

Was the Capitals’ excessive time in the d-zone Tuesday just growing pains?

How fast can we expect Hunter to install his system?

One of Ovi’s rushes into the o-zone tonight ended up in an assist –has Hunter solved the Ovi/breakaway frustration?

Ted and I discuss this, and I try to force Ted to call a win/loss for the Caps-Pens tilt Thursday.

For nearly two years now I’ve had a recurring wonder related to righting the frustrating and infuriating underachievement by the Washington Capitals of this era: What would happen if this band of multi-millionaires suddenly had to share a room with a legend, an authentic legend, who wore the team crest; a true warrior whose number resides in the rafters of Verizon Center, whose honor mural conspicuously adorns one end of the team’s training facility; the scorer of what most Caps’ fans regard as the biggest goal in team history, a luminary who once lifted the Prince of Wales trophy high over his head? That for me was what was biggest about Monday’s stop-the-presses news — we’re about to watch my dream scenario play out.

It’s a dream scenario that hardly belongs to me alone. By noon Monday I’d received a text from a chum in Ashburn, Va., who reported seeing not one but two Dale Hunter Capitals sweaters adorning shoppers in his neighborhood grocery store. We had unseasonably excellent weather Monday for sweater exhibition, but still I found this anecdote, taking place in a single enclave of our region, remarkable. We awoke Monday with the post-holiday dread of return to our life of labor, only to spit out our first sip of coffee as the wire (The wire? I meant to type Twitter) broke word of the Legend’s return.

Bondra is a legend, Kolzig is a legend, but this is the Legend of Washington hockey. Captain Legend. Coming home. To help. When we need it most.

Remarkable.

Millionaires, all too accustomed to having their hockey hearts questioned, on Monday morning met the biggest hockey heart HockeyWashington has ever known. Christmas, indeed.

The Dale Hunter Era begins in Washington this week as an experiment, and I say that not with any overriding sense of doubt attached to the announcement but rather out of acknowledgment that nothing remotely like this has ever been tried here before. We’ve never had one of our own, an oh so distinguished alum, return home to help out in a leadership crisis. The Caps are Cup-less perhaps partially because theirs has been a bench populated, for nearly 40 years, by merely good and decent bench bosses, mostly very mediocre ones, and one or two less than mediocre men. Washington has not been a cradle of great hockey coaching. Far from it. Pittsburgh has enjoyed Badger Bob Johnson, Scotty Bowman, and now Dan Bylsma. We’ve had the Murray brothers, Shoeney and Wils and Gabby and Glen. . . and Butch Cassidy.

We won’t know for years where Dale Hunter falls in the litany, but at this moment this hire seems quite more than special, quite more than novel. To no small extent it seems to represent a vindication of Washington’s hockey legacy, modest though that be. It also seems like a terrific tonic for these troubled times; these Washington Capitals seriously need boots meeting their behinds, and the Dale Hunter kick ought to occasion some giddyup alright.

Monday at Kettler seemed especially about the Legend offering testimonials to his love affair for his Caps. “This has been my team — I shouldn’t say my team, it’s Ted’s team — but it feels like my team because I played here so long and had good memories here,” the Legend said.

‘Have you been able to follow much the team since you’ve been gone,’ a reporter asked the Legend. Only in the sense of taping and watching every Capitals game played since he left. Long bus rides in major juniors, you know; good way to kill all those hours, watching every game for the team you captained and left . . . the decade before last. “I’ve been cheering for the Caps since I left here,” Captain Legend admitted.

‘Were you a tough sell?’ another scribe wondered. Well before this moment word was in wide circulation among the Kettler hockey press that Huntsy had turned down overtures from other NHL organizations, out of fidelity to ours.

photo by OFB

“It would take the Washington Capitals to get me to stop doing what I was doing [in London],” the Legend said.

“This is the only [NHL] team he’s ever wanted to coach,” George McPhee told the mass of media enveloping him.

It didn’t come up during any of the press conferences Monday, but it’s part of the Hunter lore, and I remember it as much as any play in his remarkable career: Dale Hunter never hired an agent during his 19-year career, or at least certainly not while in Washington. Instead, once a year, at the end of each hockey season, he sat down with Mr. Pollin, briefly discussed his value to the club, quickly reached an accord, and made a new pact . . . on a handshake.

* * * * *

The St. Louis Blues are in the midst of their own honeymoon with new leadership. They’re hot under Hitch: 7-1-2 since he took over three weeks ago. I thought it remarkable that the Blues took to Kettler ice opposite the Capitals right as Dale Hunter was taking his first paces in his coaches warmup. Talk about a team seemingly walking into a Chinatown buzzsaw this week. A couple of Blues players even poked their heads in the other side of the rink to behold the spectacle of the Legend’s return.

* * * * *

Monday also delivered a brutal bittersweetness the likes of which I doubt I’ll ever encounter again. Bruce Boudreau’s dismissal necessarily delivered a deep bruise to that great hockey community just to our north. NHL rookie John Walton believes he’s in the big leagues today because of Bruce Boudreau. So you imagine his emotions on Monday. JW got to share about 10 weeks of the Dream with his advocate-friend, before having to say goodbye. On Monday he brought important perspective to the Boudreau legacy in D.C.:

“I learned of Bruce’s dismissal this morning around 8:00 a.m. As I drove into Arlington, I listened to the coverage of the coaching change on WTOP when a sad irony hit me. On Washington’s most listened to radio station this morning, the coverage of the coaching change was wall-to-wall. News at the top of the hour. Fan reaction on the talk back line. Sports at :15 and :45 was almost all Capitals. Joe Beninati on in the 9:00 a.m. hour . . . This happened on a Monday during football season. The Redskins won a football game yesterday, and there was almost no mention of it today. Has that ever happened around here?”

No, it hasn’t. Bruce Boudreau helped build this hockey town. Dale Hunter is elated to be here because he remembers well Washington’s ordinary status in this league of 15 years ago, and how extraordinary our standing is today. He’d be the first to acknowledge Gabby’s role in getting us there.