The team’s hold on first is tenuous — they’re in Tampa Monday night, the ‘Bolts losers of their last three games. Win and complete the sweep of Florida and the Caps suddenly will have a sliver of breathing space against the upstart ‘Bolts. But to win and retain first place the Caps will, as with their last visit to Tampa ( the super impressive 5-2 triumph), have to drive hard and in ornery fashion toward Dwayne Roloson’s cage. I think this is an improved Capitals’ club relative to the one that won so well on its last visit to Tampa, but I look for the hosts to offer a much stronger effort in what is certainly the biggest game the teams have played this season to date.

Bigger picture: Suddenly, the Caps are just four points back of Philadelphia for first in the Eastern conference. And if you watched the Flyers’ performance on national television yesterday afternoon, you’d favor the Caps or Bruins prevailing for first coming down the stretch.

• Sunday night, the Caps’ second line — so impressive against St. Louis last Thursday night — went shotless through the game’s first 50 minutes, but Alexander Semin again made a big play late to get his team the W. Bottom line: Production is at last coming from a more balanced top six forward corps.

• An exceptionally questionable tripping call on John Erskine set in motion final minutes madness for the Capitals’ penalty killers, and allowed the punchless Panthers an opportunity to square things at 2 late. Bruce Boudreau took note of the glaring discrepancy in penalties Sunday — seven for the ‘Cats, just one extra-man opportunity for the visitors.

• As aesthetically challenged as Sunday night’s win was, there was a trait to it that bodes well for the postseason. Once the Caps took the lead in the second period, they became a 20-man unit of puck protection in their own end. Pucks were secured and chipped and smacked off boards, up and away from harm’s way. The only time you saw pucks played into the middle of the ice on breakouts was when Panthers’ skaters over-played one side of the ice, and even then Capitals’ skaters made wise decisions with the puck.

• Dave Steckel’s departure has created an unprecedented opportunity for Boyd Gordon. He responded on Sunday with what Boudreau called his best game of the season. Marcus Johansson deserves plaudits for shaking off a brutal-looking leg injury early on and coming back and delivering the game-winning assist.

• Penalty killing has become an increasingly shared burden among Capitals’ forwards. Bruce Boudreau appears to have confidence in virtually all of his forwards to kill penalties. The result is that on a night like Sunday, with its glaring power play discrepancy, with greater balance overall now in place among the forward lines, there’s far greater balance of minutes skated than we’ve seen in previous seasons. Under 17 minutes for Ovi Sunday, 13-plus for Boyd Gordon, 16 minutes for Jason Arnott, 14 minutes for Marco Sturm, 15 minutes for Semin. Good way to stay fresh.

• Much has been made of Ovi’s return to impact form in recent weeks, but Nicklas Backstrom, too, looks like his game-breaking old self at long last. Suddenly he’s a world-class stickhandler again, suddenly his shot has sting on it.

• Scott Hannan: Another rock solid showing. Must. Be. Re-signed.

The Caps are 3-0 since the big moves of last Monday. They ought to feel good about that, but those results came against three teams who will not be playing postseason hockey. A much better test comes Monday. Let’s win another for the Dads and label them first-place good luck charms.

Woe is we!

Incredibly, the Caps would go on to earn seven of the game’s first eight extra-man opportunities. Incredibly, they did nothing with them. On the evening, the Caps authored a stunning 0-for-8 whitewashing while skating a man or more up.

The best medicine for a slumping hockey team is to have its best players perform their best. On Thursday night Nicklas Backstrom, Alexander Semin, and Mike Green were dreadful. It has been very much a peaks-and-valleys season thus far for the Capitals’ no. 1 center, and he is skating in another valley these days.

“If your best players aren’t your best players, you’re not going to have success,” Bruce Boudreau noted after the Caps’ 3-0 stinker Thursday night. “You have to get production out of your best players and it’s not happening for us right now.”

The best looking hockey teams are ones who skate in three-, four-, and five-man waves of integration, matched by excellent work ethic. Last night, again, the Capitals looked alarmingly individualistic. You can account for a team’s well-oiled cohesion and integration often by the length and volume of its passes. When passes are short and crisp they tend to be more accurate, finding teammates’ stick blades instead of their boots, and when passes are numerous it’s highly indicative of teammates being in synch in breakouts and attacks, of looking for, and finding, one another in open space. As last night’s game progressed the Capitals’ passes grew longer and therefore less accurate. Desperation and frustration set in. Florida patiently pounced.

Incredibly, the Caps have now been shut out three times since just November 19.

* * * * *

This slump got started with an atrocious Dan O’Rourke call thwarting another Captain America moment, you’ll recall. I wonder: what if O’Rourke had gotten it right in that moment; what if the Caps had gone on to triumph in Dallas in overtime and impressively sweep up four tough road points? Wouldn’t they have returned home last Saturday night with a special swagger in their stride? And if so, would we be where we are this morning, burdened by an increasing number of troubling thoughts?

Interesting to note that it was O’Rourke who oversaw the parade of Panthers to the penalty box Thursday night.

* * * * *

More distressing than the losing streak itself is the manner in which the Caps are losing. It. Is. Very. Montreal. In. Spring. Like.

Pump a high volume of shots on net (36 in the case of Thursday night), but have the vast majority of them pelt the opposition netminder’s crest and the center of his pads. Overrely on an umbrella game of three-man puck distribution on the power play point, which limits the volume of traffic that can be established in front of elite goaltender like Tomas Vokoun. Subsequently, make it easy for opposition rearguards to clear rebounds while penalty killing. Mostly, though, play a highly individualistic brand of hockey, one that’s earmarked for defeat.

* * * * *

At the season-inaugurating Media Day General Manager George McPhee offered every assurance that his team’s involvement with HBO and its ’24/7′ series would pose no notable distraction for the club in the middle of the season. This may yet still prove to be the case. But there are, already, anecdotal accounts to the contrary.

There are, to put it charitably, extra media obligations associated with Winter Classic related media enveloping the team these days. This impacts some players more so than others. It’s safe to say that the cable outlet’s documentarians aren’t seeking an extra 15 minutes with the fellas here and there. Professional athletes have deeply etched routines, and hockey players perhaps the most resolutely ingrained ones, and those are being impacted by this project. But to be fair: HBO’s cameras are pestering the Pens just as much, presumably, and Sidney’s guys seem to be handling it rather well.

We have some fun ideas for covering the Capitals’ involvement with the Winter Classic, and we are receiving the characteristic courteous and helpful assistance of the Capitals’ PR staff in pursuing them. But they are making us aware of the novel demands on the guys of late. And so I wonder.

* * * * *

Verizon Center, something quite less than full, was utterly lifeless last night, and that was only partly attributable to the Caps’ failing to score on Vokoun’s ‘Cats. On such nights it is my habit to remind my new media colleagues with whom I share the game experience of the novelty that is the arrival of the Southeast rival, and its attendant effect on rink atmosphere. No one in that rink last night hated a single member of the Florida Panthers. No hockey fan in the history of Washington, D.C., has ever hated the Florida Panthers. For they’ve given us no reason to hate them. Ever. Verizon Center last night was, at best, three-quarters full, and perhaps more likely closer to two-thirds capacity. That had nothing to do with locals’ need to holiday shop, or the lighting of a White House Christmas tree, last night. It had everything to do with the caliber and cache of the Capitals’ opponent. The Capitals are blameless for this.

And last night’s lifelessness in the rink matched that of the visit by the Carolina Hurricanes here a few weeks back — ostensibly the Capitals’ biggest rival in the Southeast.

In recent seasons it has become vogue for NHL clubs to designate select games as “premium” ones, pricing them as coveted commodities. In Washington we will never, ever, see a Southeast game priced as a premium one. It is metaphysically impossible.

My hockey blog has evolved over its modest lifetime, but one thing I will never change about it is my commitment to reporting the truth to my readership, painful though it be at times. Washington’s evolution from hockey outcast into a flagship franchise merits better treatment from the NHL than the perpetual puck purgatory that is the Southleast. It was yet another of Gary Bettman’s brilliant marketing creations.

Never forget that.

The Florida Panthers have found their replacement in Rochester for injured center Mark Cullen, thanks to the Washington Capitals.

Center Michael Nylander has been loaned to the Panthers/Amerks.

It’s a significant move because the Panthers will be paying most or all of Nylander’s $3 million salary.

Nylander, 38, is ultimately hoping to prove he’s still NHL worthy. A native of Stockholm, Sweden, he has played 18 pro seasons in North America.

Only reptiles could like this weather — and the non-hockey playing ones at that. It’s not easy to move about in such a climate and remember better days. Like when we were buried under feet of snow and were house-bound, and watching hockey. But our friends at DCist have a Flickr account with an ample abundance of frosty images from our three big burials last winter. I enjoyed perusing them last night, and if you’re suffering from spiritual heat stroke as I am this week, you might, too. How welcome might this forecast look on our TV screens right about now:

The most mature among us became kids again in our wintry wonderland.

I recall especially the Redding Out of white Washington for a Sunday matinee against the Pens during Blizzard II. That was an enormous comeback win for the Caps, and how better to celebrate than with a good old fashioned snowball fight?

We got good use out of yardsticks, too.

SnOMG!

And you know who handles big snowstorms a bit better than Washingtonians? Moscowvites:

Stay cool.