So in Washington this morning we’d sort of like to ask the commissioner: Can we start the NHL playoffs this week?

We are witnessing history each night with each successive Capitals’ victory this October, but more importantly, we are witnessing the successful auditioning of a roster for a durable and successful stay in next spring’s postseason — health permitting. And this isn’t merely because the Capitals are winning every time they lace ‘em up, it’s because of how they are winning.

A club that once upon a time failed because of its preference for perimeter play is today hard-charging the opposition cage, making life miserable there for netminders, and scoring goals in bunches from in tight. You pretty much figured that Troy Brouwer and Mike Knuble and Joel Ward would lunch-pale it in the slot, but this fall so too is Alexander Ovechkin. And Marcus Johansson. And . . . Mathieu Perreault.

When we watch this fall’s Capitals win so well and in such a laudable fashion — heavy on cohesion and work ethic — we meditate a bit on the important traits lacking in the failed clubs of the recent past, and increasingly we are led to conclude: those shortcomings sure appear to have been vanquished. Marcus Johansson has seized the long-vacant second-line center slot, displaying blazing speed, deft finish, and a high degree of overall hockey intelligence. You need your second pivot to deliver production and be a bit of a threat. It’s early still, but the toolbox young Johansson is displaying plausibly suggests 25-goal, 50-point production.

Previous Capitals clubs lacked a reliable no. 1 D pairing with battle-tested experience and pedigree. This Capitals club likely has two of them today. If you’ve followed Comcast’s Alan May on either television or Twitter this month you know that one of Washington’s most astute hockey analysts regards this year’s Mike Green as authentically Norris viable, and not because of his big offensive numbers by themselves. Roman Hamrlik is filling precisely the role the Caps had hoped he would, and proving to be the long-sought-for perfect partner for Green. Dennis Wideman is enjoying the finest start of his NHL career, and he might be the Capitals best all around rearguard. He skates in the team’s third pairing.

Take a look at the balanced minutes nightly being skated by the Capitals’ six rearguards: Green (22:45), Hamrlik (21:21), Carlson (19:47), Alzner (18:28), Wideman (20:06), Schultz (17:29).

And speaking of well-managed minutes, the team captain is clocking in at an average of 18:45 a night; he’s never averaged less than 21 minutes a game in his preceding six NHL seasons. If Bruce Boudreau is able to maintain a moderation of labor among his elite talent all season long the Capitals are likely to enter the postseason next spring with the league’s freshest set of legs.

The power play was moribund much of last season, and futile in the postseason. (Again.) As of last night, it ranked no. 1 in the NHL at 29 percent. Last season I was one among many in media who questioned the wisdom of positioning Alexander Ovechkin on the power play point. This season he’s most often found along the half boards with the extra man units — or in front of the net! — while a bevy of capable blueliners crisply distribute the puck and blast low and hard slappers on goal from the point. It’s a beautiful thing to watch.

Capitals playoff clubs in recent years have had quality netminding but something far short of a game-stealer. If Tomas Vokoun’s early work this fall is any indication of what we can expect come spring, the Capitals will be a tough out against any club. Vokoun’s numbers — especially ones subsequent to his debut — are stellar (all told, a 1.80 goals-against, .944 save pct.), but what has drawn my notice most is the technical brilliance with which he plays the position. It doesn’t seem to matter where shots come from on the ice; he seems to have his body consistently squared to the shooter. Pucks hit him in the middle of his frame and pads, rebounds are thereby relatively easily controlled, his blueliners puck possession and breakouts subsequently efficient. And it is certain that Vokoun and his blueliners will become even more comfortable with one another, and of more common understanding with one another, in the months ahead. It’s a beautiful thing to watch.

On the morning of the season opener I overheard general manager George McPhee offer something close to a prediction that his third line of Joel Ward, Brooks Laich, and Jason Chimera would remind folks of one of the team’s all-time best two-way lines: Ulf Dahlen, Jeff Halpern, and Steve Konowalchuk. Prescient forecast, that. No club in the NHL can match the production and two-way impact of the Capitals’ third and fourth lines. It’s rare to see a club skate in fall 12 forwards you hope remain paired without alteration the following spring, but that’s what the Caps appear to have this fall.

This is a terrific time for Washington’s hockey team to be seriously surging, what with the Redskins swooning anew and the Wizards AWOL. Things could get real ice-interesting-re-orienting around here in short order. That would be a beautiful thing to watch.

But neither really remember much about it.

“Honestly, I can’t even remember,” Green said of the game, then joked, “I’ve been hit in the head so many times.”

“I think we were in Atlanta, right?” Carlson had to ask of the Capitals’ season opener last year, which was a loss to the Thrashers. But as he continued to talk, the day started coming back: “We kinda sat back too much, and they outplayed us, and we lost a game there.” He did add that he thought a lot of guys signed new contracts, so he recalled a lot of excitement in the room which he said didn’t carry over, however, until the second game.

Forward Jason Chimera remembers his first opening night on an NHL team (it was in 2002), but it wasn’t quite the enthusiastic experience one would assume: he was a healthy scratch that evening.

“They’re like, “Congratulations, you made the team, but bad news: you’re not playing tonight,” Chimera recalled. “Kind of bittersweet.”

He did get to play three games later into the season, however, against the San Jose Sharks.

While most memories of opening nights on an NHL roster seem to disappear into a black hole, the memory that seems to remain vivid is the memory of the actual NHL debut, which, for Carlson and Green, happened the season prior to being a regular on the roster.

Green recalled that, for his first NHL game, there were plane troubles and they got in late.

“I didn’t even have time to be nervous,” Green said. “That first NHL game is … with you for the rest of your life. You can say that you played in the NHL, whether or not you play another game.”

The only feeling Green thinks will top that?

Winning the Stanley Cup.

“I thought they should have buried us,” Steve Downie said in the postgame, alluding to the effectiveness the Caps enjoyed over the game’s first 30 minutes.

What looked to be a Brooks Laich score in tight was overturned on review as a kicked in goal. Looked like the right call. Twice in the second stanza loose pucks danced around Dwayne Roloson’s crease with primary Capitals’ attackers perfectly positioned but swatting futilely at them. Neither a snakebit Nicklas Backstrom nor Jason Arnott could extend the Capitals’ lead, and that’s when the trouble started. That’s when game one’s momentum switched.

Capitals’ penalties suddenly piled up in the period, too, and that’s a disaster scenario against this Tampa team.

The Capitals got away from the disciplined and patient approach that had tired Tampa on its heels. They reverted to their old individualistic skill ways, and defeat followed.

“You can’t play river hockey,” a frustrated Bruce Boudreau observed afterward. “This was reverting back to an older day.”

River hockey it was over the evening’s final 30 minutes for the Caps, with Green to Semin drop passes creating turnovers instead of scoring chances, Alexander Ovechkin attempting to stickhandle through all five Tampa defenders, cohesion and puck support vanishing.

“I think we play too cute,” the captain acknowledged.

In a remarkable irony the team that looked the most fatigued, the most ineffective arriving at and successfully battling for loose pucks, was the team that enjoyed fully five days off this week. It was the Tampa Bay Lightning, arriving in Washington a little before sunrise Thursday morning from Pittsburgh, who on Friday night won races to pucks and emerged from scrums along the boards in possession of the biscuit. Shocking.

The Capitals really let one get away in game one. Against the Rangers the Capitals had rough patches but they never reverted to the failed stratagems of postseasons past. Maybe the extended layoff fostered less rust and more distrust — in the revamped system. Suddenly Sunday night has the look of must-win. And they may undertake it without the services of John Carlson, who appeared to suffer a lower back injury. The evening took a physical toll on the Lightning as well: Simon Gagne went off groggy from a hard but clean Scott Hannan check in the corner, and later shutdown defenseman Pavel Kubina left a lot worse for wear.

After a rough opening 5 minutes for the Caps during which Tampa swarmed Washingtons’ defenders and earned a deserved 1-0 lead little more than 2 minutes in on a Sean Bergenheim tally, Tampa very nearly made it 2-0 before Lightning tormentor Alex Semin snuck a 5-hole softie by Roloson to even the score. The Caps then took control, patiently cycle-circling  in breakout formations designed to build speed and angle advantage against the Tampa trap. It worked, wonderfully — forwards from the first three lines attacked the Tampa zone with speed and support. Both the sum and quality of shots the Caps directed at Roloson were impressive over the game’s first 30 minutes.Fourteen shots piled up on Roloson in the game’s first 20 minutes, and the observer began imagining a lot of fatigue quickly massing in this series for the 41-year-old netminder.

Then, perhaps frustrated at not extending their lead, the Caps went back to their old playoff defeated ways of the past, premised on misguided individualism, a conspicuous absence of cohesion, sloppy passing, bad line changes, and unnecessary and damaging penalties. They tallied 9 shots in the second period and just 5 in the third. Once Tampa secured a lead, they stifled, outworked and out-hustled, and the impatient and individualistic Caps played right into their strongsuit.

The individualism and lack of cohesion extended to all five Capitals’ power plays on the evening, which were a mess. Personally, I’ve seen enough of Ovechkin on the power play point. He will never possess the ingrained or innate instincts of an authentic offensive defenseman back there, and all too often there is, understandably, indecision in his orchestration of the extra man attack up high. He belongs on the half wall, where his one-timers from well-timed cross-ice passes are lethal, or where he can launch a wicked wrister with a quick burst into a narrow opening. In fact, when Ovi’s countryman Semin is flanked on the opposite half wall, Mike Green is deft at distributing the puck among them while drawing checking forwards up high on him to open shooting lanes.

That would be a welcomed reversion.

And when he does, you ought to nod your head in acknowledgment and then tell him the story of April 23, 2011. Tell your antagonist that with about six minutes to go in the first period of game 5 against the New York Rangers then, with the Capitals clinging to a 1-0 lead in an elimination game, Mike Green, the claimant to two significant head injuries in the season’s second half, ones that robbed him of duty for 26 of the Capitals’ final 28 regular season games, instinctively slid down on the ice in the slot in front of his goaltender to block a Matt Gilroy slapshot.

With his skull.

What followed were moments of nauseating uncertainty, and the afternoon’s singular silence among the 18,000 in Verizon Center was testament to it. The NBC telecast was able to pinpoint multiple screws being dislodged from Green’s helmet as he lay stricken on the ice. Fortunately, he was up and off the ice on his own in reasonably short order, and ultimately returned to his teammates on the bench, though not for additional playing time. Bruce Boudreau noted in the postgame that had his team lost more rearguards or had circumstances otherwise dictated, he could and would have used Green. Still, Boudreau said in a much needed moment of light-heartedness, “I wish he’d get the magnets out of his helmet.”

The most predictable news in the postgame of yesterday’s 3-1 series-ending triumph over the Rangers was word of Mike Green being awarded the hardhat for his stunningly selfless commitment. The Stanley Cup playoffs boast a rich legacy of moments of harrowing sacrifice like Greener’s yesterday. Sports’ ultimate prize requires it. In a few weeks’ time we may look back on Saturday and identify it as a turning moment in the underwhelming legacy of this franchise in spring.

For Capitals’ fans, Green’s unfathomable courage ought to go a long way to absolving both this individual player’s perceived springtime shortcomings but also those of his team as well. Yesterday afternoon a very special new chapter in the Capitals’ playoff legacy was written, and it truly ought to recast the overall narrative. Tell your antagonists when next they vex you with past scoreboard failings of spring that this color and crest you support is distinctive, and eminently worthy of ardent patronage. Mike Green made it so yesterday.

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Yesterday represented a landmark moment for the core who wear this crest. For the first time in the Era of Ovechkin, a Capitals’ team won a playoff series in fewer than seven games. As a franchise the Caps hadn’t won a playoff series in fewer than seven games in the 21st century — you have to go all the way back to the great run of ’98 to find one.

It’s almost an imperative for a team with Glory aspirations to make reasonably efficient work of their first-round opponent. The rigor of the NHL postseason exacts too much a toll to make seven-game stops a habit series after series. In addition to Green’s scare yesterday the Capitals briefly lost the services of Jason Arnott. During the second intermission media voice after media shared with me the conviction that the ensuing 20 minutes needed to be the series’ last. Almost certainly we know only a fraction of the Capitals’ full tally of significant physical ailments this spring. The Philadelphia Flyers later today may begin wondering what a healthy Chris Pronger might have meant in their series with the Sabres. Anyway, both psychologically and physically this pause in play is of paramount importance to this hockey club.

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Rather regularly OFB readers share with us poignant reflection. “Now have a positive playoff memory on the Saturday before Easter. (I remember when history was made),” one noted in comment last night.

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Yesterday’s outcome was every bit as important for Washington’s hockey fans as it was for Capitals’ players. It was important for our town. To state the obvious, this hockey club is the only winning game in town. The Era of Ovechkin was moving along and progressing largely as it was forecast to when it hit a devastating speedbump last April. That failure last spring ushered in an identity crisis on the ice but it also — and this has been little remarked upon I think — eroded a bit of the optimism that fans new and old here had harbored with Ovi’s arrival. I really believe that that masterful March trade deadline work by George McPhee impacted the fanbase as much as his team.

Another indelible image from Saturday: with about 3 minutes remaining and the outcome certain, in-house cameras panned in on owner Leonsis in his box standing beside his son Zach, both outfitted in red Capitals’ sweaters. The owner recognized the moment and blew a kiss out to the madly devoted, who responded with fresh frenzy. To state the obvious, you won’t find that happening any time soon out at FedEx Field.

Comcast Sportsnet’s Jill Sorenson last night told me that on her route into Chinatown yesterday she found herself in a caravan of cacophonous support for the Caps. Car horns, she reported, were made into a melodic symphony of ‘C-A-P-S Caps!Caps!Caps!,’ with drivers with rolled down windows shouting the chant as accompaniment. We are louder also on our streetways, you see.

I began sensing something special enveloping our community with this team even before Jason Chimera took Manhattan on Wednesday night. The front pages of our newspapers were profiling hockey and chronicling it with uplifting photojournalism. Radio programs in their two- or three-hour entirety are being devoted to the Caps this spring (thank you, Danny Rouhier and 106.7). I’ve even shared my sense that by virtue of the breadth and passion of enlarged media here there is a swelling of civic pride for our Caps that outpaces — out-shrieks in its car horn frenzy — the great run of ’98.

“Washington is a hockey town,” Sorenson told me last night. She’s right, and we deserve a celebration of it with hockey in May.

Through about 50 games into 2010-11, there was plenty of ground-gaining, you’ll recall. For instance: the Caps, having won the Southeast division title just a year ago by 40 points, trailed the Tampa Bay Lightning in the Southeast in late February. That’s ground-gaining alright. And it’s not as if Tampa in the offseason acquired Bobby Orr and Mr. Hockey in their prime.

I continued my critique: the handling of Marcus Johansson (overmatched in the season’s first half; solid to superb for most of the second), which stood so conspicuously apart from the manner in which the rest of the Capitals’ important young prospects had been developed. The Capitals addressed the conspicuous gap at center on the second line by going young and cheap, and it showed. As the season approached game 60 and the team up to that point made the biggest news by nearly ruining an HBO special and adopting a godforsaken-on-the-eyes trap (“Trapitals” they were called at one point), I began drinking more. (On that latter point, the Caps seemed to acknowledge this dire situation for me with a marvelous adoption of marvelous technology. By middle February, this truly was a season-long highlight for me.)

More: You heard of Fat Elvis? Through 50 games we had Fat Ovi.

Then, magic happened at the NHL trade deadline. George McPhee acquired a legit second-line center, with Stanley Cup pedigree, who not only established instant chemistry with Alexander Semin but forged a notable off-ice bond with captain Ovechkin. The GM also stole Dennis Wideman blind from the Panthers (in last place for a reason) for a pick and . . . Jake Hausworth. Wideman, up until his injury, had been the best defenseman to wear a Capitals’ sweater in years. McPhee also plucked another able and fast-legged vet (Marco Sturm) off the waiver wire. It was as if the Hockey Gods, having dealt us Eric Belanger and Joe Corvo and some other junk last February, felt obliged to atone, big time, this spring.

Winning suddenly seriously followed: 15-2-1 with all the new bodies brought in since February 28. That’s a slightly different winning percentage than say December through February.

Something far more important than adding talented players transformed this lethargic, underachieving Capitals’ club, I allege. Something special happened in the room. Guys who looked old (Knuble) soon thereafter looked young again. Brooks Laich suddenly became an impact player — up front and on the power play point when injuries necessitated his move there. New voices in the room were raised, and underachieving ears seemed to listen.

And so this is what I call the Capitals’ 2010-11 regular season campaign: The Tale of Two Seasons

One was spirited and committed to absorbing a wholesale new system and defiant of ravenous injuries, standings-surging and uplifting. The other . . . markedly less so. Today, understandably, the owner wants you to forget the fact that his team was shut out ten times in about 80 games and instead focus on a third consecutive Southeast division crown. (Those Southeast banners, along with a $5 bill, will get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks.) What I wager he won’t acknowledge on his blog any time soon is that my read of the roster last fall was largely right, and that his general manager was forced into an aggressive mandate at trade deadline time to fix some serious shortcomings.

All of which is dandy this morning, when it counts, but is dismissive of the wallet-letting by the Red Army who weren’t pitched to renew their ticket plans last summer with a pledge to fix things come March.

But this morning, rather than reckon, let’s celebrate a season of so much sour so well righted by such extraordinary mid-season re-engineering. The team remains battered as the regular season’s final weekend dawns. But if Mike Green (skating in Sunrise Saturday night, per John Walton) returns healed and with hop in his stride, if Dennis Wideman can return in late April, the sky’s the limit for this club. It’s fast, it possesses an enviable blend of precocious youth and cagey veterans, it’s deep — and reliable — in net, and it has springtime MoJo.

And for all this, let’s give credit where clearly credit is due: One achievement by this Capitals club stands above all others, for me, this regular season. Bruce Boudreau, under such intense pressure and criticism in late December, rather courageously jettisoned the system that had come to define him in his pro hockey coaching career in favor of a more conventional thwart first, counter-attach next approach — and he got 25 skaters to buy into it. You didn’t hear a peep of complaint from all the highly skilled millionaires about it. You know what system the skill guys would have preferred — the one that fattens their stats and thereby fattens their contracts. Instead, you saw total buy-in by Bruce’s brigade. No grumbling. No doubts. Some growing pains with it to be sure, but taken in total, the dramatic transformation was remarkably efficient and successful.

Oh, and lastly, with such charitable impulses behind the scheme of last summer, Mr. Owner, why didn’t you accept my wager? : )

Approaching Heinz Field from the ferry on game night - photo by Julianne Sobral

Driving up to Pittsburgh on Friday afternoon was like driving 75 miles per hour down 7th Street. Mile upon mile of Capital clad cars honking “Let’s Go Caps!” amped the expectations of my brother and me for what we already thought would be a spectacular weekend. Giving those three BEEPs to Red Army passersby lifted me heading into enemy territory knowing full well I was going to spend New Years eve CouchSurfing with complete strangers.

CouchSurfing is a a bit of a social experiment best described as hospitality sharing. Essentially members just crash on another member’s couch, having previously contacted them through the website and arranged a stay. My brother Patrick is a member who has hosted and used the website extensively during a road trip to Texas in summer. Wearing a bright red Capitals shirt, I cautiously and anxiously knocked on the door to my host Amanda’s house in Upper Lawrenceville, Pittsburgh. She answered the door, looked down at the logo, and said, “Oh!” with some surprise (and I’m sure a little disgust), but the 24-pack of Peroni we bought for her mended any qualms quickly.

Patrick and I quickly settled in and explored the city by car, in particular stopping at Mt. Washington, an enormous overlook of Pittsburgh on the Monongahela River. For all the cracks I hear about Pittsburghers wanting to get the hell out of the city’s dreariness — and the fact that there are throngs of Steelers fans everywhere only aids that hypothesis — I can’t help but wonder why in the DC area there exists such a negative image of Steel City. Pittsburgh is gorgeous, even in its habitual cloudy gloom. Go to the top of Mt. Washington and please tell me if you think Pittsburgh is awful. While we were bound to run into hecklers at some point, and we did mostly around game time, the overwhelming majority of Pittsburghers treated my brother and me extremely well. On game day we were walking on South Side, an area lined with bars, and chatted with a few Pens’ fans in their early 20s who asked us if we were going to the game and saying that it was going to be awesome, holding their tongues on wishing us good luck.

But let’s skip back 18 hours. New Years Eve started off with some unpalatable Thai fish (I won’t mention the restaurant’s name) and ended with the some of the best guacamole I’ve ever tasted, homemade by our hostess. That is to say the night only got better as it went on. The characters that showed up to Amanda’s house for her New Years party were unique and like no one I had ever met. I chatted with Frank, a baker, about Crosby/Ovechkin for a while and Jordan, who works in Audio/Video at Heinz Field, gave us some insider information about Jimmy Fallon’s appearance among other tidbits. The only reason he as at the party was because of the game’s delay. Not only that, but I was still wearing that Caps shirt and no one wrote anything on my forehead after I officially surfed the couch. Later on in the evening Frank, Jordan, and Amanda collaboratively jammed with a xylophone, a flute and a beatbox machine creating an astoundingly creative and inspiring New Years anthem. I hope I made a good impression on them because they certainly did on me. I’m still a bit amazed by CouchSurfing and opening your home to strangers, but if I can do it in Pittsburgh on the eve of the Winter Classic, I feel anyone can do it anywhere, any time. It’s like-minded people doing something they like, meeting new folks.

Patrick and I headed to South Side at around 3 p.m. on 1/1/11, and a few hours later and several pints heavier made our way to the game by ferry in a group of eight, four Caps’ fans and four Pens’ fans. From our seats in Section 115, we could see about one-third of the rink and watched most of the game on the jumbotron. Still, it was totally worth it. The only other away game I have attended was at Bell Centre in Montreal, almost three years ago to the day, and while I don’t want to say the Classic surpassed it (Montreal’s hockey culture can’t be usurped), I will say this experience took hockey to another level even if I couldn’t see that much. On that January 5th, 2008, evening in Montreal, Mike Green scored in OT to land the Caps a 5-4 win. In that game it was nice to see the six other Caps fans cheering among 21,000. In this game it was incredible to see a Verizon Center-plus worth of Caps’ fans cheering. A lot has changed for this club in the past four seasons.

Two and a half hours later and regular season bragging rights in the bag for another month or so, we departed swiftly in a largely subdued crowd. Many Caps’ fans were silent outside Heinz Field after the game, possibly out of respect or fatigue, and it didn’t look like there was an atmosphere for celebration at all. While a historic first night Winter Classic was amazing, many seemed reluctant to celebrate late in the evening. If it had gone on at 1 p.m. as scheduled, perhaps the mood would have been more lively and festivities could have gone on well into the evening.

On a weekend I CouchSurfed for the first time, our beloved Red did a first in a ‘City of Firsts’ — win a game in a football stadium. For me though, the game is another game — two points. The Winter Classic is widely described as the second biggest stage in hockey, behind the playoffs. I wholeheartedly believe that the win showed our team is not relying merely on our big guns for the offensive push this season; that we can beat arguably the best team in the last four years on a big stage. We showed character New Years Day, and the Caps and their supporters can only hope that’s the last piece to the Stanley Cup puzzle.

Mike Green Ice Crew: The defenseman helps Capitals coaches and fellow teammate patch a hole on the ice at Heinz Field.

Mike Green said after the Caps skated Friday afternoon (by 5 pm, it was still in the 50′s) that he probably skated in weather this warm before as a kid, but never with his full gear on for a full practice.

“It was different — it was getting hot out there,” he said. “It was tough to breathe out there.”

Mike Knuble leads the Capitals out of the locker rooms and to the rink for the team practice at Heinz Field.

The ice took the hardest toll, and Green had to lend a hand patching a veritable crater in the ice near one of the blue lines.

Nicklas Backstrom said he thought he’d skated in weather this warm as a kid, but he admitted the ice was soft.

The first Capital to step out on the ice was Eric Fehr, though Brooks Laich wasn’t far behind. Mike Knuble led the Capitals out of the locker room, although Backstrom said the order was random.

“We just told each other we go out together, so it looks good,” Backstrom said.

Knuble said so far today that he hasn’t experienced any butterflies like those first few years in the NHL. He said it took him about three or four years in the league before nerves matured into a more focused anxiousness.

“You stop getting nervous, that means, I guess, you’re not respecting the game,” Knuble said. “To do you’re best, you’ve got to be anxious a little bit.”

The Capitals also had a family skate after they completed practice today (the Penguins did the same). Matt Bradley was on the ice briefly with the Capitals when they first came to the rink, but he did not practice with them.

The NHL has also announced that, due to the rain in the forecast, the league will delay puck drop tomorrow. The new start time is 8 pm, which means you’ll get the best of two sports worlds — night lights and outdoor hockey.

Nicklas Backstrom practices at Heinz Field.

Hannan, 31, tips in at 6 ’1, 225. Over the course of his 11 NHL seasons he’s been a 22-minute-a-night pillar of own-end accountability. His reputation is as a shutdown specialist who blocks a lot of shots — commodities in short supply on the D.C. blueline in recent seasons. Some reaction among the D.C. bloggerdom yesterday seemed to get bogged down in diminishing Hannan’s bona fides as a tier I physical force.That exercise I think misses the point; there is jam to Hannan’s game, and as such he’ll well compliment Jason Chimera and Matt Hendricks as recent additions made by McPhee that in total, weighed with departures named Morrisonn, Belanger, Morrison, and now Fleischmann, invite the view of the moves as reparations for an excess of previous finesse.

Which is to say, the Caps today are tougher to play against. Appreciably. You can view the Capitals’ playoff shortscomings of the past three seasons as bouts of bad luck melded with inexperience if you so choose, but seven-game series expose the fatal flaws of their victims. I’ve been a voice suggesting that experience aside, the Caps the past three years fielded rosters that fundamentally haven’t exacted a physical price from their foes. And to no small degree that is what postseason hockey is about. You want to help make sure that what should be a five-game series against an inferior foe in April doesn’t make it to seven? Spend games one through four demanding that your adversary pay a punishing price. No such demand was placed upon the small Habs’ forwards of last April. Instead, Montreal built an ugly box, kept the Caps on the perimeter, got quality netminding, and effectively counter-punched.

My most vivid association of Hannan is with his work on the San Jose Sharks’ blueline in the middle portion of this decade, when he was exceptionally effective in making life miserable for Colorado’s Peter Forsberg in the postseason. I imagine that labor inspired Colorado’s acquiring him. Like Tomas Fleischmann, Hannan is an unrestricted free agent at season’s end; the financial risk with this acquisition therefore is minimal. Still, he represents something quite different from Joe Corvo.

The Capitals have for some years needed to become grittier on the blueline. That’s not merely my opinion but something quite close to consensus sentiment among league observers. Greg Wyshynski articulated it on video for this site just this past Sunday. And in gleaning over the deal yesterday Wyshynski offered this take:

“We’ve said the Capitals needed a Hannan-type before, and now they have Hannan. Fleischmann’s an enigmatic player who can still thrive away from the Caps’ offensive talent. But Hannan’s a coup here for Washington, and getting him well before any trade-deadline bidding wars is even better.”

Anyway, grittier where it’s most needed the Caps became yesterday. And grit in front of your own cage is important at all times but especially in the postseason, when nightly the games are closely contested, clogged and ugly in the middle of the ice. Hannan clogs and ugly-fies.

It’s difficult to disassociate this deal from the 7 seconds that ended regulation play in the Caps’ most recent game, at home Sunday night against Carolina. Guarding a 2-1 lead with the draw in their own end, the Caps replaced a fatigued John Carlson and Karl Alzner with Tom Poti and Jeff Schultz. It matters little whether Poti blew an assignment or there was miscommunication between his partner and him; once Eric Staal badly beat Dave Steckel on the draw and bull-rushed the Capitals’ cage there was little that pairing could do about it. It was an overmatch moment. Planted with impunity in front of Semyon Varlamov, Staal batted in a rebound just two seconds before the final horn while the Caps’ defenders looked on.

You can allege that Scott Hannan represents merely “veteran depth” on a relatively well performing Capitals’ blueline if you want, but then you confront this question: did McPhee have to acquire a nearly $5 million-a-year rearguard just for that? And part with an offensively gifted 26-year-old fresh off a 23-goal campaign? No, we know that Scott Hannan is a good deal more than veteran depth because of the calendar. Back in August the Capitals brought into town free agent burly defenseman Willie Mitchell, and auditioned him here at some length. Ultimately Mitchell signed with LA. When asked yesterday by the media when his interest in Scott Hannan ignited, McPhee acknowledged . . . August — either coincidental to his club’s pursuit of Mitchell, or rather immediately after it.

Yesterday’s deal absolutely was foreshadowed by the vetting of Mitchell in the summer.

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A dynamic performer in hockey needs a compliment to become something more than merely a numbers producer. When the Capitals had the offensively gifted Sergei Gonchar that impressive Russian talent and his menacing impact didn’t truly bloom until the Caps paired him with stay-at-home steady Joe Reekie. It was a wonderfully effective pairing; Gonch could rush and pinch, knowing that Reekie had his back. Mike Green has yet to be paired with so steady a defensive partner in D.C. At first blush, Scott Hannan offers this promise, the moreso with his nearly 800 games of NHL experience. And if this proves to be the case, if Hannan proves to be the Reekie Green so badly needs, George McPhee will resign him, and HockeyWashington will look back on Tuesday’s trade as historically significant.

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Not to presuppose such a pairing next postseason, but $5 million dollar blueliners generally are stored up front. Hannan is a left shot to Green’s right. But the next few weeks, or longer, are appropriately a period for Bruce Boudreau to experiment a bit with his blueline. Let us see what chemistry emerges among which pairs. All that we seemingly know for sure is that there’s a strong likelihood of a Carlson-Alzner pairing continuing to prosper through next spring and beyond. I would also not be surprised in the least if come spring a game’s white-knuckle final 7 seconds are defended by Hannan and John Carlson.

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All manner of spiritedly-shouted reactions on line yesterday aside, we don’t yet know whether — or to what extent — Scott Hannan will be successful in Washington, any more than we did with Joe Reekie at the time of his acquisition from the Lightning, or Sergei Fedorov in that 2008 deal with Columbus. Or scores more like them. Trade analyses, even by the best in the business, all too commonly transpose one set of circumstances a player played under in one setting onto those in his new one, irrespective of systems discrepancies and wholly different personnel and an entirely new coaching staff.  It’s a fool’s errand. NHLers of distinct skill whose games grow stale occasionally need a change of scenery, no more. Certainly that’s Colorado’s expectation with respect to Tomas Fleischmann.

A parting word about Flash. No Capitals player disappointed as much last April against Montreal. I’m not sure he recovered from it. He was scratched of course in game 7 after six atrocious outings. He looked positively lost in that series. And that after a breakout regular season. And injury apparently played no role in his springtime demise. He had what might charitably be termed an average camp this autumn, then struggled right out of the gate trying to secure the Capitals’ second-line center audition. I’d look for the Avs to try him at left wing, which may be his most natural position.

But his being dealt is important in the maturation of the Capitals’ front office in its pursuit of a Cup. Flash, a 2002 Red Wings’ draftee, was acquired in the McPhee deal that shipped out Robert Lang during the great pre-lockout selloff, prelude to the rebuild. The organization made a sizable investment in Flash’s development here. He was widely believed to be a part of the contending core. To part with him as they have suggests to me at least management’s acknowledgment that time is of the essence, that the window of Cup contending opportunity isn’t open-ended.

Yesterday management pushed more chips in the center of the poker table. George McPhee and his management team are to be commended for acknowledging an architectural shortcoming intrinsic to this 120-pt. Capitals’ club, and aggressively addressing it.

(But not Goat.)

Mike Knuble had, by my count, at least three quality scoring chances in tight on Henrik Lundqvist just in Tuesday night’s first period, and as all of them went unlit and uncelebrated you had this sense that it just wasn’t going to be his night. Again. He hadn’t scored since opening night in Atlanta way back on October 8. Then a pagan priest in skates named Ovi slid a puck out front in the slot in period number two, Knuble banged it home, and the hockey gods surrendered their torment of the Caps’ right wing. Joe B during his call for Versus last night noted that a good many of Knuble’s 29 goals last season came in the season’s second half.

• This game was appreciably more physical than Sunday’s with Philadelphia. It was a Tuesday night tilt in November, and yet there was plenty of mutual hatred in place. Just like you might imagine there ought to be between old Patrick division rivals. It doesn’t matter how early in the season they play, or what circumstances have otherwise influenced the teams’ general standing, the matchup is intrinsically ire-laden. It is so beautiful to behold. And so tragic we can’t more often. (Thanks, commish.)

• Mike Green’s four-game goal scoring streak ended, and I was one who believed that had he gotten one by Lunqvist last night the remainder of the week set up well for a run at his record of goals in eight straight games. Oh, well. He’s playing terrific hockey, and he’s a key catalyst for the Caps’ attack. He also acquited himself rather well in his slow dance with Brandon Dubinsky. This is a fiestier Mike Green we’re seeing this season, and we like it.

• More goats, more donkeys, too, I say: Brooks Laich, on his lunchpail tally in tight to draw the caps even at 1 in the first frame: “Any donkey can go to the front of the net and stand there with his stick on the ice.” In point of fact, Laich’s redirection of Alex Semin’s superb feed was anything but a gimme. Laich’s three points Tuesday night helped push him into the top of the league in plus-minus, at +13.

• If I were Bruce Boudreau, I’d have given the night’s hard hat to Matt Bradley. I’d probably give it to him 50 percent of the time given that he is probably the hardest worker on the team night in, night out, but Tuesday night he earned it, I’d submit, because he set up the game-winner with Nick Backstrom’s patience and skill but in a grinder’s body. And on his other shifts he did a lot of dirty work for good measure.

• Already trailing 1-0, the Caps went short-handed for a too many men on the ice infraction, and seconds later Mike Green took a hooking penalty. The Rangers had about 1:40 of 5-on-3 attack, but Jeff Schultz authored perhaps he best penalty killing shift of the season for all of the 100 seconds. Regularly he got down low on the ice to expand his reach and clog passing lanes immediately in front of Michal Neuvirth. The Rangers didn’t bring much puck pressure to that attack, but Sarge was large at a pivotal moment in the early going.

• You lie if you claim you didn’t do a double-take on John Erskine’s left-point howitzer blast past Lundqvist’s shoulder. Had to have been the most impressive tally of his life, all things considered. What a beauty. But mere seconds later Tyler Sloan produced a squelching of the joy-buzz with his ill-advised, shockingly aggressive pinch attempt deep in the Blueshirts’ end. That type of uber aggressive play simply has to be made in this league — even against an opponent’s fourth line. Better would be backing off and not allowing a Neanderthal like the Boogie Man to plod down the wing unchecked and smash a slapper past your helpless goalie.

• Defensive blunders on both sides of the ice, one by Karl Alzner on the second goal with a careless clear and Sloaner’s piss-poor pinch, are blunders of inexperience in the faster paced NHL. On the whole the Caps’ blueline has been more disciplined this season, but they also have been susceptible to miscues on some of the simplest plays. Alzner’s unforced error on Brian Boyle’s second goal was a perfect example. But I’m not sure Alzner should be singled out for a struggle of an evening. Gabby gave him more than 20 minutes of ice, and I’m one who doesn’t read a great deal into weird events transpiring on MSG ice — annually one of the worst sheets in the league. The puck was bouncing all over the place last night.

• Sean Avery was a conspicuously silent presence Tuesday evening, not getting involved all that much. That may have been where New York went wrong. Avery’s dynamic pest style normally gets Ovi and co. riled up and distracted. If Avery isn’t being a pest odds are he isn’t helping his team much.

• Referee Don Van Massenhoven was perfectly positioned for Dan Girardi’s attempt on Brooks Laich’s life in the end boards behind Lundqvist in the second period, and yet did nothing. The trailing referee — trailing outside the Rangers’ zone — made the call. How does Van Massenhoven miss that? Laich was lucky not to leave the ice on a stretcher. Van Massenhoven shouldn’t work again until the new year. Disgraceful.