Dateline, Philadelphia, January 5, 2012. Three Philadelphia Flyers fans are wanted by Philadelphia police for their role in beating two New York Rangers fans in the immediate aftermath of Monday’s Winter Classic. One of the victims was beaten quite brutally and hospitalized. Video of the assaults emerged. (You can watch it easily enough; I urge that you don’t.) The more seriously maimed victim, turns out, is a cop, an Iraq war vet, a Marine, and a Purple Heart recipient. He had the temerity to attend a big hockey game in Philadelphia wearing the colors of that day’s adversary. You know, just as has happened with every game in every arena and stadium on the continent the past 40 years. But in Philadelphia, this hero of his country was beaten for it, brutally.

I like to think that somewhere in her eternal rest Kate Smith is restless and nauseous.

To me there is something distinctive about this instance of violence relative, say, to that we witnessed in Vancouver after last June’s Stanley Cup finals. Both outbreaks are abhorrent to be sure, but there is in our sport something enduring and singular — and brandished as a badge of honor, even — by the bellicose and beer-swilling  in orange sweaters, somewhat a minority of the overall Flyers fanbase, I think, who for at least a generation have taken it as a blood oath to violently defend their allegiance.

There are fights in the stands at many rinks and ballparks, I know. But it’s really only with one civic outpost that news of them seems to be met with . . . a wildly warped sense of pride.

You see, yesterday I had to endure a soberly stated justification by a Flyers fan — a high school classmate of mine — for what transpired in Monday’s assault: that somehow the Rangers fan, likely loose of victory-bragging tongue, deserved his fate. My Flyers’ partisan high school buddy is a Duke graduate, a Gulf War vet (Marine), a lawyer, a husband and a father. And he thinks as he does in this instance. So I say he’s card-carrying member of a warped culture. I’ll still call him classmate and friend, but yesterday I wondered: just how eager would the hospitalized Rangers fan Marine be to share a foxhole with my Flyers’ friend, and would my friend really have articulated the defense he did with me in front of his daughters?

You want to say that only a tiny sliver of the Flyer fanbase could and would go perp like this, but afforded over many years ample opportunity to disavow themselves of the reputation, collectively they’ve passed. They like the reputation not just of their skating heroes being bullies but of being bullies themselves. That sweater, its wearers want you to know, represents a good deal more than division titles and Stanley Cups won. And it’s been that way for years.

I can’t say that I can recall an instance when the executive leadership of one of Philly’s professional sports teams has led some public initiative to counteract the city’s pride in its twisted embrace of being bullies. Instead, the culture of Philadelphia seems almost to celebrate that their football stadium — and theirs alone in the republic — erected a makeshift courthouse on site to address violent attacks that have become a staple of sports patronage there.

There is a seemingly lone voice of reason up there in all this — the Broad Street Hockey blog. Those bloggers did what the Flyers should have: reluctantly, but courageously, they pushed out video and narrative of this super sad story and condemned the violence. “We say so often that we don’t deserve our reputation as awful monsters moonlighting as sports fans, but when this sort of thing happens, it completely undermines everything we say on the subject,” they blogged.

By about 5:00 yesterday this story had gone viral — Fox News, NBC.com, Puck Daddy were all weighing in on the malevolence. Out of curiosity I visited the Flyers’ web site to see if the public relations damage had occasioned any concern from the team. Maybe the team wanted to intervene and assist the victims’ families in some way. Nope. A band of cretins wearing your sweater pummeled a Purple Heart vet, in broad daylight, fellas. Would it really be beneath you to show some moral leadership and remind your community that this isn’t really behavior that ought to be replicated, again, or even celebrated? This morning there is acknowledgment of injury in Philadelphia on the team’s web site — Kimmo Timonen got dinged (upper body) during last night’s game against Chicago.

I like to think that two forms of justice ultimately will visit the assailants in this crime — the formal one meted out by the courts, and then the other seldom detailed but widely understood, enacted, well out of sight, against those who harm those who sacrifice to keep us safe. More importantly, I hope at long last a story that makes you cry will occasion a leadership long lacking in a bully culture.

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.

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.

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.

“Fat fuck!”

Most unfortunate words to measure by. But measure we must, especially now. They represent, I wager, a point of no return for this Capitals club — under this leadership regime.

One thing about wearing hockey no. 8 in Washington — you know the high-definition cameras are ever on you, from numerous angles, and on November 1, late in the evening against Anaheim, the Capitals’ captain, unceremoniously benched for a game-deciding shift, knew full well his obscene reaction would be captured for all the world to see.

The conventional interpretation at the time was that the fiery captain was merely giving vent to frustration. His competitive combativeness just got the better of him, you know. Certainly the Capitals would have you believe that. Problem is, this is not a fiery captain. Also, not an accomplished one. In fact, this season, he’s largely a lethargic, very minus-skating, very ordinary looking captain. Another problem with that initial interpretation is that the Capitals and their captain had already started their standings descent under this coach, again, and the circumstances that have followed the remainder of this November fairly beg for a reconsideration of that remarkable moment. Prior to November 1, when did you ever encounter a moment of such insolence from the guy wearing the ‘C’ on your beloved team’s sweater? Not in this town, not with this team.

This morning, we could look back on November 1 and Ovi’s outburst and deem it a moment of contempt . . . a mutinous moment, in fact.

And if the captain isn’t all in, what’s the likelihood all his teammates are? It would be interesting, would it not, to poll all those Hockey News writers and editors who fancied the Caps the Cup favorite back in late summer, this very morning, and see where they stand now.

* * * * *

For me, the very first serious warning sign arrived early in April 2010, just days before the start of that season’s postseason. The Capitals, running away with the Southeast division en route to a 121-pt. regular season, went to Columbus and held off an under-manned but tenacious Bluejackets team, winning 3-2. After the game, Bluejackets center R. J. Umberger told the Columbus Dispatch that the Capitals were a bunch of floaters, that theirs wasn’t a game ready for the prime time of the postseason. In the humility-laden sport of pro hockey, this was a serious callout.

“A good defensive team is going to beat them (in the playoffs),” Umberger told the Dispatch. “If you eliminate your turnovers and keep them off the power play, they’re going to get frustrated because they’re in their zone a lot.” Umberger’s comments proved prescient; about three weeks later the Montreal Canadiens would author one of the great shockers in the history of NHL postseason hockey, eliminating the 121-pt. Caps in the first round, executing with unwavering discipline a bunched-in box of a defensive shell against Gabby’s floaters. Bruce Boudreau’s postseason ledger in Washington fell to 1-3. For me, that series was a serious warning sign.

* * * * *

Aside from the particulars of Umberger’s critique, in a larger sense he was calling into question the Capitals’ identity. Failure, which Umberger forecasted a fait accompli for the Caps, would render Bruce Boudreau’s finesse attack a fad. There are few critiques more derisive of a hockey team than being branded “floaters.” Umberger played a key role in the Flyers’ team that dispatched Gabby’s Caps in round one in April 2008.

Saturday night in Buffalo, facing a Sabres team ludicrously beyond depleted by injury — nine regulars missing from the Buffalo lineup — Capitals skaters opted to sit back and attack their wet-behind-the-ears adversaries with a patient, largely forecheck-free strategy of counter-punching. In its conclusion the 5-1 debacle — the second consecutive Saturday night massacre against a slightly better than average American Hockey League outfit — occasioned a near aneurysm from Comcast’s Alan May on ‘Capitals Postgame.’  “This is a hockey team without an identity,” May sternly lamented.

May’s in-studio broadcast partner, Al Koken, was left similarly crestfallen and rage-filled by the shocking showing. He directed a very big-picture question to the very unsuspecting game call team of Joe B and Craig during the postgame, asking the duo to reflect on “where this organization is” right now. Not a question merely about a seriously struggling hockey team, but an interrogatory directed at the heart of the organization as a whole. A commendably gutsy bit of journalism on Koken’s part. Watching on television, a viewer in that moment felt the discomfort it caused the game’s broadcasters. Joe B was able only to stammer out something about the Caps needing better goaltending, as if this team was merely a Band-Aid between the pipes away from prosperity, then followed with speculation that things may be so dire that Gabby would have to return to his now infamous trap of a season ago. Imagine.

Question: How is it possible that four years into Gabby’s tenure we are at pains to identify an identity for this $60 million hockey club?

This is quite literally the case: on any given night, no matter the standing of the opponent, and certainly no matter the volume of regulars potentially missing from the foe’s lineup, we have no idea what Capitals team will show up. We also have no idea what Capitals team will show up from period to period.

I consider this a gravely serious warning sign.

* * * * *

Much was made in the preseason of what was perceived to be savvy veteran additions brought in during the offseason by general manager George McPhee. In hindsight, too often the Capitals competed in the postseason in recent years with too inexperienced a lineup, the theory went. This fall, we are learning that this notably more experienced team is mentally, psychologically fragile. Karl Alzner addressed this trait head-on in the aftermath of last Friday night’s blowout loss to the Rangers.

Mentally weak hockey clubs reflect poorly on that team’s leadership. Put another way: How often have you heard it said of Babcock’s Wings or Bylsma’s Pens that they yield a goal or two at inopportune times and . . . turtle?

I consider this yet another warning sign.

* * * * *

That 7-0 start to the season seems positively aberrational. We were startled by the commitment the Capitals showed then to crashing the opposition cage, to getting goals in the proverbial ‘ugly’ fashion — the way you need to in the postseason. It didn’t last. This month, most often, when the Capitals prevail it’s been in a white-knuckle affair, no matter the caliber of opponent. When they lose, which is often, often they’re blown out. This, too, I consider a dire warning sign.

* * * * *

More gutsy journalism: Saturday night the Washington Times‘ Dan Daly directed a tweet my way in which he alleged that the Capitals are big on marketing and branding but conspicuous under-achievers with what really matters. What’s amazing is that the Caps go to such great lengths to create a “brand,” and yet they have no “identity,” Daly tweeted. Again with the identity issue. I hadn’t truly reflected in such fashion until prompted to by Daly. I confess, painfully: I am 100 percent in agreement with him.

* * * * *

By no means is this viewpoint meant to scapegoat Bruce Boudreau. In fact, whether he stays or goes, there remain gravely serious questions about Ovechkin’s fitness for team captain. And what of this fragile team psyche meme that Alzner honed in on? Maybe it’s a byproduct of an organization spending years overly catering toward, and coddling, it’s $10 million dollar man. “Branding” rather than competing especially well, as Dan Daly puts it.

I chatted about this whole mess with my father last night. He and I enjoyed an amazing father-son weekend for the Winter Classic up in Pittsburgh almost a year ago. I told him, Pops, you know what I enjoyed most about that weekend? As magnificent as the Red Army was in that football stadium during the national anthem, as euphoric as our victory walk out of it was at night’s end, what I enjoyed most was the thoroughly unexpected performance of the Capitals’ alumni against the vaunted and much younger and much more star-studded Pens alumni. It was just like old times. We out-worked them. We out-hustled them. We battled til the end. We stunned them.    

I want that Capitals ethos back. Do whatever it takes to secure it.

Angela’s family has 10 seasons tickets for the Hershey Bears. That’s but one of a couple of hundred novel facets signifying my lottery ticket number being called in meeting her. Some manner of family summit took place in early September to discuss how best to use an un-accounted for 10th ticket. It was determined that I would have it. Can’t say I’ve encountered family generosity quite like that before. Angela went to Giant Center during Bears’ training camp to retrieve her family’s tickets. That’s a very special evening for Hershey’s hockey fans, as they go down on the arena ice and are handed their tickets by individual Bears’ players, with photo-ops accompanying. Angela is a beauty one’s eye remembers long after an initial meeting, but Francois Bouchard saw her just as he had in previous Septembers and spoke up with concern: “If you don’t mind my saying, something doesn’t look quite right.” Angela briefly explained her new challenge. Bouchard then motioned over Graham Mink. Then more Bears players enveloped her in a circle of concern. Angela was very excited as she relayed this moment to me over the phone on the ride home.

Of course, the patronage of hockey games together this autumn is a far-fetched dream for Angela and me. Six days a week, alternating between chemo and radiation, she endures four-hour treatments at the Hershey Cancer Institute. Some days she can do no better than digesting a banana. I’m happiest this autumn when her text messages relate entire breakfasts consumed and kept down. What should be a spectacularly beautiful and fit frame of 130-plus pounds is today a spectacularly beautiful warrior’s frame of less than 100 pounds.

That life-altering August Friday the first person I reached out to in my frightened agony was my blessed puck chum goalie of a beauty queen, Tara Wheeler. When Tara was Miss Virginia and competing in the Miss America pageant a few years ago she seized a mission to immerse herself in the cancer wards for children at hospitals all over the state of Virginia. And I mean all over the state. I doubt there was one she didn’t visit. Most memorably, after her run at the pageant title, she shaved her head in a show of extraordinary solidarity with the brave children. She made national television appearances for it.

I remember not having the courage to call Tara initially, as my friend had never heard me sob. Silly notion. Our call lasted approximately 25 minutes, and the crying felt good, and I remember how there wasn’t more than a few seconds of commiseration before Tara issued me unmistakable marching orders. This wasn’t a moment to wallow in self pity, as sad as such news is, she delicately but forcefully explained. The partner against cancer plays an exceptional role, a durably taxing role, she explained. One of unwavering sustenance and optimism and encouragement. For the partner, it’s a bit of a poker table requiring all chips in, so right this moment, my friend told me, you have to decide if you’re all in. I hung up the phone with my pal, sobbed for about two minutes more, fell asleep deeply, and awoke Saturday morning calm and seemingly battle ready — knowing of course my engagement with this challenge was ludicrously limited relative to what Angela was confronting.

This autumn, instead of composing blog files, I compose love letters. I’d have done that anyway, but I seem to have energy and interest only for writing to Angela. A couple of weeks after my phone call with Tara, after I’d received a text from Angela that she was shopping for a wig with her mother, I wrote Angela and told her about the time I saw my friend Tara step onto the ice at Verizon Center and belt out the most beautiful rendition of our national anthem I’d ever heard, the arena ceiling lighting well illuminating the peach fuzz on Tara’s head. I looked down from the press box in that moment and tears streamed down my cheeks, because my friend, in her baldness, never looked more beautiful.

Another fortification for my fright-fight this fall: the return of Eric McErlain to my 18th St. office in Northwest. Long-time readers will recall my bragging about having Eric as a close-by colleague some four years ago. I met and befriended Eric in the Verizon Center press box. I learned about hockey blogging seated next to Eric. I became a hockey blogger in large part because of Eric. More importantly, I was blessed by his friendship. I once wrote a file here bragging about what it was like to come to the office every day and share the day’s first cup of coffee with one of the most accomplished hockey hearts and minds in new media. Eric left our office a few years ago for an exciting new challenge. Now he’s returned, and again he’s immediately next door to me.

Eric knows I can’t be in rinks this season as I’ve grown accustomed to being, thanks to the Capitals, and he knows precisely what I need with each and every coffee and lunch outing — my puck fix. I genuinely believe that God returned EMac to my office this autumn for a role well beyond managing our industry’s pressing need for deft stewardship of social media. I also don’t believe he’s leaving my office again any time soon. Thank God.

Rather impulsively one day this autumn I gave a reckoning of my anxiety to another great buddy in pucks, a fella named Killer. Week after week had passed with hardly an iota of complaint from Angela of what she was enduring; I was beyond inspired. I wanted the tough guy ex-Cap to know about the battle she was bravely waging. “You’re gonna love meeting her,” I wrote. “Send me Angela’s address,” one of the Capitals’ all-time great warriors texted me from his team’s bus. I knew what was coming next. In the package Killer shipped to Angela he penned an inscription on one of his warrior photos themed on how the biggest fights sometimes are waged by those in the smallest frames. Killer knows a thing or two about that. I regarded that outreach as a love letter in its own right.

A week or so ago I messaged Killer to give him an update on our region’s increasing concern with the struggling Caps. “Ok,” he replied. “Now tell me what really matters — how’s Angela doing?”

This fall I notice a lot my pacing in a path opposite that of the Red Army on game nights. It’s an odd experience, after marching with them all these years. None of them know it but they are all my friends, as this autumn has verified. I’m looking forward to rejoining them just as soon as I can.

Turns out, as a sports town we’re somewhere in the middle — not real good, certainly not awful. Steinberg offers a bit of a comparative continuum which posits cities such as Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Buffalo as distinctly passionate about their teams — the very civic identity of those towns is directly related to the teams, Steinberg suggests — versus a set of sports apathetic outposts found in Atlanta, Tampa, and Miami. We’re somewhere in between on that continuum. Sounds about right to me.

Of course, I’ve been one who’s long suggested that big media in these parts have played a lead role in limiting — undermining, actually — the perception of Washington as a sport town. Tourists and business visitors to our city are fairly forced into the perception that D.C. only cares about one team each morning they pick up the big paper or tune in to the local television sportscasts. To some extent — especially with respect to NHL hockey — this self-fulfilling myopia bred a countering, insurgent new media alternative.

If there’s a shortcoming to Steinz’s piece I’d point to its deference to a longstanding (cliched, really) scapegoat for our perceived inadequacy: that the cultural foundation of D.C. is the federal bureaucracy, bringing with it, among other traits, unavoidable transiency. For one thing, D.C. has become a high-tech haven over the past 20 years, delivering high-income, durable, roots-planting occupations, which in turn has helped drive dramatic development across the region. Concurrently, there has been exponential growth in federal contracting, and contracting careers, and the only thing that outlives death is a federal contract. But I’m not sure it matters any more whether you’re in D.C. four years with an administration or 40 with a lobby shop. The ubiquity of digital media, the voracious information consumption via hand-helds — and Washington is as wired as any city in the world — renders occupational consideration in this discussion, I think, moot. And doesn’t it say something that we now have two around-the-clock sportstalk radio stations operating here?

I think there are very specific features unique to D.C. that damn us as a sports town, separate and distinct from a one-trick-pony media. Up at the very top — and Steinberg certainly captures this, if in somewhat muted tones — is the conspicuous absence of winning. And not just winning, but winning as a well-managed sports entity. The Pittsburgh Steelers don’t win the Super Bowl every year, but isn’t it commonly accepted that they’re an especially well-run outfit, competitive every year? And further, that the Redskins are not much run like the Steelers are? Interestingly, Steinz amplified this sentiment in Tuesday’s Post, in responding to readers on line. “[A]t some point, I think ownership needs to accept some responsibility for repeated failings over years and years,” he wrote. “And I mean more about the Abe Pollin-led Wizards than the Daniel Snyder-led Redskins, although both would qualify.”

Snyder. To me — and I speak as one who in his Washington youth slept in Redskins pajamas, and toted a Redskins lunchpail to school — Snyder is a plague. We are rightly mocked by the fans of other NFL teams for giving him safe harbor here. I wish I had a dime for every instance I heard a Washington sports fan email me or address me at the rink with ‘If only Ted [Leonsis] owned the Redskins.’  There are two constants to Snyder’s reign of error-terror: His team will lose, and somewhere along the way he’ll freshly speak or act in a manner that gravely offends the sensibilities of our civilized community. Like suing a financially strapped grandmother or creative, civic-minded journalists.

The hope — the expectation — is that now that the pro basketball team is owned by Leonsis better days are ahead. (Of course, they actually have to play for that to happen.) But Ted inherited a spectacularly dysfunctional, decades-long-in-decay entity with the Wiz. That was Abe Pollin’s doing, and Steinz is right to remind Washingtonians of it.

Washington, too, has a physical infrastructure problem with its sports teams, in my opinion. Verizon Center is fine (spectacularly located, turns out). But FedEx Field might be the most reviled big stadium in the entire country. It is a monument mostly to the ineptness of D.C. government, in forcing the Redskins to flee the District to find a much-needed new home. It takes forever to get out to, forever to return from, and while you’re there you’re fairly pilfered out of your retirement savings in attempting to feed your family or wet your whistle.

I’ll raise some eyebrows and provoke some rebuke with my thoughts on Nationals Park, but I maintain that the Nats, in going cheap and with a cookie cutter design, have cultivated, durably, below average attendance on nights when the ace isn’t pitching. It’s not so much that Nationals Park is bad — it isn’t; it’s that to me it suffers comparatively by virtue of its proximity to one of the finest baseball stadiums in all the world, Camden Yards. Put it this way: If I’ve a chum in from out of town who’s a real seamhead, and both the Nats and O’s are home and I’m seeking to deliver to my buddy the more memorable stadium experience, I’m taking him up to Charm City. Note that Camden Yards opened in 1992 and took all of one year to secure Major League Baseball’s All Star game. I’m sure the Nats will get that game one day; it’s just that there’s little clamor from seamheads around the country to fly in and take in a game in our new baseball stadium. For good reason. Again, it’s not a dump. It just suffers as alternative to a classic design up the Beltway. I’m really surprised the Nats didn’t give that greater consideration on the drawing board.

Anyway, we have a bunch of pro teams, but only two of them compete in a stylish home. And we really only have one owner in town who stands as exemplary with respect to earning fans respect and placing proper management in place. In sports, as with so many other things in life, you reap what you sew.

Take note that you can visit the Post here and leave comment related to how D.C. could become a better hockey town. I think a little more springtime winning would take care of that just fine.

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.

Still, this fall we don’t know what we most need to about this hockey club — and necessarily we can’t: How much heart, courage, confidence, and history-defying swagger will it possess next spring, when the ghosts of Washington Capitals playoffs past will want to haunt again?

So what’s to preview? What we all want to know in October 2011 is what the collective state of our hockey hearts will be next spring. We all want to know that roster adjustments and hard offseason training and finally, at long last, an exasperation with failure has settled in, and in the aggregate these factors are driving the Capitals toward a more glorious fate — one befitting their other-worldly skill, one quashing four consecutive sour endings to spring. But we can’t know that right now. So instead, we saddle up for another long season (but likely a final season of Southeast division hockey!), hoping for better things on the power play, more goals, a returned-to-form Ovi, elite goaltending, good health.

And also this: night-in, night-out character and commitment, regular occurring 60-minute efforts, pride for the crest, an identity of hard work and an earned reputation for being tough to play against. Achieving that, we in the Red Nation could pretty well allow the chips to fall where they may.

When I wonder about the fate of this year’s Washington Capitals I find myself asking questions, identifying about 10 big-picture, perhaps defining queries, the answers to which I believe will determine just how far this team will go next spring.

(1) To what extent will the Capitals successfully implement a “hybrid” system relative to the preceding two seasons, one that better utilizes the prodigious skill sets of the team’s elite talents while also bringing more lunch pail ethos and thump and snarl for the season of ugly hockey (spring)? To what extent will there be “player buy-in” for this new system, and to what extent will the team adhere to it within the cauldron of high-pressure playoff puck?

(2) Will readily identifiable leadership develop under Alexander Ovechkin — on the ice and off? There are many superstar talents in many professional sports ill-suited to roles of extraordinary leadership. In his seventh NHL season Ovechkin not only has to recapture the game-breaking production he lost last season but he must embrace the responsibilities that come with wearing the ‘C’ in his sport, and inspire his teammates in the process. They already respect him; they already acknowledge his stature in the sport. Beginning this season, Alexander Ovechkin must look the part of mature warrior, and the Capitals must look like Alexander Ovechkin’s hockey team.

(3) How big a statistical rebound will we see from Ovi? His 65 goals in 2007-08 seem an outlier, highly unlikely to be replicated ever again, but last season’s 32, relative to his talent, seem even more aberrational. In better shape, and healthier, and a lead part on an improved power play, it’s hard to imagine he doesn’t significantly improve over last season’s numbers. But by how much?

(4) Will power be restored to the power play? It was inexplicably pedestrian (16th, 17.5 percent) last season. When it slumps this team’s extra-man unit still shouldn’t fall outside of the top 10. Roman Hamrlik, a healthy Dennis Wideman and a healthy Mike Green, and a more experienced John Carlson ought to deliver a big jolt from the point. And will that bolstered blueline allow for Ovechkin to be moved back to the half-wall, where he’s clearly done more damage on the PP in his career?

(5) Will Tomas Vokoun’s longstanding regular season excellence (career .917 save pct; 2.56 goals-against) translate to the postseason, for which he has but two series’ experience (11 games total) back some years with Nashville? It’s perhaps the lone area of uncertainty with this enormous and hungry talent, who apparently turned down better offers in July to try and win a Cup in D.C. this season. His postseason numbers (.922 and 2.47) are actually stronger than his regular season ones, but he went 3-8 in those 11 games.

(6) Who will reliably win faceoffs here this year? The Capitals late last season and in the offseason bid goodbye to two of the better draw men in the entire league in Dave Steckel (62 percent in ’10-11) and Boyd Gordon (58 percent). Both Marcus Johansson and Mathieu Perreault are notably inexperienced in the art. Jeff Halpern (56 percent) should help. Two quality draw-takers need to emerge, and it would be helpful if one skated in the top 6.

(7) Is there a realm of more mature and more reliable excellence that Alexander Semin will display in what is clearly the most important year of his NHL career? He is the longest-tenured Capital today; if he fails to make improvements with respect to discipline (offensive zone and generally ill-timed penalties) and emerging as a productive scorer when the team needs it most, this is likely his last season in D.C.

(8) 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. This season Bruce Boudreau, too, needs to earn new regard when it matters most. Will he mature and improve as he expects his core skaters to?

(9) This hockey club’s conditioning was a hot topic during the offseason. Will this Capitals club look physically strong generally, and most especially in third periods?

(10) Don’t overlook the impact of an NBA lockout/lost season on Verizon Center especially, long a home, due to its heavy use, to one of the league’s poorer ice sheets. If there’s no NBA hoops, just how good can this ice sheet become — for a hockey team boasting many exceptional skaters and assembled to contest a fast-paced game?