Keep him and you again fill a top 6 roster spot with promise, petulance, and perimeter play. And probably 32-38 goals. Deal him and you perhaps remove a stain of softness and infuriating inconsistency. You’d also afford yourself nearly $7 of salary cap space.

But can you deal Alexander Semin? Practically speaking, is there any semblance of a market for this enigma? He’s got one year left on his contract before arriving at unrestricted free agency, at a more than healthy cap hit, and why in the world would Washington’s Semin haters imagine that his flaws and shortcomings aren’t well known around the league? And then there’s this: He isn’t exactly a compelling personality around which you market hockey in your market; his refusal to speak virtually any English poses something of a PR challenge, wouldn’t you say? Obviously Semin’s skills and stats and salary matter most in any discussion of a trade, but today’s NHL managers take pains to assess hockey players’ character as well. Do you imagine Semin’s market value enhanced from this vantage?

What do you imagine another manager coughing up to acquire potentially just a single season’s services from one of hockey’s most inconsistent performers? And: what do you imagine George McPhee expecting in a return?

The Siberian is capable of awe-inspiring magical wizardry on a sheet of ice, without question. We’ve all seen it. Ten percent of his legerdemain is beautiful displays of jaw-dropping brilliance — moments when you’re reminded that no. 28 is authentically and irrefutably one of the most talented hockey players on the planet. His talents don’t flower on many rosters. But the other 90 percent is another trick, one that often rouses screams of frustration from the spectator and red-faced death-glares from his coach. This latter quality is the disappearing act—and Alexander Valerievich Semin is a master magician at both inspiring awe and soliciting rage.

Neil Greenberg from Russian Machine Never Breaks offers what I believe is a compelling big-picture assessment of Semin in today’s Washington Post. Five straight seasons of 25-plus goals from Semin’s stick, Greenberg points out. Moreover, dealing him invites an unhealthy checking chokehold on the Capitals’ top line. Greenberg:

“Fans only have to look at Semin’s ill-timed offensive zone stick penalties, chronic injuries or perceived scoring inconsistencies to be reminded how he has negatively impacted the Washington franchise. Despite these shortcomings, Semin holds the key for Alex Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom to have any hope at a statistical bounce-back next season, because beyond them, the rest of the Washington roster is not made up of proven scorers.”

Year after year Capitals management re-ups its most puzzling asset and year after year the player’s Sisyphean efforts get the best of this organization in the playoffs. However, it may not be all his fault.

This newly refashioned Washington team is exceptional and would, most likely, make the playoffs with or without the other Alex. The league has proven that positional depth is what will make or break a team in the playoffs, and those three players are, along with the rest of the roster, more than capable of rising to the occasion, a la Sean Bergenheim did for Tampa Bay this past spring.

But genuine elite talents are hot and rare commodities, and in the NHL, the few managers who possess them build around them. There is so much parity in the contemporary NHL that difference-makers . . . often make the difference. Either George McPhee and the rest of the hockey world is hypnotized by Semin’s spells, or perhaps he really is as good as we all opine but has never had his second line supporting cast to consistently perform. He’s forced to do a lot of the skating with the puck because there is no one in the mold of Nicklas Backstrom with whom he’s ever been able to play a whole season. He’s faster than a lot of defensemen, but can’t get by a Zdeno Chara by himself. If he is as good as everyone believes, it’s bewildering that the Caps have not been able to attract, let alone contract, the high caliber center he needs to prosper.

First, there was almost Sergei Fedorov, a 40-year-old who brought leadership to the dressing room and clutch skill against the Rangers in 2009. Then, Brendan Morrison, who was at his best over a decade ago in Vancouver with Todd Bertuzzi and Markus Naslund, turned up in summer 2008. Eric Belanger, largely a defensive forward, arrived in 2009. This past season, it was Tomas Fleischmann (really?) and greybeard Jason Arnott, another player who could have been perfect . . . 10 years ago.

If the Caps keep betting on Semin, they would have been wise to throw all the chips in the pot and acquire a high scoring, two way center in the mold of Tim Connolly this free agency. Instead, it appears we could again see second line center by committee in 2011-12,with Brooks Laich and Marcus Johansson and perhaps even Mathieu Perreault auditioning down the middle in the top 6. It’s a gamble.

It’s difficult to think of a more naturally technically gifted player other than Sidney Crosby, but Semin might be that star. There are teams that perhaps covet his skill and perhaps have come knocking at Kettler’s door for his services in years past. Maybe. But now?

If there was ever a time to cash in on Semin, just after the 2010 playoffs was it. His trade value was still at full mast as he had just scored 40 goals, and a non-playoff team would perhaps have gladly overpaid with a top six forward and perhaps a high second round draft pick just to have half a chance at an eighth seed the next season. Additionally, Semin’s contract status was as a restricted free agent before July 1st this year, meaning a team may have been more enticed by the prospect of signing him to the long term or at least being compensated if they didn’t want to keep him. In the current trade market, rebuilding teams will be content waiting until July 1, 2012, knowing they can have him for free instead of giving up assets now. Additionally, now that the 2011 draft is over, the relatively stronger 2012 draft class is full of talent that will further dilute Semin’s appeal.

A Milbury-esque GM might still snap no. 28 up in the next few months if it’s an offer that cannot be refused. What is shocking is that a very talented and well-respected general manager like George McPhee has straddled the fence for so long, instead of either:

1. Pulling the trigger on a deal that would have rid the Caps of its supposed problem, or
2. Acquiring a linemate to complement Semin’s skill-set and speed.

Instead, the Caps second line is stuck in limbo.

What no one wants to see is another year of pushing a rock up a mountain and praying it will stay up there.

Credit must be given to 106.7 again for its commitment to covering the Caps and hockey as no one else in the broadcast medium in this town does. This may well be a format we see more of from Sky and 106.7 going forward. We’ve suggested to Sky that the offseason, when puckheads here are starved for fun and engaging coverage of the Caps, could be ripe for developing this program as a standout summer offering, and as there is anything but a shortage of quality new media voices covering the Caps in D.C., Sky’s podcast could be a welcome mat for them all. We’ll keep you posted as to how this new and fun offering develops.

McPhee earned at least that for his deft and creative handiwork on hockey’s most frenetic and high-stakes business day.

On the radio last night, immersed in a multi-hour, post-deadline post mortem, I was joined by WNST’s Ed Frankovic, and Ed offered what I thought was a terrifically astute observation about the corner McPhee was backed into yesterday and how successfully he street-fought his way out. This was very much a seller’s market, with many buyers and high prices set for the limited assets up for auction. “McPhee landed some prized fish from a shallow pond,” Frankovic observed. Indeed.

Let’s be blunt: McPhee went into Monday presiding over an irrefutably flawed hockey club. You don’t get lodged in the league’s bottom third on the power play from bad luck. You don’t get shut out nearly 10 times through 60 games merely from complacency and systems adjustments. As winter begins to transition to spring hockey’s cognoscenti begin seriously vetting the Stanley Cup bona fides for a select handful of clubs who’ve demonstrated not only inordinate winning but champions’ traits through a season’s first three quarters. The Capitals have not been a part of that conversation in 2011. By 3:15 Monday afternoon, however, they rightly were returned to it.

The Capitals this morning are not a favorite per se for the Cup this spring. Instead, what seems to be fair to say about their newly re-engineered lineup is that, given decent health among the prized core, they are likely a seriously tough out this postseason. In this salary cap era of conspicuous parity, that’s really all you can ask for.

* * * * *

Marco Sturm, Dennis Wideman, and Jason Arnott are not All Star performers. They will not infiltrate the Capitals’ lineup beginning Tuesday night and litter the scoresheet with goals and assists. In fact, Sturm and Arnott are likely in the twilight of their respective careers. They’re rentals. But all three bring something of an imperative to a damaged product in red: street cred. Jason’s Arnott’s stick, for instance, is singularly responsible for his New Jersey Devils’ club lifting Lord Stanley in 2000.

That was a while ago, yes, but Arnott knows where he is in his hockey career, knows what he can bring to a talented Capitals’ club, and knows that he wants one more taste of hockey’s greatest glory. And he waived his no movement clause to get here.

Pittsburgh, if reports are true, was sniffing around Arnott a fair bit this deadline season. From the vantage of psychology I thought it was important for McPhee to best Ray Shero in this mutual pursuit. It was of course Shero who won the services of Bill Guerin in 2009, and a Guerin-aided Pens’ club that bested the Caps in seven games en route to a Stanley Cup. The Caps have owned the Pens in regular season play of late, they beat them in the biggest regular season game either team has played New Years Day, and they apparently beat Pittsburgh again yesterday on an important personnel matter. Now it’s time to get it done against them when it matters most.

Sturm, already taking paces with his new teammates Monday morning, was asked about Wideman, with whom he played in Boston. Back then Wideman was partnered with Zdeno Chara. Sturm called the Caps’ new power play specialist the Bs’ best defenseman in the 2008 postseason — not his Norris Trophy winning tower of shutdown partner.

Wideman may never have cause to purchase his own beer in this town for introducing himself as he did on his introductory press call with Washington media yesterday afternoon: with reverence did he drop Dale Hunter’s name. Wideman played his major junior hockey for Hunter in London. McPhee once again dialed up his old captain in vetting the Panthers’ blueliner. You could say that the Caps’ legend offered the GM a glowing assessment of Wideman.

* * * * *

The Capitals were rather universally declared the day’s big winner. It wasn’t a day of blockbuster wheeling and dealing — many impressive moves had been made well before Monday’s deadline. Still, it’s impossible not to admire the scope and ostensible impact of what George McPhee pulled off. JP I think it was who yesterday in social media space referred to McPhee as a “Ninja.” And that’s how Monday afternoon felt for Washington’s hockey fans.

What’s so ninja about his deadline dealings is his steadfast refusal to part with prized assets and still secure what he targets.

“We did not give away our first round pick, we did not give away any of our ‘A’ prospects,” he told media early Monday evening.

Think about who and what he’s parted with over the years to acquire the likes of Esa Tikkanen and Christobal Huet and Sergei Fedorov and now Dennis Wideman and Jason Arnott. He moves tier III prospects — Ted Ruth and Oskar Osala, for instance. On Monday he managed to get Florida to bite on one of his ECHLers, Jake Hauswirth. He strengthens his roster without weakening his development base a lick. And he commonly pursues veteran performers running out the final weeks on their contracts so as to mitigate hamstringing financial obligations of the future. Stan Bowman has a Cup, yes, but it sure looks like that was a seriously short-lived triumph.

There’s a lot to be said for assembling an accomplished team of amateur scouts, watching them haul in talent in rounds early, middle, and later, and as the keepers emerge in development, retaining them. This is an imperative for durable contention in a salary cap setup.

* * * * *

Perhaps the most underappreciated aspect of McPhee’s work Monday, in its short-term implications, is what the trio of newcomers affords incumbent Capitals skaters. Jason Chimera has no business skating wing on a first line for a Cup contender. Marcus Johansson and his 40 percent faceoff acumen has no business carrying out top six responsibilities his rookie year. Now high-end third liners will skate on the Capitals’ third line. Quality second-liners will skate on a second line. Suddenly there is impressive balance from line to line where Sunday evening there was distressing doubt and misalignment.

* * * * *

We didn’t quite comprehend how it came to be that our Capitals — tier I Stanley Cup contenders by prognosticators last season and this –  managed to lose their elite swagger, but they lost it alright, in resounding fashion, right around Christmas. With his deft and creative maneuvering yesterday, George McPhee, again going ninja in late February, helped his club reclaim that swagger.

A month ago, the Stars were the success story of the NHL, shining brightly atop the Pacific division in what was supposed to be a rebuilding year in Dallas. They lodged themselves in first in the Pacific for a healthy chunk of fall and winter. But February has been cruel: 1-8-1, and the losses often have been of the resounding variety. This morning the Stars are on the outside looking in at postseason qualification in the West — 10th, but that’s far from daunting; the fifth-seeded Wild (70 pts.) hold just a two-pt. edge over Dallas. Teams five through 12 out West are separated by just four points. Still, with a star-starved Stars’ lineup, and with their best player presently shelved, it’s easy to imagine the early upstarts falling out of playoff contention. And it’s easy to imagine another defeat for Dallas in Motown tonight. In short, it’s easy to imagine Dallas wearing a Cinderella’s skate, and midnight beckoning.

And so a pressing question increasingly emerges: if these are the real Stars, seriously slowing down after so hard a charge out of the gate, does the GM initiate a widely expected rebuild, belatedly, this trade deadline season? Second-year general manager Joe Nieuwendyk has already re-fashioned his roster in the last week, sending winger James Neal and defenseman Matt Niskanen to Pittsburgh for Alex Goligoski. Both Stars’ players had fallen on tough times, and out of favor. Goligoski is a coveted young puck-mover. A second huge question also confronts Nieuwendyk: what to do with free-agent-to-be Brad Richards, currently out of the lineup (since February 13) with a concussion? The answer to the first question, I think, largely determines the answer to the second. Or maybe not.

Does Richards’ concussion cloud his status altogether for the Dallas GM? Maybe Richards is back in 10 days and helping the Stars qualify for the postseason with still 15 games remaining. But what if he’s out longer? And for a team — say the Capitals — keenly interested in acquiring a difference-making man in the middle: how much in picks and prospects do you potentially part with uncertain of when — if — Richards could join your lineup?

Should he choose to, Nieuwendyk would be a seller in a thickly clogged market of bidders. And he possesses perhaps the market’s biggest prize. And it happens to be precisely the sort of player this Washington Capitals’ team should covet.

Who is Brad Richards? Well, first and foremost, he’s Dallas’ best player, in the prime of his hockey career (he’ll be 31 in May), and a former Conn Smythe winner (with Tampa, in 2004). Twice he’s been a 90-plus point player, and he’s on pace to come close to that again this season. His present injury notwithstanding, he’s been remarkably durable: five times in his NHL career he’s played all 82 regular season games. He possesses a fantastically accurate shot and a quick release; while not especially big he’s strong on his skates; he’d be an ideal jolt of offense to an offense-starved Capitals’ power play. Were he acquired by George McPhee in these final days of player movement he would turn a season-long question mark for the Capitals’ second line into a unit of strength. He makes $7.8 million in this final year of his contract, but at this point in the season most of that is already paid out.

As a pending free agent, of course, he’s a rental. Meaning: his price point in a trade is rather hard to forecast. And his injury makes it more so. Dallas, you wouldn’t think, would have much leverage in keeping him beyond Monday’s 3:00 trade deadline. With or without Richards they aren’t going to win a Cup this spring, and somebody will throw mean, large coin at him come summer. And if you haven’t noticed, the Stars aren’t filling seats at home with Richards.

The Capitals, it is the opinion of this blogger, need to be bold with one or two roster moves before mid-afternoon of Monday next. All teams above them in the East have recently fortified already strong rosters, while the Caps have stood pat. Even a first-round matchup with a brutally beat-up Penguins’ club wouldn’t be any cakewalk. (And Sidney might well be back for it.) All season long the Capitals have approached staffing the middle of their second line with a committee of auditioning, wet-behind-the-ears prospects, without durable success. Serious Cup contenders do not enter the postseason with gaping weakness within their top six forward pairings. And this weakness bears directly on the disheartening and dreadful power play (21st in the league, at an agonizing 16.8 percent success rate).

Dallas and Washington don’t often deal. You have to go all the way back to January of 1995 to spot a trade of note between the clubs: the Caps acquired Mark Tinordi for Kevin Hatcher then. Conditions today seem ripe for an important phone call between the managers.

It has been some while since George McPhee has gone really bold at a trade deadline. It has also been some while since his roster needed notable re-engineering in February. McPhee isn’t known for going big and bold at the deadline; instead, he prefers to tinker around his roster’s edges.

The Capitals need to rent Brad Richards this spring, and in doing so make a serious statement in an Eastern Conference offering little elite swagger at the top. This is a Capitals’ roster less in need of tinkering around the edges (like last year); it needs a jolt of difference-making. The Capitals desperately need help on the power play, and they desperately need help solidifying their top six, and adding a player in his prime boasting a Conn Smythe pedigree would do that and much much more.

As a result, we could see Capitals’ management this week use Semin as a bargaining chip to try and improve the postseason roster.

When I moved to Washington and I started to watch the Caps, it was hard not to notice Alex Ovechkin, Mike Green and Nicky Backstrom. While many other fans were watching those three young guns, I was drawn to the a different player, though, and it was Semin. He may have better pure skill than Ovi, and at the same time one of the worst work ethics on the team. What drew me to Semin was the way he could flip the switch, turn three guys inside out and flick a wrist shot past the goalie like a laser. He possesses a physics-defying ability to launch missiles with just a simple flick of those wrists, even with his weight back on his heels. What’s not to love? He is one of the most electrifying talents on the ice any given night — when he wants to be that is.

For three years now I have defended his lack of interest during the regular season, the disappearing act he pulls in the postseason, and all of those offensive zone penalties. His ability to score a hat trick like it was no big deal and the way he rescued the team from demise against the Rangers in the playoffs helped bolster my case for why he should remain on the team. My bloggermate pucksandbooks once said that if you could transplant Dale Hunter’s heart into Semin’s body you’d have a first-ballot Hall of Famer.

Semin’s inability to score consistently, his general poor play in the postseason, and his untimely penalties have delivered me to this concluding conviction as we approach the 2011 NHL trade deadline: there is no longer a space for Semin on the Caps.

Alexander is electric, he has scored big goals, and has certainly helped the team over the years, but it is time for him to be moved. His overall lack of interest on the ice is hurting the team — and especially in this offense-starved season — and taking away a roster spot from someone who may actually want to be there, like Jay Beagle or Andrew Gordon. They may not score as many goals as Semin, but at least guys like that give 100 percent almost every night. This Caps squad which has struggled most of the year and has its eyes on a Cup has no room for free-loaders.

Truth is, Semin would be a top player on any other team, and his contract, while large, is not untradeble. A struggling franchise like Phoenix or Edmonton could certainly use the offense and draw, and they could take on a significant salary. Washington needs help, and Semin can’t give the Caps what they need. It would be different if he looked like he gave two hoots most nights, but truth is there is a limited window for any team to win a Cup. If Semin wants to just gaze out of it during the game, he might as well leave through the door.

It may be unfair to put the weight of the Caps’ problems on Semin’s shoulders, but he can help the team more, I believe, if he isn’t on it. Not just because his prolonged poor play will be jettisoned, but because he can help net the Caps a player who will help them during the stretch run. Not only that, but he has gotten second, third and fourth chances with the organization — been given the benefit of the doubt time and time again — and squandered most of them.

Semin’s run should be over and it could be a big part of this team turning the corner, holding players who don’t preform to their pay and talents accountable. It would be tough to watch him leave, as I have absolutely loved watching him at times, and he will continue at times to dazzle hockey fans with his elite skill, but I’ve arrived at the conviction that on whole he is a piece that no longer fits this roster and its Cup aspirations. I am sure my feelings are not that different than many in Washington, and I may have held out hope longer than most, but the time has come.

The Capitals desperately need a second-line center, and I would especially like to see a Gary Roberts-type warrior acquired as well (talk about a player type that doesn’t grow on trees), and Alexander Semin is likely the tradeable asset George McPhee will need to land them.

That offseason, McPhee inked Mike Knuble to bolster the right side of his attack.

This February, however, Ray Shero isn’t weighing his roster options from a position of relative strength. His center-centric club is battered down the middle of the ice, missing three regular pivots, two of whom — Sidney Crosby and Evgeny Malkin — just happen to be among the top five players in the world. Malkin had season-ending knee surgery this week. Crosby, who’d been on a career-best production pace in the first half of the season, is making a slow recovery from two concussions he endured last month.

In a matter of weeks, perhaps, the day may arrive when Shero’s medical staff report that Crosby is sufficiently recovered so that he can rejoin the Penguins’ lineup. It’s at that moment that Shero would be tasked with making the most difficult and most important personnel decision of his young executive career.

Here’s what he should do: shut Sidney down this season, get both his world-class center performers back healthy next fall, and then renew what should be a championship contender’s quest — one that ought to be viable for much of this decade.

It’s a tough call, admittedly. Though we don’t much like to admit it in these parts, Sidney Crosby has distanced himself — appreciably — from our Alex in the claim to the title of world’s best player. And it really isn’t even close. Getting Crosby back in the lineup would change an awful lot about a Penguins’ club that last night was on the seriously short end of a 9-3 drubbing on Long Island. But with production on the wings ever a bane of their existence, the Penguins need both of their premier pivots to pose a serious challenge to the deep and talented Flyers, to the Bruins with a crazy-good Tim Thomas between the pipes, perhaps even the Caps. Montreal may get some blueline help this month, and they’d be a tough out. And were Crosby merely recovering from a bum shoulder or knee, his manager might justifiably roll the dice to try and get a playoff series or two swung his way in a brand new beautiful rink in his city.

But now, most belatedly, we know just how sinister — how career-threatening — the effects of concussions are, or certainly we do relative to our knowledge of head injuries say 15 or 20 years ago. It’s never a good thing thing to endure two concussions in the span of a single calendar year. What about two in the span of a week, as Crosby did last month, first from Dave Steckel’s inadvertent contact at the Winter Classic and then from a blow into the end-boards dolled about by Tampa’s Oscar Hedman? Bringing Crosby back this season obviously runs the risk of his incurring a catastrophic third concussion. In the NHL, once the puck drops, there is no allowance made for vulnerability and stature: the moment Sidney dresses is the moment he becomes fair game. And that’s as it should be.

It’s a risk Shero just can’t take. Even if Sidney is judged to be fit in March, or April, give him the entire summer to rest and strengthen. The Pens aren’t winning a Cup with just half of their elite center lineup.

The Penguins are spending more than $60 million on their club this season, and because of Malkin’s long-term injury Shero is afforded cap space with which to potentially address his predicament. But there’s no replacing top-five talents, and Shero doesn’t want any short-term fix that would cause long-term cap management woe. It’s a brutally tough call, more or less waiving a white flag of surrender, and the moreso in the first year of his club’s beautiful new building. And it’s a particularly tough call for this manager because he assembled this club rather spectacularly last summer.

Shero reacted to his team’s playoff loss to Montreal last spring much differently than did George McPhee. Shero went out and signed no one but two no. 1 defensemen in free agency last summer — Paul Martin and Zbynek Michalek. Those talents joined an already decent Pens’ blueline boasting Brooks Orpik and Kris Letang. Letang especially this season has skated with a Norris-worthy pedigree likely out ahead of him. Before all these injuries robbed this club of its elite skill, the Pens, all season long, were at or near the top of categories like hits, blocked shots, and fighting majors. They were highly skilled and very tough to play against. Beautiful hockey, I call that.

Beginning with Fleury in net and all that talent on the blueline and perhaps the best trio of centers in the world when they’re healthy, the Penguins are durably built for contention for another decade. That’s the big-picture vantage Shero needs to adhere to this month. Penguins’ fans may not want to hear it right now, but extreme safeguarding  — overly cautious in fact — is imperative when it comes to Crosby. In the Crosby-Ovechkin rivalry Sidney’s emerged as the dynamic talent with unassailable street cred in getting it done when it counts: He wears gold, he’s hoisted a Cup. He’s the lynchpin of the Penguin Cup contention blueprint. If Ray Shero makes the difficult but right call with him the balance of this season, odds are there’ll be more Cups in western Pennsylvania in the years ahead.

Sickening thought, isn’t it?

Yesterday a loud chorus of concern arose all about digital D.C. and on talk radio, related to the standing of the Caps as we approach the All Star Game break. It’s well-placed, well-pitched concern, I say.

No longer can spectacularly underwhelming showings like those in Florida this week be written off as exhibitions of a meaningless autumn; post January 1, NHL games take on increased importance, as the league’s trade deadline (February 28) looms and managers must determine whether they are buyers or sellers, and what pieces must be added or subtracted for postseason contention. The Capitals these days are making a compelling case for George McPhee to be a buyer this trade deadline season. And perhaps in bulk.

I stunned my new media colleagues up in the press box early on in the season when I confided in them: ‘I don’t like this team.’ Without even an audition a player (Tomas Fleischmann) whose performance last spring was ghastly was awarded second-line center duty. Today Flash is a member of the Colorado Avalanche, and thriving — on the wing, his natural position. Similarly, there was work to be done on the blueline this past offseason, but there, too, George McPhee deferred. Meanwhile, his GM colleagues all about the East (especially in Pittsburgh and the Southeast) loaded up for bear.

If we were to draft Articles of Impeachment against the Caps near the midway mark of this season, the evidence would be compelling.

DNS is my shorthand for “Did Not Show.” I haven’t had much occasion to use it for a Capitals team since Jaromir Jagr left town. But I am using it this season, and the frequency with which it’s fairly applied is what is perhaps most troubling to me about this team. My list:

• 11/19 ATL (0-5)

• 11/22 NJ (0-5)

• 12/9 FLA (0-3)

• 12/12 NYR (0-7)

• 1/12 TAMPA (0-3)

There isn’t a juggernaut among that list, either. Six shutouts already for a team bearing (ostensibly) four or five high-scoring stars? And that’s not merely five super lousy efforts listed above; (there have been those as well); that’s five outings halfway through the season for which the team arrived at puckdrop lifeless, indifferent to the game’s developments as it progressed, and remained that way for the full 60 minutes. These were betrayals of the crest. Impeachment-inaugurating instances of infamy.

In the case of the Caps and the Southeast division this season, shockingly, the three-time defending champions may well be underdogs to win it. Last season the Caps won the Southeast by nearly 40 points, and largely through attrition and promotion, were believed to have strengthened their roster in the offseason. Wednesday night in Tampa first place in the Southeast was at stake. The hosts had shut out the Caps in D.C. the previous week. As “big games” in winter go, this was a big one. Not only didn’t the Caps score again against Tampa, they didn’t show up for the showdown.

Again.

This fanbase is showing up alright — in hordes, over great travel. You notice the Red-out behind the team bench every night on the road. The least this club can do is show up.

I’d be the first in town to suggest that the NHL’s regular season is meaning-deficient, and I fairly led a chorus that noted back in fall that this regular season especially was going to be meaning-challenged for this club. But there’s a difference between skating inconsistently, picking your spots for inspired play, out of a deficit of motivation, and not showing up for games at all.

A team hopeful of contending in the NHL postseason generally needs at least two solidly productive forward lines. These Caps don’t have one. Across the board of the skilled forward corps there is conspicuous under-achievement.

The young goaltending was thought by some to be a potential Achilles heel heading into the season. Not so; the dynamic duo of Neuvirth and Varlamov is blameless for this mess.

The defense is improved, as Scott Hannan has helped forge an effective first pairing on the blueline. John Carlson and Karl Alzner have exhibited conspicuously few growing pains, and on more than a few nights in the season’s first half have been the best blueliners in red. Jeff Schultz, no longer overmatched in matchups up top, has struggled still at times (hello -3 Wednesday); that +50 of a season ago was certainly a mirage. Tom Poti swiftly has become brittle. (He’s back on the shelf again.) Both members of that third pairing have new, multi-year contracts. Not cheap ones, either. It’s more than $5 million in third-pairing partners the next couple of seasons. Question for the GM: What exactly was the urgency to get Poti re-upped so early in autumn?

Increasingly we are encountering inventive excuses for the Capitals’ disturbingly deficient play this season. Carolina Hurricanes’ General Manager Jim Rutherford recently suggested with a straight face that Alexander Ovechkin is playing possum. Our owner this week suggested that his players are “subconsciously pacing themselves.”

Maybe there’s another excuse: Maybe there was work to be done this past offseason, it didn’t get done, and now the team is trying to alter on the fly. High crime, that.

Also: Where is the leadership?

On the front of aesthetics, there is yet more damning evidence. The Capitals achieved Golden Team status — and Winter Classic invitation — on the basis of brandishing a beautiful, fanbase growing brand of razzle-dazzle, one which showcased a new generation of hip Young Gun talent. It was a style the league understandably wanted to grow the sport upon. Well, that’s been abandoned. Today in its place is the trap. Caps’ games these days are close to unwatchable, even in barely-eeked-out victory.

Stylistically, the Caps are the Nats in skates. Or maybe that’s giving them too much credit; the Nats at least have an identity (dull). The Caps are experiencing an identity crisis.

And what of the Red Army’s rightful expectation of patronizing a regular season of achievement and distinction? This hockey club wasn’t marketed on a season-long experiment of blight and confusion and identity crisis. Things didn’t work out in 2009-10, but there was the franchise-best 14-game winning streak of January and February, and sweeping the Pens. What is there about this season to date to hang a touque on? January 1 — won with the aid of a monsoon — and little else. Isn’t part of following a full-fledged contender enjoying the journey from autumn through spring? The Capitals this season are affording their fanbase precious little to relish and savor.

Once upon a time not long ago we watched a Red Force unleash its fury. Theirs was the hot ticket in town. A city fell in love with the spectacle. Faces for game nights were painted red.

Today faces are reddening with anger.