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.

While the DVD’s content is fantastic, there were a few minor disappointments. There were no special features; some outtakes or unused footage would have been great to see. Of course, this is the first HBO Sports special that made it to DVD, so the bare-bones packaging is not a surprise… but one can imagine the stellar cutting-room-floor footage that Capitals and Penguins fans alike would be grateful to see.

Additionally, it would have been nice if there was an HD option—the video quality is very good, but it’s no Blu-Ray. The stellar production values of this series are certainly deserving of a high-def disc.

Perhaps the greatest disappointment is that which allowed the series to be released on DVD in the first place.  The “original” series, as aired on HBO, was beautifully filmed, edited, and narrated.  It also had a soundtrack that helped tell the story, not just complement the pretty pictures.  The scenes of both teams preparing for the actual Winter Classic game in the locker room taping sticks, playing soccer, stretching, posting bulletin board material, even making a stupid PB&J, loses the full effect when hearing a dramatic custom orchestrated piece instead of Survivor’s “Burning Heart” from the Rocky IV Soundtrack.  However, the expense to pay Survivor, Boston, and the other artists whose work was used would economically ruin the project.  With this in mind, it’s understandable why changes were made.  Thankfully one work that remained in the conversion to DVD was the stirring end to the four part series set to “Exogenesis: Symphony Part 3 (Redemption)” by Muse.  Any change there would have ruined the end.

Reliving the Winter Classic in the fourth and final episode is itself worth the purchase price. HBO Sports can at times be a bit heavy-handed with its dramatic soundtrack, but that epic game was worthy of the orchestral bombast.

From the locker room scenes, one thing that stands out is Bruce Boudreau’s mantra of “keep it simple, shoot the puck, drive the net.” It’s a refrain Capitals fans are quite familiar with, and a message that rings true today. It’s fascinating to re-watch this series knowing now that the team had already tuned out Coach Boudreau—which is a shame, as his message, while not particularly tactical, is one the team must embrace even today.

You can order the 24/7 DVD from HBO or find it at the Capitals’ merchandise stands around Verizon Center for $20.

Realignment Heaven, nearly

Christmas-pinch me: Could it really be that in the very same week Dale Hunter is returned to D.C. legacy-honoring leadership is emerging in realignment discussions, such that our Dick Patrick in particular would feel like a kid at Christmas?

Even recently arrived OFB readers know well our disdain for the scourge that is the Southeast division. This realignment scheme — and it’s merely a proposal that could be voted upon by owners at their meeting this week — takes some serious TNT to the least interesting division in the history of pro sports. As a kissing cousin to the Great Old Patrick division, the proposal differs only with the addition of Carolina. Most importantly, it jettisons the rest of NASCAR country, miraculously sticking it to the historic Habs and Leafs — but under an intriguing premise: there would be, the thinking goes, some synergy between Canadian snowbirds who follow those Florida clubs and the elite markets way up North. Interesting.

Additionally, as part of this scheme, there appears to be something akin to an intriguing sweetheart promise to the historic North Atlantic clubs for accepting the sunbelt orphans: the very real possibility of absorbing a relocated Phoenix team, in Quebec City. The proposal posits a 16-14 split between what could be viewed as East and West alignment, and moving the relocated Coyotes in with the Habs et al would achieve 15-15 balance. I haven’t spoken to many in hockey media ever since Atlanta bolted for Winnipeg who don’t believe that Quebec City will have an NHL team within 5 years. Viva Les Nordiques! That division, even with its Southeast hangers-on, would have serious jam.

The travel for the ‘Ning and the Cats would kinda suck, sure, but who outside Florida cares? It’s the ‘Ning and the Cats, after all. What matters: the Wings are finally happy; nightmarish travel for Western clubs today is significantly repaired, insomuch as there is far greater an equality of travel among all member clubs; and the grave injustice perpetrated by Gary Bettman against Washington in the late 1990s is at long last rectified. If this scheme comes to pass (heavy lifting for it, undoubtedly), I’m sending the commish an OFB Christmas card.

Knowing that NHL owners were meeting this week to discuss realignment (in Pebble Beach, Calif. — nice winter meeting work if you can land it), I actually spent a fair portion of Saturday running errands with a pad of paper and a pen in my Jeep, concocting a variety of realignment lineups — all predicated on returning the Capitals to where they belong: back with Pittsburgh, back with Philadelphia, back with the Rangers, the Devils, and (for now) the Islanders. The problem I kept running into: what do with the Southeast dregs — basically, the Florida teams.

I tried of course pairing them with Nashville, and Columbus. Just when I’d get excited about achieving what I ultimately wanted I’d realize how many Western clubs I had to slide over to the East, creating grave imbalance. In one scenario I even had the Original Six clubs lined up together — talk about generating some serious buzz; no other pro sport could match that kinda fun. But nothing was working out as I’d hoped.

One of the creative tools I was tinkering with was assigning a value to each NHL club based on the likelihood of each one remaining located where it is today, in five years’ time. I raised this notion because when it comes to “radical realignment,” I really believe owners and managers need to consider the very real possibility that a handful of clubs in grave fiscal distress now won’t be where they are today down the road just a bit. This proposal as outlined on CBC last night takes Phoenix’s identity crisis into mind. Odds are at least one or two more clubs will be in a similar situation soon.

Ultimately, we may owe some mistletoe love to the leadership in Philly and Pittsburgh for this scheme. Understandably, those clubs didn’t want any realignment that separated them. The beauty of a reconstituted Patrick division is that it reignites some of the fiercest rivalries in all of hockey south of the border. And when you think about it, given all the Caps and Pens have done for the sport post lockout, how shallow and short-sided would it be to move forward with significant realignment and not put the Flyers, Pens, and Caps in direct warfare with one another? Detroit and Winnipeg obviously need their respective situations remedied ASAP, but thinking large on realignment fosters a big win for the league overall.

Heck, we could really have some fun with this new-look league: How about a Patrick Division Winter Classic round-robin New Years weekend? The top four teams in the division at Christmas get the invite. The stadium atmosphere would resemble European or South American soccer in its potential for violence. Sign me up.

Speaking of division names: This too Bettman needs to be called to the carpet for, and it needs to be rectified as part of radical realignment. If indeed there are four “conferences” established (the new set of four groupings apparently would each be called “conferences”), each should be named after a giant in our sport. I’m not wedded to Patrick, necessarily, for our grouping, but I do believe some blue ribbon panel ought to take All Star weekend, say, and meditate on names like Howe, Orr, Gretzky, as well as some of the builder giants that erected this league. A special trophy ought to be commissioned for each named setup.

Additional attributes of this potentially Heaven-sent setup: A more balanced schedule, featuring home-and-away dates with every club outside of one’s recast division/conference. While there is some concern with increased travel costs with this, I’m of the opinion that two factors override it: Most basically, what is it about the NHL that necessitates geographical isolation, relative to other pro sports? And isn’t there something akin to a moral obligation for the league to showcase its other-worldly talents (Crosby, Oveckin, Stamkos, etc.) in every market, every year? With the present unbalanced schedule if you’re a fan in Western Canada and Crosby’s Pens visited you while he was recovering from a concussion, you’re SOL for years. And divisional playoffs will breed new rivalries and give life to already established ones.

We in Washington are already indebted to Santa for bringing us an early Christmas present this year, but given what the league has put us through with the Southeast, we are entitled to another special gift, I say. Hockey’s greatest rivalry today ought to be organically housed, and in the process the abomination that has ever been the Southeast division ought to be, mercifully if belatedly, euthanized.

Indeed.

Maybe the Bruins ultimately make a series of it, maybe they don’t. But down 2-1 after 20 minutes last night, against the hottest team in the NHL postseason, and confronting the harrowing reality of dropping the series’ first two games on home ice against the Bolts, just as the Caps did two weeks ago, the Bs went Commando on Tampa in the second frame, scoring five times. Gut check. Series on.

The deeper we get into the 2011 postseason in Washington, which of course affords us additional context with which to compare the Capitals’ shortcomings, as more accomplished organizations play on, all the more that troubling questions related to team leadership arise. “Team leadership” here encompassing the captaincy, the coaching, and the management. I’m ok with the equipment guys.

Now it seems almost preposterous to ponder the preoccupation some in media articulated back last autumn: that by virtue of youth and inexperience in net, the Capitals could have their spring short-circuited. The Capitals didn’t lose prematurely early this spring, or last, or the spring previous to that, because of their goaltending. They did lose because they’d been out-worked, out-coached, and out-led every spring. They consistently confronted teams in possession of superior leadership. In an era of parity, that’s certainly a differentiating quality.

Conventional wisdom, as recent as perhaps just a few years ago, was that a team needed a star stopper between the pipes to get it done in spring. To be sure — and you need just ask Flyers’ fans — you can’t go Johnny Pedestrian in net. But there are probably 20-plus netminders around the league today more than adequate to the task of guiding a team through three or four postseason rounds, and one or more of them is likely already under contract in Washington.

But what does it matter if you’ve talent and poise in net if your hockey club has a deficit of leadership everywhere else?

• In the spring of 2009 virtually everyone in hockey recognized that warrior right wing Bill Guerin was a coveted commodity likely to be moved by the Islanders to a playoff-bound team serious about contending. The Capitals then had serious production deficiencies on the right side of their lineup, and they were a young playoff team. There was rampant media speculation, especially in Washington, that Guerin should have been a primary acquisition target for George McPhee. Instead, Guerin ended up in Pittsburgh. The Penguins of course beat the Capitals in seven games that spring. The Penguins of course went on to win the Cup that spring. Bill Guerin played a significant role for the Pens.

• Does it mean anything that Dan Bylsma came in from the American League and immediately enjoyed notable success in Pittsburgh, and does it mean anything that Guy Boucher came in from the American League and immediately enjoyed notable success in Tampa, while our American Leaguer behind the bench has spent the past four springs underwhelming us?

• Does it mean anything that literally 40 minutes into his Washington Capitals career Jason Arnott was so troubled by the culture he surveyed in his new room that he felt compelled to stand up and . . . lead?

• Those HBO ’24/7′ cameras were rightly lauded for taking us on the innermost inside of hockey last December, and when they captured the Capitals’ inner sanctum at the season’s most vexing moment, what was, for you, the leadership portrait offered? Were you, like me, more than mildly surprised that it was Mike Knuble standing up and blowing a gasket in the Boston visitor’s locker room? Perhaps more revealing moments of player reaction were left on the cable outlet’s cutting room floor, but I doubt it.

• Another curious ’24/7′ snapshot: The head coach and GM meet one morning at Kettler to post mortem the extraordinary losing streak, and the GM states that the team’s prolonged losing could actually be beneficial in the long run. I remember reacting in that moment: ‘WTF???’ Interesting that other managers don’t typically pursue that as strategy for long-term success.

• The GM also responded to critics, particularly in local media, who were appropriately questioning the team’s leadership in late December with the snide and derisive rejoinder that were such voices qualified to weigh in on hockey personnel they’d be employed in the game. The hirer of Bruce Cassidy probably ought to have brought greater humility to that moment.

My new media colleague and friend Ed Frankovic of Baltimore WNST, in his latest blog entry, ‘Caps Off-season Focus Should Be on Leadership,’ tackles terrifically the Capitals’ deficit of leadership: “There is no doubt some on the ice upgrades are necessary to improve [the Caps'] chances for success. But to me, what this organization seems to need more than anything, is an infusion of leadership. Simply put, they need to add personnel with Stanley Cup winning experience at the management level [emphasis OFB's] and on the ice. The role of those additions would be to help Ovechkin and many of the talented younger players on the team to understand the process of what it takes to capture a Stanley Cup, the hardest trophy to win in all of sports.”

I really admire what Frankovic next does in his narrative: he traces the leadership bona fides of previous Cup winners, noting that even the lavishly talented Edmonton Oilers clubs of the 1980s were laden with Cup-winning resumes from the ’70s. He then goes ’24/7′-inside the 1999 Cup-winning Dallas Stars team with former Stars executive Craig Button, now of the NHL Network. Lots of talent on that Stars team, but it was carefully acquired veteran leadership that ultimately allowed Dallas to break through a formidable Western conference and win the big prize.

“Washington has seen firsthand . . the impact of what a proven winner like Steve Yzerman can do to help turn around a struggling club,” Frankovic concludes. “With the Wings former #19 at the helm in Tampa Bay, the Bolts added some key people with leadership experience (i.e, defensemen Pavel Kubina and scout Pat Verbeek) and Yzerman was also able to get one of his existing star players, team captain Vincent Lecavalier, to elevate his game to a level he hadn’t really been at since the Lightning’s 2004 Stanley Cup victory. As a result, a team that relies on key young players Steven Stamkos and Victor Hedman is still very much in the running for this year’s Stanley Cup just one year after finishing 41 points behind the Capitals in 2009-10.”

Typically I’m a passive observer of the Western conference’s opening round matchups. For one thing, the Caps typically exhaust my energy with their springtime high drama in Eastern time zone starts, leaving me with little in the tank to follow West Coast affairs. But this Hawks-’Nucks series has me seriously sucked in. I may Red Bull it around 9:30 tonight.

The central storyline for me in this series extends far beyond this year’s President’s Trophy winner potentially out-gagging last year’s. With apologies in advance, you’ll recall that last year’s Capitals became the first ever no. 1 seed to lose an opening round series after securing a 3-1 lead in games. This year, the Canucks are trying to one-up the Caps in postseason infamy.

Selfishly, we ought to welcome it.

The Hawks of course are the reigning Cup champions, but young general manager Stan Bowman looked anything but Scotty-like as he jettisoned key support components from his Cup-winning club last summer, in dire acts of cap compliance. They limped into the Western conference’s eighth seed this spring. There was no swagger whatsoever to their Cup defense. The Canucks came to Washington back on January 14 and were never seriously challenged by the in-transition Caps in a 4-2 game. I watched that game from on high in Verizon Center with my new media colleagues and joined them in unanimous assessment: Washington wanted no part of this Canucks club this season. And so I picked the Canucks to sweep the Hawks in round one this month, and a week ago that forecast looked like something I should have taken to Vegas.

But then Dave Bolland returned to Chicago’s lineup for game 4, and this series hasn’t been the same since:

• The Hawks are hitting

• The Sedins are shrinking

• The uber goalie is gagging

• Alain Vigneault looks like he’d rather be coaching hockey in the Middle East. If he loses tonight, he might be.

Now here’s where the fun really starts with this series for me. The Hawks of course have bested Vancouver in each of the previous two springs. Prior to this spring, the matchups came in the Western conference’s second round. This year of course it’s no.1 vs. no. 8. There’s clearly a referendum on the Vancouver organization with this third straight postseason matchup with the Hawks, with President’s Cup pedigree (or is it curse?) engulfing the Whale. There’s a real feud forging that always happens with the NHL postseason whenever two organizations are frequently pitted against one another — and especially when it’s lopsided in outcome and the expectations for the vanquished are annually significant.

Remind you of any other postseason rivalry of the past?

Should Chicago pull off the unimaginable tonight — win a fourth straight over the West’s no. 1 seed, with a watered down lineup relative to what they triumphed with last spring — wouldn’t we in Washington have, at long last, a new template for postseason fanbase terror, a new benchmark for perpetual postseason underachievement? Wouldn’t we have a new poster child for playoff choking? Losing a bunch of 2-0 and 3-1 series leads against you know who is intergenerationally wretched to be sure, but the Caps never gagged on a 3-0 burst of series opening dominance. And like the Caps, the Canucks have never won a Cup (although they did force a game 7 against the Rags in ’94).

Should they prevail tonight, wouldn’t the Hawks be the Pittsburgh postseason party-pooper to the Whale as Washington? (And shouldn’t it mean the demise of Mr. Bettman’s trophy?) And wouldn’t Vancouver, unlike Washington in all of our Pittsburgh-perpetrated agongy of the past, burn down late tonight if that happened? I don’t know if Vancouver even has a CFL team, but if they do, they surely don’t care about them with a scintilla of the passion they do for the Whale.

Yesterday I surveyed 20 members of the hockey media here from print, broadcast, and new, and I could find only six who picked the Whale to win tonight (I was one of them). I found that astounding. The Hawks will have had to win four straight games against a 117-pt. club — all of them elimination games! Vigneault, the mastermind behind the Canucks’ remarkable goaltender drama, was already ghost-white at the conclusion of game 6 Sunday; what might his complexion be tonight if the clock winds down and Chicago has done in his squad again?

Must-see TV . . . even for the middle-aged and morning-ed gym weary.

I will have to keep pried open my eyelids with toothpicks tonight to take it all in. Should Chicago pull off one of the all-time great NHL postseason comebacks — and I think get us in D.C. a bit off the hook in the process — we’ll have reality TV that’s really real: a heavy Canadian reckoning in hockey in spring.

Postscript: Today’s National Post weighs in on the plight of the Canucks. A loss tonight would represent “the worst collapse in team sports history, or thereabouts,” claims columnist Bruce Arthur.