Correspondingly, those bitter rivalries have been freshly renewed by the showdowns. That’s how hockey hatred is developed. In the sorta old days, you first had to best your Patrick foes in divisional play before advancing toward Eastern conference supremacy. There is a bit of that feeling to all these Patrick division springtime reunions, albeit spread out over a couple of seasons.

The hero of the Caps’ game 7 triumph of 2009, Sergei Fedorov, is no longer in the NHL, and many of the names from that spirited series have changed: just eight Rangers from then still wear a blueshirt today, and one of them — Ryan Callahan — won’t play this time around due to a fractured ankle he suffered while blocking a Zdeno Chara slapshot late in the regular season. But while many of the names have changed since 2009, the allure of this matchup doesn’t. It’s a heritage matchup, and as such, it’s special.

This is a one-versus-eight matchup wherein the difference in talent is marginal, and the MoJo might just be with the underdogs on Broadway:  An intangible to this series is that the Rags administered two of the worst beatings the Caps endured this season, 7-0 in Madison Square Garden December 12 and 6-0 at Verizon Center on February 25. But both of those blowouts occurred prior to the dramatic roster alterations made by general manager George McPhee at the NHL trade deadline on February 28, when he secured a difference-making second line center in Jason Arnott and an impact two-way rearguard in Dennis Wideman. Wideman, like Callahan, is out for the entire series with injury.

McPhee’s moves not only addressed glaring vulnerabilities on his roster, but they seem to have ushered in a dramatic change in the atmosphere enveloping the team. The Capitals played their best hockey of the season subsequent to the change in personnel. OFB’s young guns take a closer look:

Andrew:

Is this 2009 all over again? The Caps are again one of the top teams in the East, again they are ready to go for playoff redemption, and again they are playing the New York Rangers. While the team is much different than the one which played a grueling seven game series against the Rangers just two short years ago, there is a lot that is the same about the series.

Again the second line is run by a hardened veteran with significant playoff experience, except instead of it being Sergei Fedorov it is Jason Arnott. Again Washington has a large question mark in between the pipes, except this time it involves two younger goalies and not Jose Theodore. Finally, the Caps yet again have to figure out Henrik Lundqvist and prevent him from being the lynchpin, series-stealer of the showdown.

In fact, the way the team attacks the net is going to determine, I think, whether Lundqvist is able to push the series to six or seven games. Two years ago the Caps settled for perimeter shots against the Rangers netminder, and as a result struggled to score more than three goals in four of the seven games. It was only once they made the commitment to crash the net late in the series that they really broke through the BlueShirt Wall.

Even two years later, the strategy the Caps are going to have to play has not changed either. Neil Greenberg of RMNB and Washington Post fame recently brought to light some of Lundqvist’s more astonishing numbers. Now take scoring chances for what they are worth, but the Rangers’ King has a .974 save percentage against shots from the so-called perimeter. If you extrapolate that over 100 shots, Lundqvist would only let in two goals. That right there says it all and says a lot about how the Caps can win the series. Books Laich, Mike Knuble and all of the other net crashers better be ready to set up shop in blue paint come Wednesday night, or be prepared for a long evening and another dreaded long series.

On the other side of the ice the Caps have to prevent the Rangers from, you guessed it, scoring down low on the doorstep. Lets take a trip in the “way-back machine” to the series two years ago against the Penguins. We all remember watching Sidney Crosby bang home goal after goal after goal from the side of net. Down low is the jackpot zone in the playoffs; take that away and you make it very hard for a team to score.

Now the Rangers don’t have a Sidney Crosby or anything close to that level of impact player on their team, but they do crash the net very well. Whichever young Capitals’ goalie gets the call — and they both might — he is still going to have to stop the shots in crunch time, while the defense is going to have to help eliminate second and third chances for the Rangers’ gang attack on the cage. It is up to the defensive pairings to take away New York’s lane to the net and clear out the crease.

With any playoff series, it comes down to a series of ifs. If the Caps can drive the net and force doorstep chances and if the defense can keep the Rangers from setting up camp in and around the blue paint, then the Caps have a realistic shot at a relatively short series. Those are two huge questions though, and the feeling I get is the team may struggle to do both consistently. As a result, I’d be prepared for a long, tough and physical series.

Lis:

Since we’re past the point of no return on selecting first-round opponents, I’m looking at the several positive things that could come out of this series, provided the Caps win in 5 or 6 games.

The Capitals can play physically, but they usually don’t do it by choice and it hasn’t been their style in the past. But it’s how you win in the playoffs, and playing the Rangers is going to force the Caps into this habit immediately. New York is also most likely to keep the Capitals focused out of any plausible first round opponent, considering the Capitals have something to prove. I will also say this — the Rangers’ matchup definitely favors a more Braden Holtby-style goalie in net (although I don’t think he will be called up) because he’s so territorial about the crease and, as Andrew pointed out, the Rangers like to crash the net.

Finally, although  much has been made of the Rangers missing Ryan Callahan, Callahan accounted for only two of the Rangers’ 18 goals this season against the Capitals. He only has three points total (yes, that includes the two goals) in the series this season. Of course, any team is going to miss a caliber player, but he hasn’t been particularly lethal against the Capitals this year when it comes to showing up on the scoreboard.

Jimmy Hascup, an outside point of view:

[Hascup currently writes for SB Nation NY and has covered the Rangers for multiple outlets. He has followed the team his whole life and knows what helps them succeed. He has been brave enough to defend his Blue Shirts on OFB and gives us his keys to beating the Capitals.]

1- Under John Tortorella, the Rangers have bought into his system and have formed a team identity that’s admittedly not flashy but makes them a squad that’s very hard to play against. They are hardworking, throw their bodies around, aren’t afraid to sacrifice to block shots and are expected to play in both ends of the ice.

2 – The second key for the Rangers to win this series is getting pucks deep and working beneath the goalline. Sounds simple and boring, but it’s when the Rangers do that that they’re most successful.

3 – Henrik Lundqvist. Plain and simple, if Lundqvist is on his game, he can win the series for the Rangers.

4 – Slowing down Alex Ovechkin. The tandem of Marc Staal-Dan Girardi has slowed Alex Ovechkin down to just two assists in the four games played, clearly frustrating him the past two games because they’ve played physically and been able limit his space. I don’t expect him to have a quiet series – and it will be harder for Tortorella to match them against Ovechkin when they’re playing on the road.

5 – Scoring from all lines. The way Marian Gaborik has played this season, any scoring from him is icing on the cake, so I can’t make him a key to the series. The fact is, this team has received contributions from all over this season (and lines have been interchangeable) – five players with 20-plus goals – and will need at least the top-three lines rolling because it makes them that much harder to match up against.

Last night’s 3-2 shootout loss to the Carolina Hurricanes was summed up best by Matt Hendricks when he described it as one that got away. The team had ample opportunity to capitalize on some key chances but were never able to finish. It was that inability to see a play all the way through that ended up costing the Caps a win.

• Perhaps one of the brightest points of the evening was the play of Marcus Johansson. Once a player who looked undersized and outplayed, MJ90 now looks like a true NHL player and we saw that with his goal last night. He held onto the puck as he drove the net for what can only be described as a goal scorer’s goal. When asked what the biggest change in MJ’s game has been, head coach Bruce Boudreau said it was experience.

• We saw the two heads of Alex Semin reappear last night, as he had one of his patented Semin Hat Tricks(1 G, 1 A, 1 Untimely Stick Penalty). The goal he scored on Cam Ward was vintage Sasha, with a little bit of help from Ward’s mask. Despite his goal, though, there were times that he looked like he was just goofing around as he swung and missed on several pucks throughout the evening. He is also lucky that penalty didn’t cost the Caps a win in regulation.

• Varlamov was not stellar in his first home start since coming of the injured list, but he did play decently enough to give the Caps a shot to win. That said, the soft goal he gave up to Carolina’s Jeff Skinner really took the wind out of the Caps’ sails and shifted the momentum. One of the more curious quotes of the night was from Boudreau who said the team should be able to pick up their goalies from a soft goal. It’s a great show of confidence for his netminding tandem and the way Boudreau handles them through the rest of the season will be interesting to see.

• Finally, perhaps the most controversial part of the evening was Tuomo Ruutu’s hit on Dennis Wideman. While the crowd thought it was a dirty hit, many in the press box and even Boudreau himself thought Wideman was falling before the hit occurred. Regardless, let’s all hope he’s back soon as he is a key piece of the defensive puzzle for this team; not only as a defenseman, but as a leader as well.

The easiest argument for Holtby’s demotion is the team has two goalies it needs to get ready for the postseason. That said, however, who says Holtby couldn’t be the guy to play in the postseason? As it stands now, Holtby has looked like the best goalie in the organization, and, on top of that, he has the numbers to back it up. Perhaps the most overlooked and best part about his performance this year is he has gotten better in almost every single start.

Think for a minute: we saw the best of Michal Neuvirth at the beginning of the season when he was thrust into the starting role with almost no warning. Since then, he hasn’t looked the same and has not posted those same numbers. Meanwhile, Semyon Varlamov had his solid stretch around the Winter Classic when he looked like the impenetrable wall we saw in the playoffs just a few years ago. Other than those games, though, Varly hasn’t stayed on the ice and his team has a big question mark hovering over their goalie stability now. Holtby, on the other hand, has come up and posted solid outings every time he has been called upon, sometimes with very little warning that he will be starting. With the exception of a few stinkers, Holtby has been dominate in the crease and has not had an extended period of time where he hasn’t been good. I don’t think we can honestly say we have seen the very best Braden Holtby yet.

Obviously Holtby hasn’t had the luxury to prove himself in a long-term stint, but he still has looked healthy and ready to start at the drop of a pin, which is more than you can say for Varly. The young Russian looked like the guy for the next decade just a few years ago and now he looks like he might not be on the team next year — all of this because of his injuries, which are coincidentally the biggest reason the Caps need to keep Holtby in Washington.

Neuvy is a fine number one, and, in my opinion, the guy who needs to start in just a few weeks. But what if he gets hurt, doesn’t look the same or falls ill? Then the team has to turn to Varly who hasn’t been able to stay healthy all season. And what if he aggravates his groin? Personally, Varly looks like a liability at this point. Is he really ready to play if needed when the Caps can’t even play him back-to-back games against Ottawa and Montreal? This team should be in tuneup time and not still finding out what they have on their roster.

Washington knows more than anyone that a hot goalie can steal a series and a bad one can cost a city a promising playoff run. Obviously we cannot predict the future, but once the first round rolls around would you be more comfortable with Holtby and Neuvy, two young and healthy guys ready to start at any moments notice, or Varly and Neuvy, two young guys one of whom has been on and off the injured reserve for the last two seasons? I think it is a clear answer.

Some may think I am being unfair to Varly, which I may be, but when it comes to the playoffs, the absolute best needs to be on the team because this same team will most likely not play together again. While some in the organization don’t believe it is “Stanley Cup or Bust,” the truth is they are. Sure, they may not bust many players if they lose early, but some may choose not to return to Washington and retire, like Arnott, some guys may move on, like Schultz, and others just might not make it back to the team.

Truth is, every team is “Stanley Cup or Bust” or they wouldn’t be playing. As a result, the front office has to give this team the best possible goalie tandem to win with. Varly may have been the guy in the past, but from what we have seen this year, it is hard not see the past fading away and see the future of Braden Holtby shining through — a future that should start now.

The setup: Each blog submitted a list of questions to be answered by the other site. The results: well, you’ll have to be the judge.

So what do Detroit Red Wings aficionados want to know about the Caps? Well, below are the literary pebbles (yeah, definitely not gems) that make up some of our team’s responses to the TPL questions. To read their answers to our set of questions, like what we’d see out of Mike Babcock (and his flowing locks) in an HBO 24/7 type show, check out the other half of our exchange here at TPL.

TPL: Every Winter Classic road team has lost in the Cup finals that same year (PIT 08, DET 09, PHI 10). Given the overwhelming sense that history is not on your side this year, do you think it’s still worth playing out the rest of the season? Are the Caps destined to lose in the Cup finals?

TPL's Rob, left, during a typical day in Detroit

OFB’s Mike: Traditions are made to be broken. Now excuse me while I go burn my Winter Classic jersey.
OFB’s Alex: About a month ago I would have been completely unsurprised by another Caps’ first round exit, but, especially since the trade deadline, I have been impressed to the point of pulling my Stanley Cup prediction out of the recycle bin. And that was Canucks in six versus the Caps. Damn!

TPL: How much job security does Boudreau actually have? He’s had some ridiculously talented teams fall very short of expectations. Is it Cup finals or bust this year?

Mike: No. Might be conference finals or bust, though.
OFB’s Lis: This franchise owes Boudreau a lot (see Caps: November 2007 vs. Caps: March 2011), and Boudreau seems to have more job security than Pat Sajak, frankly, compared to most of the NHL. However, with this year’s trade deadline moves, I think there’s more pressure on his shoulders, because he has the personnel to get to the Cup finals.

TPL: Leonsis and Ilitch, our respective owners, have very different styles in terms of blogger engagement. Is it nice having an owner who is actively engaged in discussing his own team or would it be better for them if he were a bit more detached?

Mike: Yes, a thousand times yes: an engaged owner is fantastic. Sure, there have been times we’ve gone against Ted’s grain and rankled him a bit — and paid the price. But overall, an owner like Leonsis is a rare and wonderful thing for any sports fan.

TPL: Across the DC sports market, where do the Caps rank in terms of the local teams?

Lis: Let’s see – sandwiched at different points over recent seasons between Albert Haynesworth, Gilbert Arenas, and the “Natinals,” the Caps have managed to remain the D.C. team with the best record and the least amount of coverage (except maybe for D.C. United).

TPL: Neuvirth? Holtby? Varlamov? If/when they’re all healthy, who’s the guy for the playoffs?

OFB’s Andrew, Dissent 1: It has to be Neuvy. I tend to like technical goalies more than athletic ones, and Varly also has a big x-factor: his problems with injuries. People call Matthew Stafford a china doll, but Stafford doesn’t have anything on Varly, who seems to only be able to play for a few weeks at a time. Neuvy has shown he can play under pressure–see his play against the Penguins. That said, Holtby is quickly jumping up my personal depth chart, and I know Lis has some thoughts on his potential—well, it is really a “love affair”–but I’ll let her explain.
Lis, Dissent 2: Welcome to the OFB civil war. Holtby will be the best goalie of them all, hands down, but Varlamov, if he’s healthy, should get the start. He responds better than anyone on the roster to NHL playoff pressure. Yeah, there have been a few bad outings, but he’ll be playing this year with a much more solid defense and a team that shouldn’t be dragging the series out to 7 games.
Mike, the Voice of Reason: Varly has the biggest upside, but never seems to be healthy. Neuvy is the most consistent. Holtby’s hot right now but makes the other two look like grizzed vets. Thus: Go into the playoffs starting Neuvy, with Varly as backup. Let Holtby lead the AHL Hershey Bears to the Calder Cup, and bring him back to DC next season.

TPL: Do they have Buffalo Wild Wings in D.C.? …and if so, what’s Boudreau’s favorite flavor of sauce?

Alex: There is in fact only one Buffalo Wild Wings inside the Beltway (and several others around). We “understand” Gabby, on his annual April vacation, discovered the robust wild wing flavor.
Mike: Based on the HBO 24/7 series, I’d say Boudreau’s favorite wing sauce flavor is Cookies n’ Cream Ice Cream.

TPL: True or False: Jason Arnott, at this advanced stage in his career, is a better fit to replace PJ Crowley than he is on the Caps current roster.

Mila Kunis, Natalie Portman - photo via awardsdaily.com

Mike: False; in fact, by Detroit standards, Arnott’s career is just beginning. Though I did hear Lidstrom is a strong candidate to replace Regis.
Lis: Plus, Arnott’s been the Ronald Reagan to ending Alex Semin’s Cold War. So keep Arnott in hockey, please.

TPL: True or False: The movie Eastern Promises was based on Semyon Varlamov’s upbringing as a Russian mob boss before he broke into the NHL.

Lis: False, but we do suspect Semyon gave Robert Pattinson his big break by turning down the role of Edward in Twilight (see Varly’s roster headshot on Caps’ website).

TPL: ….and on a Black Swan-related note, Mila or Natalie?

Alex: This is more difficult to figure out than Macaulay Culkin. Seriously, what was he thinking? However, blue-wigged stripper Alice in Closer is making me think twice about Portman.
Married Mike: Neither. Pre-married Mike: Both

Now check out TPL in the hot seat.

When that game-ending horn sounds early Sunday evening back at Giant Center, what do you imagine the line will be like of Bears’ skaters awaiting submersion in training room whirlpools? And how about Walton’s voice come next Sunday? I’m guessing the Bears might take next Monday off.

This grind, all of it of course by bus, makes Dmitri Orlov’s commitment to beginning his North American pro hockey career late this winter all the more impressive, no? One wonders if General Manager Doug Yingst didn’t in fact hide the team’s March itinerary from the prospect and his agent during their discussions last month.

Walton told me he couldn’t recall such a slate in all his years in the ‘A.’ Neither could Patriot News Bears’ beat reporter Tim Leone, who’s been covering the league for more than 15 years. Three-game weekends are the norm; occasionally there’ll be four-in-five. But seven in nine? Guys who work in the American League understandably roll their eyes when the word ‘fatigue’ is uttered in association with the NHL’s two games in two nights slate.

More fun with labor on the junior circuit: The Bears have utilized seven goalies thus far on the ’10-11 campaign. Actually dressed eight. They started the season with Braden Holtby and Dany Sabourin, and because of injuries they’ve gone through three of the backstops from the Caps’ ECHL affiliate, the Stingrays (Todd Ford, Shane Owen, Jared DeMichiel). Sabourin’s been on the shelf since early February with a knee injury that required surgery. Semyon Varlamov did a conditioning stint up there. Nolan Schaeffer arrived on loan from Providence just this past weekend.

Things got real interesting the Saturday before last, when Varlamov went down in D.C. and both Holtby and Sabourin were sidelined. The Caps signed and recalled Ford for their game on Long Island. Hershey, which like Washington had a game that night, was left with a single fit goalie at 1:30 Saturday afternoon, facing a 7:00 faceoff. They tapped Bobby Jarosz, securing him on an ATO contract. Jarosz earlier this season was in net in the Central Hockey League for the Arizona Sundogs. The Bears knew him from his stint in Reading with the ECHL Royals.

And had Jarosz been unavailable? According to the Bears, they’d have been forced to ATO a netminder from HPA tenant Lebanon Valley College.

The funniest part about Saturday, February 26, and we can say this since both the Bears and Caps won that night: had Brett Leonhardt still been with the Capitals organization it would have been highly likely that he’d have been summoned to dress as backup for the Bears that night. And you just know Leonhardt Bears sweaters would have been purchased in bulk the following week.

There were about 30 compelling reasons to expect the Tampa Bay Lightning to deliver an inspired performance with first place in the Southeast on the line in Monday night’s matchup with the Caps, and for the Caps, playing the second night of a back-to-back on the road against a comparatively rested hosting foe, to struggle. The Caps on their previous visit to the St. Pete Times rink had handed the ‘Bolts their hat (5-2, February 4). Surely Tampa wanted to atone for that. And early on, the Caps saw more key pieces skate off to the dressing room. Tampa doesn’t much do national TV, and Monday’s was a national television appointment. It was a big game. Pierre McGuire was in the house.

A victory like Monday’s by the visitors, under the circumstances the Capitals confronted, wouldn’t have been possible 10 days ago, we allege. At least, there was precious little precedent for it through the season’s first 60 games. But that’s why surgeon George McPhee took a scalpel to his roster last Monday. Down 1-0 in the third period last night, with a host of key pieces out of the lineup due to injury, the Capitals skated in statement fashion coming home, and thereby boarded a plane home with their fathers in possession of a sweep of the state of Florida, in possession of first place in the Southeast.

Speaking of heart transplants, the new EKG on Alexander Semin is mighty healthy. You get the sense with Semin that perhaps he’s not so much “mercurial” or “erratic” but rather that he just needs something large and special and good to happen for him to unleash the full compliment of his prodigious talent. And perhaps it also doesn’t hurt to have the game mean something. It also probably doesn’t hurt that he now has a legit second-line center helping him out. Sunday night in Sunrise Semin scored an overtime game-winner to catapult his hockey club into first place for the first time in months. Monday night offered the residue of that heroism: Semin was the best player on the ice sheet last night, and his game-tying goal late in the final frame seemed in its virtuosity and swagger to assure the Caps of leaving town with two points. The Capitals are a vastly different looking hockey club when Sasha skates with swagger.

* * * * *

If you want the identity of a fella who’d finish last in his class at medical school: Lightning coach Guy Boucher. To be fair, Boucher is an NHL rookie bench boss. But also to be fair and accurate, were he otherwise, what he did with his shootout lineup in his team’s biggest game of the season last night might have been a firing offense.

Managers pay elite talent hockey players seven or eight million dollars a season, or more, principally because of their production, but also because they’ve demonstrated a penchant for coming through when it counts most. Last night, wholly cognizant that last season’s Eastern conference representative in the Stanley Cup finals only qualified for the postseason because of shootout victory in game no. 82, Boucher allowed his big guns — St. Louis and Stamkos — to sit on the pine while the likes of Dominic Moore and Adam Hall (???) tested their penalty shot acumen on Capitals’ rookie netminder Brayden Holtby. And Boucher opted to bring a quasi washed up Vinny Lecavalier in to the contest too late in the proceedings. It was beyond stunning and shocking; for Lightning fans, it had to be appalling.

* * * * *

Goals may be scarce in the Capitals’ boxscores these days, but the wins are there, and so is the conspicuous depth of talent in goal, lavishly on display in Washington’s 2-1 shootout win over the Tampa Monday night. You want to know why George McPhee refuses to deal any of his three prized young netminders, ever? Nights like Monday. But also: like all Caps’ fans, McPhee probably still has no idea who among Semyon Varlamov, Michal Neuvirth, and Braden Holby is going to emerge as go-to guy in crunch time. And all three might.

* * * * *

We no longer have firing squads, meaning, almost certainly we are stuck with Pierre McGuire on Versus telecasts the remainder of the season and beyond. So insufferable. Often speaks apparently merely to hear his own voice. National Football League national telecasts had his ilk back in the day in Howard Cosell. Pretty sure Pierre could be lodged down at ice level for a late September exhibition game between Columbus and St. Louis and swear we were witness to “playoff atmosphere.”

* * * * *

Capital Braden Holtby’s most valuable asset as a goalie may be his ability to rebound from scarring experiences. His shootout debut with the Capitals earlier this season was the unfortunate kind of unforgettable, but he more than made up for that last night when he stopped Tampa’s final shooter, Vincent Lecavalier, stone cold on the goal doorstep.  Three saves by Holtby and one dirty goal by Ovechkin in the shootout sealed the outcome. Holtby’s development, however, is far from unexpected. Boudreau said back in 2009 during Development Camp that Holtby reminded him of Semyon Varlamov, who, at that point, was the darling of the Caps’ fanbase thanks to his uncanny ability to rise to the occasion in big games (in his case, the 2009 playoffs).  Holtby is showing that same almost unteachable asset as he spends more time in Washington: he gets called off the bench to start the second stanza after Michael Neuvirth took a puck to the mask in the game’s opening minutes (Neuvirth for his part deserves an iron man shoutout for finishing the period after that incident) and follows up with some spectacular highlight reel saves, including a stick save on Simon Gagne that pretty much defied the laws of physics.

The only downside to the Holtby storyline Monday was that his dad wasn’t able to join many other Capitals’ proud Papas on the annual father-son roadtrip, and see the game in person, since he was apparently on his way to Hershey when Holtby got the callup.

So this is playoff hockey: allow the other team to score just one goal, don’t score a goal until the third period, and then duke it out in overtime, with power play goals becoming an extinct animal? The power play remains a singular area of grotesque concern for Bruce Boudreau. But for what it’s worth, Chicago finished the regular season last year 16th on the power play before going on to claim the Stanley Cup (although that’s still nine spots ahead of the Caps this time around). This year, Chicago is first in the league in power play like the Caps were last year.

The usually durable Nicklas Backstrom left the game, and the Washington Post’s Katie Carrera reported afterwards that Backstrom fell on his left hand (fractured thumb) but that he wanted to return. Backstrom’s hand has been of concern lately, but it sounds like there’s nothing wrong with his work ethic. According to Carrera, Boudreau said Backstrom would be fine.

* * * * *

Can the Capitals keep the Dads in tow for the next three months?

In the leadup to the Caps’ showdown with first-place Tampa there was chatter among the blogging class about Friday perhaps representing a “must-win” game for the visitors. Lose and confront a 7-point deficit to a Tampa team that won’t next see a road game until the 27th of this month, while the Caps contend with a slate of toughies at home and away. Win and the division title game’s on. The Caps won alright, 5-2, in resounding fashion, and they have their first line to thank for it.

Four points for Captain Ovechkin — who all night long looked very much like the Ovechkin of his first five NHL seasons. Four points for a similarly AWOL-all-season-long Nick Backstrom. All told, the Ovechkin-Backstrom-Jason Chimera unit accounted for 10 points and 17 shots and seriously outclassed the Lightning’s vaunted first line. With his team leading 4-2 in the game’s final minute Bruce Boudreau had his first line out on the ice again, and such was their potent swagger that they tallied an empty netter for good measure. The much-maligned first line couldn’t have picked a better time to break out, at the start of a very high profile weekend of play.

* * * * *

Passion in hockey is bred by commitment — to systems, to back-checking, to winning races to pucks, to setting a physical tone, to crashing the net. Early on Friday night Matt Hendricks let it be known that he was going to get his nose dirty in tight, and Dwayne Roloson and his Lightning teammates didn’t take kindly to it. Soon thereafter, gloves dropped. We saw great balled-fist showings by both Hendricks and Matt Bradley. They were bell-answering engagements by hockey players on a committed mission — not altercations as so many have been this Washington hockey season to try and alter a game’s sour momentum. As such, the game had a great old time winter Friday night feel to it.

* * * * *

Watching the first frame on TV, you didn’t get the sense that the Caps were skating with the dictates of a new and disorienting and uncomfortable system clogging their thoughts: the seventeen shots that pelted Dwayne Roloson — he of the consecutive shutouts of Washington in the clubs’ previous meetings — were an exclamation point of the vertical and up-tempo attack the Caps carried off. For this, credit Bruce Boudreau. He brought a fresh tactical approach Friday night. To attack Tampa’s 1-3-1 neutral zone moat he had his defensemen play a patient puck possession game that targeted stretch seam passes and long dump-ins that the Caps’ fast forwards could easily chase down around Tampa’s lumbering blueliners. Once in Tampa’s end, many of his forwards were committed to making Roloson’s night miserable with distracting traffic.

But tactics are of little utility if your big guns aren’t firing. The Capitals’ first line has been firing blanks most of this season. In the lead up to Friday night’s game the NHL Network broadcast separate, consecutive tributes to the Gr8, and it was difficult to watch so stirring a montage of virtuosity from our captain relative to his perplexingly non-productive play of this season. Friday night seemed very much a coming out party for Ovi and his linemates.

Ovechkin’s best games involve high tallies of glass-bashing hits, leg-churning puck-rushing through the neutral zone that brings a backing off by quality defenders, and space created by which to unleash one of the world’s best shots. We saw all of that from Ovi Friday night. We also saw his boyish exuberance in each instance of new-found success.

* * * * *

We also saw a remarkable rebound effort by Semyon Varlamov, who yielded a goal on the first shot he saw and then clamped down to the tune of stopping 23 of the last 24 shots he faced. The Capitals were strong enough Friday night that they didn’t need their young no. 1 to stand on his head, but they needed him to be quite good, and he was.

* * * * *

The Lightning, it’s said, are a team to watch with an eye toward the trade deadline because they’re already vastly improved and they have cap space with which to play. But Friday seemed to showcase Tampa’s glaring slowness of foot on the blueline — Ohlund, Kubina, Hedman, and Smaby especially, and Lundin and Jones are only moderately more mobile — and a unit’s snail’s skating isn’t easily rectified in a buyer’s market in February. Steve Yzerman will be fun to watch this month, but his team’s true achilles heel may be one he can’t substantively address until the offseason.

* * * * *

Dispute its degree of importance if you like, but there’s no denying that Friday night brought a big game for the Caps. And they came up large. 2011 at last has a 60-minute highlight. Best of all, the Caps were led productively by their leaders, and they played a brand of Caps’ hockey familiar to us all. An even bigger game arrives Sunday, against a Pens’ team that may be missing both Sidney Crosby and Evgeny Malkin. Suddenly, Sunday seems Super in its hockey possibilities.

“Thank God we’re getting good goaltending and playing solid defense, cause we’re not scoring a lot of goals,” Boudreau said. “If we had went to the net a little harder, we would have scored goals.”

That does seem to be the one theme that did carry over from last year’s ridiculously point-productive team: a lack of net presence that displayed itself again last night, and especially during the power plays, which, despite largely crisp puck movement, produced nothing on the scoreboard for the hosts.

Tampa, meanwhile, brought a  physical game, with OFB noting Nate Thompson’s presence in the first period near both Alex Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom. Tampa also brought newly acquired netminder Dwayne Roloson, and the 41-year-old, while not often called upon to stand on his head Tuesday night, played positionally sound and sure made Bolts’ GM Steve Yzerman look like a genius for a night. Capitals’ defenseman Karl Alzner noted the impact of another member of the Lightning and complimented Tampa’s role players and their execution.

“I noticed, at least, [Mattias] Ohlund was all over Ovi a couple times, made a couple of pretty decent-sized hits,” Alzner said. “I know it’s frustrating to — well, I don’t know, because I’m not an offensive guy — but I assume it’s frustrating every time you try to make a play and there’s a guy in your face. That’s what me and [John] Carlson are trying to do.”

At the other end of the ice, Semyon Varlamov offered another jewel of a showing on the night of his being the NHL’s no. 1 star of the week and seemed to deserve a better fate.

Drawing Tampa is a tough assignment for the Capitals defense — the Lightning have the second and third place offensive point leaders in Martin St. Louis and Steven Stamkos — but the Capitals successfully kept Stamkos off the point sheet Tuesday.

“That’s always nice when you set out to do a mission and to keep a guy pointless. When that happens, it’s always great,” Alzner noted. “But, at the same time, their other guy we wanted to key on to, he ended up getting the game winner, and that’s a little bit frustrating for us.”

Carlson said being matched against other teams’ top offensive players are what he wants, but when you fail, “You get the weight of the world on your shoulders.”

While the Capitals’ power play productivity is still stuck in 2009-2010 efficiency and goals generally are in a recession, the penalty kill has flourished. The team is third in the league in penalty killing, and the Capitals who are logging the most shorthanded ice time so far this season — Jeff Schultz, Carlson, Brooks Laich, Mike Green, and Alzner — were key to the Capitals killing off all three penalties against Tampa Tuesday.

“It’s why I think our record is 6-0-2 in the last eight games,” Boudreau said. “It certainly isn’t the power play.” Note: The Capitals are actually 5-1-2 over their last 8 games.

Alzner, meanwhile, said the conversation surrounding this game in light of the previous Winter Classic frenzy was simple: don’t get into a lull, and “don’t wait for it to be the Winter Classic again.”

He and John Carlson agreed the Capitals got off to a slow start in the game, however. Semyon Varlamov looked shaky for the first several minutes before settling down and shutting out Tampa’s offense until Martin St. Louis scored in overtime.

The good news is that anyone with a mustard seed of hockey sense knows a world where Alex Ovechkin, Alexander Semin, and Nicklas Backstrom aren’t scoring goals is inevitably doomed.  The penalty kill prowess, meanwhile, looks like it could be here to stay.

But there’s more**. Dmitry Chesnokov has chimed in with a great subtext to this spot. Alexander Semin is somewhat conspicuous in his absence in the commercial; turns out, he was a part of principal photography but left out in final editing. Dmitry offered his Twitter followers today an image of Semin’s role in driving a “getaway golf cart” for the ESPN espionage caper.

** Yes, we know Dmitry was kidding with his tweet. Obviously that picture wasn’t even taken in the US, much less Bristol. But it would have been funny, no?

Incredibly, the Rangers had merely 20 shots on Semyon Varlamov on the night, and put seven past him. The Blueshirts took just two shots on the Capitals’ cage in the final 20 minutes; both shots lit the lamp.

What was so disconcerting about last night’s Massacre in Madison Square Garden was that it came hard on the heels of what most believed was a turn-the-corner performance Saturday versus the Avalanche, when the Capitals brought great work ethic to their effort. Sunday night? Not so much.

Behold, and weep from, the vulgarity of column four:

I can’t add up all those minuses.

It’s now up to six consecutive losses for the Caps, the most consecutive losses in the Bruce Boudreau era, during which time they’ve scored a grand total of 8 goals while surrendering 22. In their past 13 games the Caps have been shut out an astounding four times.

Injuries are playing a part; so too is illness. But the Caps are hardly the most beleaguered club in the league — it’s not like they don’t have big guns in the lineup. They have three of the best players in the world dressing, in fact. Moreover, they have workhorses in the lineup, and when guys like Matt Hendricks time and time again selflessly sacrifice injury by dropping gloves to try and ignite a spark in his teammates, time and time again there is no following ignition.

There has been, from the vantage of this blogger, a palpable unease largely a consistent undercurrent to the season. Comfortable wins are hard to come by. Leads are difficult to protect. There’s been a penchant for falling behind. Ovechkin just doesn’t look himself. Ditto Nick Backstrom. Everyone in opposing sweater brings their best shot to an encounter with Washington, and most nights the Caps aren’t mentally up to the challenge.

It’s under such circumstances that typically you begin to hear whispers about players and their coach in some manner of disconnect. And so it was interesting for me to hear Al Koken take to the Comcast Sportsnet postgame last night and raise the spectre of a coaching change. He didn’t advocate it; he merely articulated it. Telling. Bruce Boudreau’s standing rested somewhat uneasy after last April — the owner had to come out and clear that air. For Gabby the context for this malicious malaise, to some extent, has to be a trend of coming up short when the stakes are highest.

It’s one thing to lose, and lose in prolonged fashion. It’s quite another to get consistently outworked, by opponents mediocre and worse. From some sectors of observers I’m hearing talk of Don’t worry; it’s only December. But there is no lightswitch flipping in hockey, and work ethic knows no calendar.

If you are gravely concerned, you are not alone.