The winter sports mayor of D.C.

I owe Ted Leonsis an apology. A big one.

It was a lengthy State of the Caps address he offered on line on Thursday, more than an hour long, and getting merely most of his reflections represented accurately here isn’t good enough for me, isn’t good enough for this blog. I am writing for and regularly engaging with a Capitals fanbase segments of which are perhaps as irate with this organization today as never before, and the reactions my file occasioned earlier today were distinctly heated; I have to accept responsibility that my error, in addition to undermining a fair reporting of yesterday, may have fomented some of that comment venom and ire.

I’d represented that the owner expressed a conviction that “There are 29 teams in the league that would trade positions with [the Caps].” That representation was devoid of an important context: Mr. Leonsis meant it with respect to the Capitals’ stable of quality young goaltenders: “There are 29 teams in the league that would trade positions with us right now to have three young, very, very talented players, all affordable, all with their best days ahead of them and so I’m really happy with how well-stocked we are at the toughest position in the game.” That’s what the owner said in full in his remarks, and that’s very different from the context I’d erroneously interpreted.

I relied on two media sources for covering the address — the video of the address itself on the Capitals’ web site and concurrently, in real-time, Twitter transcriptions of the owner’s remarks. I learned a valuable lesson from this experience: Go with one source and use the second, subsequently, as an independent verifier. Their concurrent use seemed wise to me at the time. Late today I’m thinking differently. One hundred and forty character transcriptions, flush even with opening and closing quote marks from a big news organization, aren’t necessarily inclusive of important context. Lesson learned.

* * * * *

Speaking of context, I’d have had the Capitals’ reaction to my error placed in a larger one as well.

Had it been my intention to author an unprincipled “hit job” on the owner — yellow journalism, Mike Vogel termed it — I needn’t have opened my file with acknowledgment of Mr. Leonsis’ swift denunciation of his hockey club the morning of May 5. I shared that context because I judged it important for drawing an important distinction between the owner’s May 5 remarks and those of yesterday. Moreover, OFB has I think a solid track record of avoiding baseless ad hominem attacks that are perhaps more the bailiwick of talk radio.

In truth I grew a bit uncomfortable with the tenor of some comments that accompanied today’s file. They didn’t violate OFB’s comment policy, but a few approached a line of personal attack I’m uncomfortable with. And with this in mind I felt compelled to speak up, in comment, in defense of our owner. I wrote:

“One can, as I have, spiritedly critique a sport’s team ultimate barometer performances, and its management, and still be grateful that it has the ownership group it does. In the big picture, Washington hockey fans are exceptionally lucky to have Mr. Leonsis as owner. And if you’ve read my blog since its start, you know that I believe him to be a night and day — franchise-saving, in fact — improvement over his predecessor. I didn’t agree with the PR strategy of yesterday, I worry that he’s “too nice” a guy for this business at times, but still it should be acknowledged: In this lifetime, Redskins fans will never know the access and accountability Caps fans have with their owner.”

That’s not the sort of prose one typically associates with a practitioner of yellow journalism, I don’t think. So Vogs’ characterization is disappointing to be sure, but the cold hard reality is that if I do a better job with blocking and tackling none of this family squabble likely ever arises.

The ‘family’ is in a summer squabble, the byproduct of accumulated frustration and disappointment. Sometimes we hurt those we most care about never ever intending to do so. We will have disagreements going forward, but from today I’m taking a renewed pledge to elevate the discourse, in my own files, and demanding even more from my valued readers. Ninety eight days out of 100 I think we both do it quite well. Today just wasn’t one of those days for me.

* * * * *

On about 500 occasions the past 5 years Mr. Leonsis has shared with me reflections, in email and in person, that I’ve come to regard as privileged, and ones that truthfully have consistently played a pivotal role in this blog’s development. Our owner is a visionary in new media in a broad sense, but he’s also taken an exceptionally personal interest in cultivating this and scores more blogs that cover his team. He’s given our new media community far more than access. And so this error of mine today is doubly disappointing; I’ve let down my readers, but also a valued mentor.

In those earliest hours of the offseason I had already excoriated the Capitals, fairly, for a spectacularly failed season, again, but I wanted days and even weeks to pass before weighing in again with heavy ammo against the status quo.

Mr. Leonsis in his blog that painful morning called for patience and for a cooling off period. “The best course of action for us . . . is to let a few days pass; be very analytic about what needs to be improved; articulate that plan; and then execute upon it.”

And so yesterday, having allowed more than a few days to pass — fully two weeks, in fact — before commenting again on the Caps, Mr. Leonsis appeared on his hockey team’s web site to address Capitals Nation, offering remarks and taking questions from one of his communicators, with what was tantamount to a State of the Hockey Nation update. It did little to comfort the grieving.

For starters, Mr. Leonsis is not availing himself to media this offseason. Not yet, anyway. Capitals’ fans were welcomed to submit questions for yesterday’s streaming summit, but in no way does that approach the accountability that’s part and parcel with stepping up to the scrutiny of media cameras, microphones, and perhaps even a call-it-as-they-see-it corps of bloggers. If the President of the United States stands before the White House press corps, you can be assured of a good grilling, no matter the time of year. And when times are tough, we expect that of our President.

On the positive side of the self assessment ledger, acknowledging the widespread criticism his hockey team has cultivated in spades this spring, the owner yesterday said, “We want to change.” He pointed an accusatory finger at the power play, ranked no. 1 in the league until last spring, and said, “We might have to do something major to the power play because it has let us down last year against [Montreal] and this year against [Tampa Bay].” Big-picturing better, he said, “We’re struggling . . . in translating productivity in the regular season into longer success in the playoffs.”

To put it mildly.

But the format of yesterday’s forum undermined a good deal of discipline of message, and the owner early on in the proceedings, speaking contemporaneously and without interruption, allowed platitudes, a reservoir of accumulated good will, and I think wishful thinking to cloud and clutter what in another setting might have produced some heavy reckoning.

“I can say unequivocally that the regular season does matter,” he alleged.

Well, I can say unequivocally that at this moment in Washington it does not. I certainly said it in my season preview back in the autumn, and I was one of many voices then saying it. By the end of summer there will be four Southeast division title banners hanging from the rafters of Verizon Center commemorating the regular season feats of the past four seasons. Listening to Mr. Leonsis yesterday, I wondered: would the Capitals again try and draw attention to that on opening night in October? If they do, they might be surprised at the Red Army’s reaction to it.

To some extent, hockey’s regular season is diminished by the unrivaled-anywhere-else-in-sports glory of its ultimate prize. For every conspicuously winning-in-regular-season team in the NHL there is by late March something of an exasperation with playing out the string, an unnerving anxiety for the arrival of the true test, and given the turnaround of fortune in this past regular season’s second half for the Caps, and especially given the seeming success of the trade deadline acquisitions, there was an especially pronounced fatigue-anxiety among the Red Army. Long-standing demons of spring oh so badly needed to be exorcised. The regular season certainly seemed to matter here in 2007-08 and its following campaign. The President’s trophy seemed to give meaning to 2009-10. But that spring’s sourness cast a suspicious cloud over 2010-11 — and in point of fact, this past regular season delivered a great deal of stress and woe, infuriating season ticket holders bewildered by blowouts by the Blueshirts. And next season? Many of us in HockeyWashington regarded this spring as a referendum on the existing regime, seeking evidence that 2010′s first-round dismal was an aberration. We don’t have it — not by a longshot.

Surely everyone affiliated with the Caps will have to regard 2011-12 as more a referendum on how this organization is managed than with any previous season in Capitals’ history. But yesterday the owner was anything but aware of such a sensibility. And that is deeply troubling.

To some extent there is a tone deafness to management when it comes to acknowledging this organization’s sordid state in spring. They seem to want to be judged only on the springtimes in the Era of Ovechkin. They fail even in that limited litmus test, but the larger reality — one that reigns league-wide, and for a sizable contingent of the fanbase — is that we are the Chicago Cubs of our sport, and it’s mildly amusing to joke about in fall but something far more sinister in spring. Alexander Ovechkin’s arrival here was meant to address it. Management said as much.

Most egregiously yesterday, Mr. Leonsis said this of his club’s present standing: “There are 29 teams in the league that would trade positions with us.”

Nothing could be further from the truth. To trade places with the Washington Capitals today would be to assume their burden of spring. Sadomasochists wouldn’t take that on. To trade places with the Caps would be to reside in a media market in which John Beck — no relation to Glenn, Google informed me yesterday — is the celebrated athlete of the moment. A condition for which our market is rightly mocked.

To make no mention of the Pittsburgh Penguins, or the Detroit Red Wings, or the Chicago Blackhawks, not even the Toronto Maple Leafs would uproot themselves and trade places with us here. It’s $300-plus for a premium seat in the lower bowl of Air Canada Centre for a hockey game in October. There’s a 24-hour television station devoted to the team for goodness sake. There’s been a lot of losing by the Leafs over the years, but also, though distant now, Glory achieved. And goodness knows Brian Burke is held accountable by Leaf media and fans.

Perhaps most troubling of all yesterday Mr. Leonsis expressed an intellectual incompatibility with the notion that the window may be closing on his team’s status as contender. In point of fact, that window may never have opened. His team isn’t a contender; the Lightning proved that. And as exclamation point, the Lightning, we in Washington are suddenly learning, aren’t in fact the ’76 Canadiens after all. They’re just a good hockey team, nothing more — and better than the Caps by leaps and bounds.

Alexander Ovechkin, the franchise savior, will turn 26 early next hockey season. Today, he seems far removed from his days as a 65-goal scorer. The league seems to have figured him out. Additionally, his leadership quotient seems notably deficient. Presumed key pieces surrounding him suddenly don’t seem daunting, or untouchable. And they are all under the guidance of a man who’s failed to advance past round two of the NHL postseason, when a host of his younger, less experienced colleagues have. But fannies still are filling the seats in Chinatown, so all is good. This is the State of Capitals Nation.

*Correction:* Comment above attributed to Mr. Leonsis — “There are 29 teams in the league that would trade positions with us right now” — was erroneously reported. His full comment in context should have read: “There are 29 teams in the league that would trade positions with us right now to have three young, very, very talented players, all affordable, all with their best days ahead of them and so I’m really happy with how well-stocked we are at the toughest position in the game.”

I was struck at the ferocity and domination with which Detroit skated in periods two and three last night in San Jose. Especially in the third, Detroit simply imposed its will against a terrific Sharks club, and did everything but tie up the game. San Jose triumphed principally because Joe Thornton, heretofore a postseason no-show in big games, skated the game of his life when his team needed it most.

Like every club in the NHL’s postseason, the Wings are battered brutally, and last night they lost Todd Bertuzzi and Dan Cleary to the medical ward as well. But it just didn’t seem to matter. To the Wings, injuries are an obstacle but never an excuse.

Detroit is an “old” hockey team, too, but did you see how energized and fleet of foot they looked when their season was on the line last night? And when you compare that with how our Capitals looked in every third period of the second round, what conclusion do you draw?

This week the Washington Post’s Dan Steinberg reminded us that the offseasons of sports are what we in sporting Washington do best. And so the headline-grabbing news relates to hockey coaches and GMs staying put, and the hoops team getting a nifty new look but not a badly needed name change. Again: it’s middle spring, and nothing of consequence is transpiring for D.C. sports. We are a horrible, horrible sports town, still, not because our residents lack passion or commitment as with those in great sports towns, but because of the rank incompetencies of the men who are the stewards of our teams.

The early hours of every hockey offseason in Washington are grotesque because they are always arrived at prematurely. But I am finding this offseason uniquely vexing, for it is forcing upon me a confrontation with a new and unpleasant consideration of our owner and his management team. Our owner, the executives surrounding him, his coach, they are all fine men, and quite competent at their jobs. They are better than average, I think. And because they are merely better than average they loom as exemplars among their local peers. But what concerns me this spring is that we’ve no evidence that Capitals management possesses what might be termed a Special Forces mindset for securing a coveted target.

And in the world we live in, I think, truly coveted targets require Special Ops.

The Detroit Red Wings strike me as a Special Forces operation within our sport. Notable obstacles are ever placed in their way — amid all the heightened talk of franchise relocation this season, we’re reminded that the Wings would very much like to move to the Eastern conference, to address their longstanding travel ardor. They are, annually, a road weary hockey club. It just never seems to matter. And given their now decades-long reign of success, they ever draft late in each round of each entry draft, after all the bluechip talent seemingly has been selected. It just never seems to matter. They lose a Scotty Bowman and replace him, after a brief dalliance with Dave Lewis, with a Mike Babcock. They just go Special Ops on the opposition as the occasion mandates. The San Jose Sharks defeated a special adversary last night.

What about our Washington Capitals would you identify as Special Ops rival to the Wings? Its Marketing? Its web ops? Anything?

A few years back, there was frenzy over allegations that the New England Patriots, another outfit deadly serious about winning, was engaging in illicit, outside-the-sanctioned mode of football operations: that they were cheating. I haven’t much interest in the NFL, but for some reason this week I thought back to that moment and that team. I don’t know that much came about those allegations against the Patriots, but today I find it interesting that it was the Patriots — and not say the Redskins — who were forced to defend themselves against such attack. I guess today still a lot of football fans outside of New England believe that something sinister and covert was executed by Bill Belichick.

The warfare-sports mix of metaphor needs to be executed, if at all, with limit and care. But this spring in Washington, with the stunning news of the remarkable mission of SEAL Team Six, I can’t help but wrestle a bit with the notion that when it comes to hockey in my hometown, we are badly in need of the equivalent of a SEAL Team Six running things, when at present, relative to a club like the Wings, we have McHale’s Navy.

I’m hardly alone in such thinking. Again I reference the recent post mortem of the Post’s Tom Boswell:

“[George] McPhee respects his players’ pain. His face darkens as he describes Mike Knuble playing with a shattered thumb that required four pins and pain-killing shots just so he could take the ice. He knows which man can’t open his own car door after a game, which may never play again and which could hardly get off the ice unaided after one game.

“Attuned to such sacrifice and 100-hour coaching weeks, McPhee transmits that appreciation to Leonsis, a man defined by loyalties. If you bleed for them, they find it mighty hard to slit your throat [emphasis OFB's]. And that’s wrong?

“In a sense, the Caps are trapped by their own culture of decency, self-regard and optimism. They want to give everybody a second, and sometimes a fourth chance, even the coach. They don’t want to act in haste and repent at leisure, even if it means soft players aren’t traded and get to repeat their spring failures. They don’t want to blow up what they’ve built because they believe in sound foundations. But the Caps also flatter themselves that what they have created is a notch better than it actually is.”

As it relates to the real serious news of this spring, of covert warfare and military unilateralism, I am intrigued by what’s followed the initial awe and celebration of our nation’s feat over its greatest foe. Just in the past few days, a segment of our culture, clearly flanked left on the political spectrum, is articulating something akin to buyer’s remorse: Did we really have to go hitman? For these thinkers, there seems something elementally and intrinsically indecent about such a world.

And they’re right. And it’s this harrowing indecency which requires Special Ops.

On a far less important scale triumph in pursuit of sports’ greatest prize — securing the coveted target — surely requires something akin to a Special Ops mindset. Tampa Bay under the guidance of Steve Yzerman, a good many in hockey today believe, is closer to executing that mindset than we in Washington with our team. Yzerman of course was bred in Detroit.

It's been quite a roller coaster ride for Bruce Boudreau in Washington

The Capitals may or may not have a deficit of leadership on the ice and in the room with this roster, but dogging them most in the initial hours and days of yet another postseason far too early arrived at is an intense debate about their ultimate leader — Bruce Boudreau.

There is anything but consensus on this matter; in fact, it’d be difficult to identify a moment in Capitals’ history when as much high-pitched debate centering on the fate of the coach commanded as much speculation in print space, such a frenzy of pixels on line, and so much oration on the airwaves.

For his critics, Bruce Boudreau is a tale of two seasons — the terrific winning percentage of the regular season campaign juxtaposed by conspicuous struggle in the postseason. Moreover, he’s been bested in the postseason, while guiding favored clubs, by a host of wet-behind-the-ears coaches — John Stevens, Dan Bylsma, and most recently Guy Boucher. General Manager George McPhee on Thursday’s break-up day at Kettler seemed to offer both endorsement of the coach while also acknowledging that no firm decision on his future had been made.

“There’s no difference between a playoff coach and regular season coach. Either you’re a good coach or you’re not. He’s a good coach,” McPhee claimed. To which Yahoo’s Greg Wyshynski replied, “has anyone yet heard from the Capitals why, then, there’s such a difference between their regular-season and postseason success?”

Puck Daddy adds:

“In eliminations against the Pittsburgh Penguins (2009), the Montreal Canadiens (2010) and the Tampa Bay Lightning (2011), Boudreau was outcoached. Bad line changes and too many men on the ice penalties — on a power play, no less — undermined the team against Tampa. He’s been unable to extract the same level of intensity from his players in the postseason as he has the regular season.”

Boudreau’s return for next season, Wyshynski wrote mere minutes after the Capitals’ expulsion from the postseason, “is rightfully in question.” For one of hockey’s most influential voices, Boudreau’s fate in D.C. this spring ought to be dire: “This should be Boudreau’s final game as head coach, because standards need to be higher than this.”

By Friday Jon Press of Japers’ Rink had seen enough of Gabby as well:

“either Bruce Boudreau had the wrong message, or he had the right one and was incapable of getting his players to execute it. Whichever it was, it’s ultimately a poor reflection upon the coach — being an effective communicator and motivator is every bit as important as being an effective tactician and strategist here . . . for whatever reason, he’s never been able to consistently extract from this Caps team a whole which is greater than the sum of its parts when it’s mattered most. It’s time to find someone who can.”

In today’s Boston Globe Kevin Paul Dupont, taking up Washington’s latest springtime collapse and its implications, offers a commendable but brutally frank assessment of how short of success the Capitals have achieved while under Boudreau’s guidance: “Until a team makes it to the conference finals (a.k.a. the Stanley Cup semifinals), its playoff aspirations never really mature beyond “Off Broadway”’ status. Clearly, that cold reality was running through the fingertips of Capitals owner Ted Leonsis when he decided to tickle his computer keyboard immediately after his club’s wipeout Wednesday night at the hands of the Lightning.”

Dupont reminds that Bruins’ GM Peter Chiarelli publicly backed coach Dave Lewis early one offseason only to jettison him 60 days later. And Lewis didn’t get four cracks at postseason play with an elite roster as Boudreau has:

“Something has to change in Washington. It’s just not working when it needs to work the most. Blogger/owner/truthsayer Leonsis has all but written it on the subway walls and tenement halls. And it could be that McPhee will have to send his coach packing, or join him on the subway. For the Cup semis, all they’re hearing each year at the Verizon Center are the sounds of silence. “

Up in Hershey, Bears’ beat reporter Tim Leone, who knows Boudreau perhaps as well as anyone in hockey, defended the coach, stressing the vicissitudes of bounces and inches in the NHL  postseason:

“If Washington wins in overtime in Game 3 for a 3-0 series lead against eventual champion Pittsburgh two years ago, the Caps might already have a Cup in the bank. If Philly’s Jeff Carter gets the puck two inches higher in OT of Game 2 in the first round against Pittsburgh that same year, maybe the Flyers would have won it.

“A coaching change is a reaction way out of proportion to the small margins deciding winning and losing. A dramatic move might immediately feel like it gets you closer to a championship, but in reality it pushes you farther away.”

There are “Ifs” and “buts” that may be used to explain away every misfortune of a close call in a hockey postseason, and in every sport’s postseason for that matter. Ultimately what we have to evaluate are the final results, coldly and dispassionately. The Tampa Bay Lightning didn’t sweep the Capitals out of the playoffs by inches. Their star performers outperformed the Capitals’ stars by leaps and bounds. Michal Neuvirth was good, but Dwayne Roloson was appreciably better. And a real telling discrepancy in this series came from Tampa’s plumbers and muckers — Sean Bergenheim foremost among them — who lept over the boards for every shift and played inspired hockey. The men who wore the Lightning sweater were inspired by their coach. It’s difficult to look at any Capitals’ performance this spring save game 5 against New York and suggest we witnessed inspired hockey players in red and white. And the same could be said of Boudreau’s club when it counted last spring.

Boudreau’s defenders this spring fail to acknowledge that the coach entered this season with a bit of a mandate for the postseason — at least among fans and media. That’s what last spring’s shocking round one dismissal earned, coupled with going one for four in home-ice Game 7s. No one around Washington suggested that if the Caps could merely dust off an 8 seed in round one this spring all would be swell. The Capitals, most believed, needed to make discernible progress. They did not.

It isn’t just that there is a heavy accumulation of poor postseason results — shockingly early, uniformly, and always against lower-seeded teams — that is conspiring strongly against Gabby’s continuation here. It’s how they’ve looked in most of the defeats: tentative and indecisive, frightened at times, even, sloppy, and conspicuously lacking in emotion and drive.

Interestingly, there is probably a good deal of shared sentiment about Boudreau among the firing versus retaining camps this spring. Both sides would probably agree that on the whole, and relative to a majority of his NHL peers, Gabby’s a good coach, of inordinate achievement. Both sides would likely agree, too, that he’s well managed and developed George McPhee’s impressive stable of exceptional young talent. The divergence, I think, arrives at a point not unlike most of us arrived at with Glen Hanlon in the autumn of 2007: another level of accomplishment is needed and appropriate, and there is precious little evidence in this coach’s body of work in Washington that he’s likely to achieve it. Instead, his backers rely on faith.

The past week’s best assessment of the state of the Caps came from our city’s most accomplished and gifted sportswriter, the Post’s Thomas Boswell. Boz was out at break-up day at Kettler on Thursday, and he came away with a clear sense of a deeply troubled Capitals culture.

“At times like this, when a no.1 seed gets swept by a No.5 seed, you line up the firing squad or you line up the excuses. For the second straight year, the Caps went with the excuses . . .

“In a sense, the Caps are trapped by their own culture of decency, self-regard and optimism. They want to give everybody a second, and sometimes a fourth chance, even the coach. They don’t want to act in haste and repent at leisure, even if it means soft players aren’t traded and get to repeat their spring failures. They don’t want to blow up what they’ve built because they believe in sound foundations. But the Caps also flatter themselves that what they have created is a notch better than it actually is. And the Caps hate, hate, hate to admit any evaluation is wrong, until it’s so obvious they can’t deny it.

“Good intentions, good results, then playoff mortification, year after year, followed by the same mantra: There’s nothing wrong. We were just unlucky or injured. Next year: our turn. Keep the sellouts coming.”

Mortification indeed.

More beautiful Boz: “What team reacts to such devastating defeats with equanimity, common sense and a huge sigh of acceptance at life’s unfairness? How estimable. But it drives you nuts.”

Ghosts? How else would you explain consecutive playoff games against a weary foe in which pucks deflect off of Capitals’ rearguards and behind their netminder and into the cage, playing pivotal roles in consecutive upsets? And as our friend JP notes, those are only the two most recent such self-inflicted wounds this postseason. That sh*t just doesn’t seem to happen to the Wings, does it?

We love our hockey players, they are wonderful talents, they are to man exemplary civic figures in our community, and in just about every respect they make us proud to be fans. But they’ve an ultimate obligation in their profession — to get it done when it counts. To date, they’ve failed in that obligation. Given their accumulated postseason experience wearing our sweater, it is fair, beginning this spring, to hold them to a heightened accountability.

Ted Leonsis is right in suggesting that postseason prosperity involves, to a degree, having Lady Luck smiling on your side. And the Tampa Bay Lightning are a worthy adversary. But in year six of the Era of Ovechkin, with so many key roster ingredients in place, and with the sting of last spring still fresh, with Sidney and Geno and the Pens already golfing, this hockey club simply can’t author again yet another underwhelming showing in the NHL postseason.

The ramifications are enormous. Washington aches for a sports winner, yes, but Washington hockey specifically has a competitive mandate. Alexander Ovechkin was a lottery winning, and he knows what his role here is: to change our hockey culture. He’s done that just fine October through March. He’s had help along the way the last six years, and the reddening-out of our town — the conspicuous affection thousands of Washingtonians shower upon Ovi and his sport today is extraordinary — but it’s not enough. Nowhere near enough.

The durability of Mr. Leonsis’ business model requires a postseason breakthrough as well. Just take a look at all the upper deck empties at FedEx Field the past couple of seasons. There’s a social contract between a sports organization and its fans. Great dates ultimately have to lead to a kiss. Or we go find another girl.

This hockey club has the requisite skill and experience to rise to the challenge. What we don’t yet know is if it has adequate leadership. It’s a point that’s been debated with some robustness for more than a year now: Did the Caps get it right in stitching the ‘C’ to Ovi’s sweater? Failure this week in Tampa will bring fresh and heated scrutiny to that question. 2010-11 has not been a year to remember for our captain; its premature conclusion would intensify the evidence against his leadership. And the late-season arrival of Jason Arnott only adds fuel to that fire.

This is a postseason tailor-made for Ovi to ascend, but to date, we don’t have that breakthrough performance suggestive that he’s ready to seize that moment and lead his club. Tonight is one such opportunity.

Behind the bench, there is the obvious subplot related to Bruce Boudreau. All seemed reasonably well for Gabby a week ago, but when his club was gifted a lengthy break with which to rest and repair, they came out of it unable to meet the underdog’s challenge. That story is growing old here. Boudreau’s beaten an under-manned John Tortorella set of Ranger clubs twice in the postseason over the course of four springs . . . and no one else. Losing to the rookie, Guy Boucher? At some point (potentially soon) Capitals’ fans are going to ask: where is our Bylsma, our Tortorella, our Babcock, our . . . Boucher?

The team’s power play futility is a flashpoint in this discussion of tactical leadership. Its cumulative results last postseason and this are beyond nightmarish and nauseating: four for sixty. That’s four goals . . . in 60 opportunities. Tampa would bank in 9 or 10 off our dmen with 60 extra man opportunities. The power play personnel is a mish-mash of a mess, their attack ethos uncertain. Confusion and hesitancy reign supreme. The team had all of last week to work on it and get it fixed. Instead, it’s regressed. The head coach has to get it fixed, pronto. The Capitals will either achieve a competent power play this series or they will lose it. Tampa took out the Pens by achieving a glaring special teams discrepancy.

We also don’t know if in Nicklas Backstrom the Capitals have an elite talent centering the no. 1 line who can get it done when it counts. Great in games one through four versus Montreal last April then AWOL thereafter. Through seven games this postseason Backstrom has tallied merely two assists and is skating a -1. He looks anything but elite and dynamic. His scoring drought adversely impacts the team in both 5-on-5 play and power play production. His linemate Ovechkin seemingly senses the slump his center is experiencing, because he’s carrying the puck an awful lot in transition and attempting to make plays by himself. The result is a highly individualized attack by the first unit, which plays perfectly into Tampa’s trap. It’s gotten so bad with Nick that Boudreau bumped up the rookie Johansson to no.1 pivot duties. That’s no recipe for durable contention this spring. No contending team can have its no. 1 pivot merely along for the ride.

Along with my blogger buddies Ed Frankovic and Ted Starkey I was seated in Giant Center late last spring when the Hershey Bears dropped the first two games of the Calder Cup finals to the Texas Stars. The next three games were in Austin, and all looked bleak for the Bears against the Texas trap. Even in game 3 the Bears fell behind 3-1 after 20 minutes. But that Bears team had a warrior leader in Bryan Helmer, among others, and they banded together behind their coach who preached patience with the puck. Michal Neuvirth was in net for the entirety of that series, incidentally, and a fair number of those Calder winning Bears of course are wearing red this spring.

Late Sunday night, addressing the media, Alexander Ovechkin said that his team was traveling to Florida on Monday on a mission to win two hockey games. They really need to. The Capitals this spring need to find their Bryan Helmer. Here’s hoping he’s Russian.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Umm . . . not . . . quite.

This season in Washington, it’s as if the Capitals barricaded Kettler with sandbags to prevent the very winning tide of Hershey hockey from bathing them in good fortune.

The Bears last June successfully defended their Calder Cup title of the season before, earning their 11th overall (best in the AHL). Then, anticipating a healthy contingent of promotions to the parent club, went about strengthening their roster for the following season. As they always do. For there is only one acceptable outcome to a hockey season in Hershey.

For some years now, there have been reasonable forecasts suggesting that all that winning in Hershey — all that championship pedigree on the farm — would, like a rising tide, lift the good cruiseship Capitals. It hasn’t happened. In fact, water levels are approaching the bridge this season for the parent club. It’s with this curious competitive disconnect in mind that I identify my next principle in my renovation of Capitals culture:

• How can Washington be more like the Bears?

You can point to the absence of a salary cap in the American League, you can further suggest that the Bears are uniquely advantaged as the big (and perhaps the only) game in their town, but the bottom line is that winning at pro hockey requires a lot of blocking and tackling basics, and the Hershey Bears block and tackle in pursuit of victory better than anyone in hockey. You don’t get 11 Cups with merely a big checkbook or by luck. Hershey has a championship culture. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to study it a bit closer, I think.

If I could help usher in a new culture for hockey in Washington, I’d urge a re-orienting of the Capitals’ relationship with its American League affiliate, trying to bring a little better balance to it. It’s one-sided not only in terms of winning when it counts, but in subtler ways that from my vantage evoke a bit of a patriarchal arrogance. For instance, I find it incredible that Alexander Ovechkin has never been showcased in a training camp skate or NHL exhibition or in a parent-affiliate exhibition before some of the greatest fans in all of hockey. It’s rather arrogant I think to in effect say to Hershey hockey fans, ‘Come on down to D.C. and see Ovi.’  The Caps should take him up there, and maybe even once a season. We are so fortunate to have him; absolutely we should share him with our affiliate. And so I say:

• Let’s give back a little to the affiliate that’s done do much for us in player personnel development.

It isn’t just Ovi who ought to be showcased in Hershey. Bruce Boudreau should be behind the bench again in Giant Center for an NHL exhibition game, or leading a camp session on the ice sheet in historic Hersheypark Arena.

George McPhee told me straight out a couple of seasons ago that, notwithstanding that other NHL clubs pursue them, he doesn’t like parent-affiliate exhibition games. Thinks the youngsters will try and show up the stars with some rough stuff, trying to make a statement with parent management watching. I imagine there’s validity in there somewhere, and of course a parent-affiliate exhibition game is his prerogative, but imagine the fun of such a game in old HPA, perhaps ticketing just Bears’ and Caps’ season ticket holders. The greatest hockey player in the world (prior to this season) ought to skate at least once in one of hockey’s all-time greatest barns.

Washington I think needs greater tangible integration with such a historic hockey town. Let’s try and change our culture a bit by better associating ourselves with one of the all-time best hockey cultures.

• Planes, trains, buses, and automobiles. The American League is a bus league, but not all that long ago, busing it wasn’t all that uncommon in the NHL.

Back when they were in the great old Patrick division, the Capitals never had 300 miles to travel to meet a division rival, and consequently, they logged a decent bit of time on buses. Today in the Southeast, the Caps have no such luxury, so they’re up in the air a ton. But buses are a touchstone to a pro hockey player’s development roots — at least for North American pro hockey players. I don’t think it would be such a bad idea to incorporate a wee bit more everyman travel to the Capitals’ comings and goings — remind them of their roots. Today, the Caps see buses pretty much only from the ride from the airport to the hotel, and from the hotel to the rink. I think this Capitals’ club should bus up to Philly, New York, New Jersey, and Long Island, harkening back a bit to the good old Patrick division days. Schedules permitting, Alan May and Craig Laughlin ought to be on a good many of those rides, and other Capitals’ alums, and they ought to share their history of the rides they took to lace ‘em against the dynastic Islanders, the nasty Flyers, etc.

And have you seen the caliber of bus pro sports teams utilize today? It’s not exactly roughing it. The Caps would still fly for 75 or 80 percent of their road travel in this scheme.

• TV timeout? Nah. But TV pitchman dough out to have a charitable kickback.

If you’re like me you’re having a tougher time watching Bruce Boudreau making bird calls, or elderly white man dancing, during his pitches for Mercedes Benz these days, relative to say last fall. It’s misplaced concern, though, I think suggesting that the Caps lose focus spending hours before television commercials cutting spots. All of this work is pretty much done in the offseason. Moreover, athletes and coaches have every right to earn supplementary income, to commercialize on their respective individual brand. It’s part of what makes America distinctive and insufferable.

However, management could approach the participants and ask if they’d be willing to direct a fraction of their television-derived income toward local charity. Some of them already do. But it’s at times like now when it’d be less galling to see the TV antics if we knew, for instance, that the Friends of Fort Dupont Foundation was benefiting from the mayhem.

It has to be acknowledged: the Capitals are exceptionally well immersed in their community, and their charitable commitments and impulses are exemplary. But you can always do more. Incidentally, when I participated in a bloggers’ roundtable discussion last weekend with my friends from Russian Machine Never Breaks and Capitals Outsider, organized by the Capitals’ Fan Club, donations in our names were made by the Fan Club to Fort Dupont. I really liked that.

This last principle for a reformed Capitals Culture is purely symbolic, but I’m a big believer in the power and effect of symbolism.

• The raised stick salute.

The toughest moments fans endure are those seconds that follow the season-ending horn, especially when it sounds on home ice. We endured that last April. But in that agonizing moment we also saw something special: Alexander Ovechkin, our captain, raise his stick high in the air in a salute to the Red Army. And the Red Army in turn warmly acknowledged its hero. I thought it was a special moment. And this morning, suffering as all you are, I worry that unintentionally the Capitals this season have frayed a bit of their special connection with so special a fanbase.

The Capitals like every other hockey team bounce off their bench at game’s end and embrace their netminder. But I think after every home game, before exiting the ice, win, lose, or revolt us with sub-par effort, every Capitals player ought to offer a raised stick salute to the foundation that is Washington the hockey town. No other team does it. What’s been built here the past 5 years has been so special. It ought to be acknowledged.

[If you missed Part I, check it out here.]

As currently comprised — and just as importantly, as currently coddled by management — the present band of Caps may well qualify for the postseason this spring, but most assuredly they will not win the Stanley Cup. This morning, it’s difficult to fathom this club scoring enough goals to best any of the surrounding seeds in the Eastern conference postseason’s opening round, let alone win four of them.

And so in all likelihood the Caps will have fresh cause to take more tough talk to the backs of training camp t-shirts again.

This past weekend a reporter I greatly respect, reflecting on the Caps’ pulse-less showings against both San Jose and L.A. at Verizon Center last week, post-game press conference whispered to me that were the Caps situated out West they would almost certainly be outside of the top eight in that conference — outside the playoffs and looking in. A cursory glance at the standings seems to bolster that claim: five of the six worst teams in the league reside in the East. In other words, the Caps’ 68 points this morning would have been a decent bit tougher to come by out West. Last week’s 120 minutes of thoroughly underwhelming hockey against two mediocre Western clubs certainly suggests so.

Saturday’s rare hockey matinee aided the formation of a large contingent of local hockey media for late-afternoon congregating at a D.C. bar, after the Caps’ latest mess-making on the ice, and the sentiments expressed then over pilsners in pint glasses were equally and universally pessimistic about the state of this club. It’s a mess, you could have summarized the bar chatter themes during our wound-licking sippings.

At one point I asked my colleagues in new and traditional media what they imagined was the ceiling of achievement for the Caps out on their five-game roadtrip that begins tonight in Phoenix. Consensus: 2-2-1. That’s the ceiling achievement, the best-case scenario, they said without a dissenting voice. A solid plurality at our table thought 1-3-1 more likely. Next I asked what they imagined would be the state of the club were it to return to D.C. without a single win in a week’s time. A handful of reporters thought that quite possible. This offense-starved club will in all likelihood have to find a way to get a few pucks past Ilya Bryzgalov tonight, best a solid Anaheim club, win for the first time in San Jose since 1993, then confront Ryan Miller and the Sabres and a very revenge-minded Penguins’ club. I got mostly blank expressions at that query.

With any sort of objectivity applied you’d have to cast the Caps as solid underdogs in four of the five games. And as badly as the Pens are beat up, they did beat LA last Thursday night, right before the Kings came to D.C. Moreover, Caps-Pens is hockey’s ultimate rivalry; throw records and recent trends out for it, and just expect the Pens to give a by then road-weary Caps’ club an alley fight. Let’s say it’s seven losses in a row in a week’s time. That’d be an eight-game losing streak in December and a seven-game slide in February on Bruce Boudreau’s ledger this season. Hunky-dory with that?

Boudreau isn’t much known for cracking the proverbial whip; he’s more of a proverbial player’s coach. Last Thursday he ordered a bag-skate of his Caps, to try and shake them out of their lethargy. The team responded with one of its worst games of the season at home Saturday. I see real danger signs in that.

One of my favorites in all of local hockey media, Ed Frankovic, an endearing straight-shooter of truth-talk at every point in a season, is also gravely troubled by the status quo. The Caps, Ed wrote this past weekend, “seem to have more questions than answers” at this point in the season, and are “a team that looks like it will be a one series and done squad in the postseason unless changes are made.”

Frankovic, whose tweets on any given NHL game’s officiating are jewels of caustic candor, is flag-bearer on a crusade of Capitals’ accountability these days. Of Jeff Schultz’s pylon play on Saturday Frankovic observed, “Sarge was -3 in 14:35 [of ice time] and was on the ice for the first three LA goals. He played only two shifts after . . . He was downright awful and slow, and on that third Kings’ goal I think an orange road cone could have played better defense.”

And more Frankovic: “The direction this team is going in right now leads to early tee times.”

For some while now the Capitals have been playing entitlement hockey. That’s their culture. Probably this dates back to last April’s postseason game 5. The Capitals got a scare from Montreal in that series’ first two games here — they were down 4-1 in period three after losing game 1 before securing the split. They flew up to Montreal perhaps somewhat scared. They took care of business on the road in a tough environment and figured the Habs would acquiesce the rest of the way. Only a corrupt and ill-formed hockey culture could harbor such thinking. For God’s sake, they were pitted against hockey’s proudest, most storied franchise.

The Capitals don’t just presume that an evening’s two points are theirs to lose, they don’t just execute a perimeter attack, they skate out on the perimeter awaiting pucks to come their way, with wings and centers way wide and up ice, requisite cohesion an afterthought. In years past, when they were still regular-season hungry, they would attack opposition zones with speed and cohesion, cycling pucks and engineering multiple scoring chances on many an individual rush. This season, it’s most often one-and-done in terms of shots registering on opposing goalies, and more often than that they don’t even register a weak shot on net from their attack. No psyche-breaking puck possession, no waves of quality scoring chances being engineered, no sniping from all angles of the attack. The Capitals skate with an entitlement ethos, for this is the culture management has cultivated.

The Caps once upon a time had a swagger that was merited; today they’ve a swagger premised on hubris.

Back in early January, before things got bleak again, I was on WTOP radio’s ‘Saturday Night Caps,’ and I issued a warning to my fellow pucksheads in the studio that night. It was back then that “Flip-switching” chatter was emerging as an in vogue way of explaining how things had so suddenly gone so sour.

“What exactly has this organization achieved — in its entire existence — to merit skating an entire regular season with an On-Off button,” I blurted out indignantly.

(The answer: Nothing. Ever.)

These Capitals are young, wealthy, happy and well-partied — oh so well-partied — expert at t-shirt design and making amusing television commercials.

And management seems to like it that way.