A devoted worshiper at the Church of Old Time Hockey, and imbued with resounding cynicism, I couldn’t help but think: We in D.C. have become so saturated with soft, perimeter play by our hockey players — most especially in spring — that it shouldn’t be surprising that some observers here find Callahan’s impression of William Wallace . . . so alien. One interpretation of the perpetual scratching of Jeff Schultz is that the Capitals’ new head coach thinks like I do.

An alternative interpretation of Callahan’s gallantry could go something like this:  That motherf*cker is damned tough to play against, and for the past couple of seasons, the talent-challenged Rangers have well reflected their captain’s grit and determination, by decree of their head coach, and given more talented clubs a real run for their money (especially in spring). Ryan Callahan is one hell of a captain. He will be one hell of an American Olympian captain as well.

Today, that talent gap with the rest of the East for New York has been closed quite a bit, and for me it’s no coincidence that playing inspired, finish-your-checks hockey the Rangers reside at the very top of the conference. Soon, they’ll get their best defenseman in the lineup (Marc Staal), for the first time this season, making them even tougher to play against. The Rangers are built the way serious contenders are — from the net out, big and brawny, with an unmistakable net-clearing ethos in front of the net, and mobile and skilled on the blueline. Served the Bruins rather well last spring.

Perhaps before we criticize another team’s captain and his teammates for excessive sacrifice and courage we ought to see to it that ours is within driving distance of the Viking, Alberta, meter of toughness and tenacity.

The Washington Capitals of the past five years haven’t exactly been known for the selfless sacrifice of their bodies for the betterment of the team, for finishing their checks. In fact, especially in spring, they have fairly earned the reputation of being a team that’s easy to play against, one that comparative lunch pale squads want to draw in the postseason. To state the obvious: there is today no Capitals player quite like Ryan Callahan, and there hasn’t been for some years. Once upon a time, though, there was. The good news is that the former Capitals’ captain is now behind the team’s bench. There, he’s attempting to change a country club culture.

He needs time — cultures, of course, aren’t changed in a week or a month.

Almost certainly, he also needs more Patrick division bodies. More on that in a moment.

Speaking of instructional moments, HBO’s ’24/7′ this month is again affording more stark relief for Capitals fans insofar as how the rugged East comports itself. Watching the intermission exhortations of John Tortorella and Peter Laviolette is not far removed from listening to the warrior words of William Wallace. At their conclusion I find myself clutching my abdomen on my couch to make sure no Rangers or Flyers stick blades make their way through the TV screen at me, and necessarily I’m reminded of the contrast Dan Bylsma brought with our guy on last year’s series (“Hit Green.”).

George McPhee hired Dale Hunter because he believed him to be the best possible coach for the Capitals at the present moment, and part of that formulation perhaps included his conviction that Hunter could be the architect for revamping both the style and ethos of the club. My guess is that Coach Hunter is taking inventory of the roster he has and will report rugged shortcomings to the GM in short order.

The arrival of 2012 really brings a demarcation moment for the Washington Capitals. To posit any plausible playoff success next spring the Caps necessarily will have to get past the pesky and gutsy and supremely sacrificing Rags, the larger and skilled Flyers and Bruins. I’m not sure that as comprised the Capitals would be favored in any series. But 2012 also brings Washington’s return to the reconstituted Patrick division. The Capitals of the past five years have been assembled to compete quite well in the softer Southeast. In the next calendar year the hockey for the guys in  red necessarily gets rougher and tougher.

Looking ahead to 2012 and beyond, there is cause for concern. When you inventory the Capitals’ prospects holdings at Hockeysfuture, with an eye toward who among just the top 15 qualifies as a North American forward prospect tipping the scales at at least 6 ’0, 180 pounds (hardly power forward in stature), the calculation is stunning: zero. Then for fun take a look at the size of the prospect holdings for the Rags, Flyers, Pens, and Devils — and just in their top 10. The Rangers are awaiting on reinforcements like Chris Kreider (6 ’2, 200), J.T. Miller (6 ’1, 198), and defenseman Dylan McIlraith (6 ’4, 215, nicknamed the Undertaker). Philly, ravaged by injury this season, has already received notable contributions from young, big-bodied North Americans like Brayden Schenn and Sean Couturier. The Pens have Eric Tangradi (6 ’4, 232), Dustin Jeffrey (6 ’1, 205), Robert Bortuzzo (6 ’3, 196), and Brian Strait (6 ’0, 200) in the pipeline. From the development perspective, we’re coming to the Patrick rechristening party next season with jockeys.

I still suggest that in hindsight it was right to draft the likes of Brian Sutherby, Nolan Yonkman, and Joe Finley. Things didn’t work out with them; injuries eviscerated their respective development. But the Capitals obviously have gotten away from drafting size and guile and grit, and beginning in 2012, they need it badly. Funny: The ‘New-look’ NHL at the top of the East these days rather resembles the old, in stature. The Capitals hold two first-round picks and potentially Colorado’s second-rounder next June. Those picks need to resemble NFL linebackers or safeties in size, and here’s hoping Dale Hunter — uniquely qualified to assess the attributes of top junior talent — is at the draft table for their selection, and subsequently their development.

There’s standup, and then there’s what Gabby offered the Washington Post’s Tarik El Bashir Wednesday morning — actually agreeing with Capitals management that it was time for a change behind the bench. He actually told General Manager George McPhee, “You’re doing what you have to do.” A company man in this sport if there ever was one. He’d just been terminated from his dream job, and still his thoughts were with what was best for the team.

On November 17 the Caps were in Winnipeg, and after they’d fallen behind 4-1 after 40 minutes, most listlessly, I sensed, really for the very first time, that we were watching the onset of destruction. The very next morning I took to Twitter and made explicit my concern: “The biggest indictment of this team was the final frame. Teams with pride and character make it 4-2 or 4-3, to build on for the next outing.”

I reference this moment because when Tarik yesterday morning asked Boudreau when he sensed that things might be slipping from his control the coach pointed to November 17 in Winnipeg.

Way back in January I published a highly unflattering, highly critical two-part read on the struggling, soft and identity-challenged Caps, calling them out for operating in a what I regarded as a “country club” atmosphere of luxury, comfort and precious little accountability that, from where I blogged, undermined an ethos of night-in, night-out hunger and drive — most particularly relative to the lunch pale Capitals rosters of 15-plus years ago. You know, the types of teams Dale Hunter played on here. And last season I also pulled no punches with respect to commenting on the increasing frequency with which Washington hockey fans were taking to social media to share photos and accounts of nightclub encounters with members of the team at troubling hours, and with troubling frequency. And so it was most interesting for me to take in the NHL Network’s coverage of Monday’s drama, Monday night, and hear Billy Jaffe suggest that under Dale Hunter there could be no serious commitment to winning when it mattered without the Caps mending their “clubbing” ways, while Joe Beninati not long later alluded to a “country club atmosphere” taking hold in recent years. The Washington Post’s Tom Boswell authored what I thought was the most severe indictment of the Boudreau era, but taking pains, to his credit, to also assign blame to upper management.

“During the offseason two ex-Capitals went public about the country club atmosphere that undermined discipline on the team. Once you’ve tolerated a star system for years, how can the same coach possibly reverse the trend?”

About a week ago, right as I began sensing that things were truly boiling over, I sent email to some reporters here suggesting that Jason Arnott would be in a unique position to comment on troubles that festered last season and perhaps metastasized this. Arnott had been afforded an inside look at the team last spring and then departed town — having arrived here with great fanfare at the trade deadline as a coveted leadership asset — with nary a word said about it, and having landed quite well in St. Louis this season. To his credit again, Tarik button-holed Arnott out at Kettler on Monday. You might say that in D.C. Arnott saw a loose ship being captained.

“It’s very hard. When you let guys do what they please, what they want [emphasis OFB's], then you come in and get hard on them, it’s pretty tough.”

But by no means should Bruce Boudreau alone be scapegoated for the country club atmosphere — and Boswell emphasizes this in his column. Boudreau wasn’t in D.C. when the Caps drafted Ovechkin and subsequently devised elaborate and clever and highly successive marketing campaigns for him his first two seasons. The coddling and deification of the extraordinary talent began from day one. With Alexander Ovechkin the Capitals, for the first time in their history, had an opportunity to create their Elvis (thin and fat), and they did.

There were no larger-than-life figures on that ’98 Capitals club, captained by the legend, that made it to the Stanley Cup finals, were there? Just food for thought.

So you know that my concerns with the Caps date back deep into last season and you should know too that I opened this season with a renewal of them — I titled my season preview ‘Questions for a Hockey Club at a Crossroads.’ In it I identified Bruce Boudreau as a figure who had to demonstrate marked improvement at his job: “Much as the Capitals’ core roster has experienced growing pains in its path toward legitimate contention, so too has Head Coach Bruce Boudreau. Put bluntly: he’s underwhelmed a lot of observers with his handling of the Capitals’ recent postseasons, and in fact in the judgment of many been out-coached by less experienced bench bosses of lower-seeded clubs.”

I didn’t write this sentiment for that preview file, but I did suggest to a few of my blogger chums here that it was not at all beyond the realm of possibility that the Caps could can Boudreau at about the 25-game mark. I specifically wondered how McPhee would react if, for instance, the Caps were behind Tampa Bay in the Southeast division then. Like I think everyone else, I had no idea we’d see what we have this season from the Panthers. Anyway, my hypothesis occasioned a torrent of email protest back from my chums: “No way; he’s years left on his deal; Ted’s too cheap.” (They really wrote me that.) The Moral: When a team goes bad any GM who values his job will pull the trigger, no matter (within reason) the financial fallout.

* * * * *

I’m closing this file with a very personal feel-good story. Last night the Buffalo Sabres recalled Joe Finley. In the summer of 2010 Fins kept a diary during Capitals’ Development Camp for OFB. It was a really fun project, and I enjoyed most that Big Joe had a lot of fun with it. Meeting him for that project remains one of the great rewards I’ve derived from this blogging gig. Big Joe is a true gentle giant, truly one of the friendliest people I’ve met in the sport.

During his development time with the Caps Fins suffered injury after injury, and finally, at the end of last season, the team did what most teams do after a first-round pick fails to show some durable glimmer that all of that development investment was paying off: they cut ties with him.

Buffalo invited Fins to training camp this fall, and he showed well enough to earn an AHL contract with the Sabres’ American League affiliate in Rochester. With the Amerks Fins has been what the Buffalo News this week termed “a revelation.” Through 18 games this season Big Joe has seriously thrown his weight around (57 PIMs), and played so strongly that he’s earned a shut-down designation with the top pairing on the Rochester blueline. His +10 is best on the team. It’s a terrific story, capped by his earning this week a three-year, two-way contract with the Sabres and last night’s callup. I sent him a congratulatory note the other day, in which I somewhat jokingly expressed remorse that the Caps hadn’t held on to him one year longer, given the arrival of the new sheriff in town. He agreed.

For nearly two years now I’ve had a recurring wonder related to righting the frustrating and infuriating underachievement by the Washington Capitals of this era: What would happen if this band of multi-millionaires suddenly had to share a room with a legend, an authentic legend, who wore the team crest; a true warrior whose number resides in the rafters of Verizon Center, whose honor mural conspicuously adorns one end of the team’s training facility; the scorer of what most Caps’ fans regard as the biggest goal in team history, a luminary who once lifted the Prince of Wales trophy high over his head? That for me was what was biggest about Monday’s stop-the-presses news — we’re about to watch my dream scenario play out.

It’s a dream scenario that hardly belongs to me alone. By noon Monday I’d received a text from a chum in Ashburn, Va., who reported seeing not one but two Dale Hunter Capitals sweaters adorning shoppers in his neighborhood grocery store. We had unseasonably excellent weather Monday for sweater exhibition, but still I found this anecdote, taking place in a single enclave of our region, remarkable. We awoke Monday with the post-holiday dread of return to our life of labor, only to spit out our first sip of coffee as the wire (The wire? I meant to type Twitter) broke word of the Legend’s return.

Bondra is a legend, Kolzig is a legend, but this is the Legend of Washington hockey. Captain Legend. Coming home. To help. When we need it most.

Remarkable.

Millionaires, all too accustomed to having their hockey hearts questioned, on Monday morning met the biggest hockey heart HockeyWashington has ever known. Christmas, indeed.

The Dale Hunter Era begins in Washington this week as an experiment, and I say that not with any overriding sense of doubt attached to the announcement but rather out of acknowledgment that nothing remotely like this has ever been tried here before. We’ve never had one of our own, an oh so distinguished alum, return home to help out in a leadership crisis. The Caps are Cup-less perhaps partially because theirs has been a bench populated, for nearly 40 years, by merely good and decent bench bosses, mostly very mediocre ones, and one or two less than mediocre men. Washington has not been a cradle of great hockey coaching. Far from it. Pittsburgh has enjoyed Badger Bob Johnson, Scotty Bowman, and now Dan Bylsma. We’ve had the Murray brothers, Shoeney and Wils and Gabby and Glen. . . and Butch Cassidy.

We won’t know for years where Dale Hunter falls in the litany, but at this moment this hire seems quite more than special, quite more than novel. To no small extent it seems to represent a vindication of Washington’s hockey legacy, modest though that be. It also seems like a terrific tonic for these troubled times; these Washington Capitals seriously need boots meeting their behinds, and the Dale Hunter kick ought to occasion some giddyup alright.

Monday at Kettler seemed especially about the Legend offering testimonials to his love affair for his Caps. “This has been my team — I shouldn’t say my team, it’s Ted’s team — but it feels like my team because I played here so long and had good memories here,” the Legend said.

‘Have you been able to follow much the team since you’ve been gone,’ a reporter asked the Legend. Only in the sense of taping and watching every Capitals game played since he left. Long bus rides in major juniors, you know; good way to kill all those hours, watching every game for the team you captained and left . . . the decade before last. “I’ve been cheering for the Caps since I left here,” Captain Legend admitted.

‘Were you a tough sell?’ another scribe wondered. Well before this moment word was in wide circulation among the Kettler hockey press that Huntsy had turned down overtures from other NHL organizations, out of fidelity to ours.

photo by OFB

“It would take the Washington Capitals to get me to stop doing what I was doing [in London],” the Legend said.

“This is the only [NHL] team he’s ever wanted to coach,” George McPhee told the mass of media enveloping him.

It didn’t come up during any of the press conferences Monday, but it’s part of the Hunter lore, and I remember it as much as any play in his remarkable career: Dale Hunter never hired an agent during his 19-year career, or at least certainly not while in Washington. Instead, once a year, at the end of each hockey season, he sat down with Mr. Pollin, briefly discussed his value to the club, quickly reached an accord, and made a new pact . . . on a handshake.

* * * * *

The St. Louis Blues are in the midst of their own honeymoon with new leadership. They’re hot under Hitch: 7-1-2 since he took over three weeks ago. I thought it remarkable that the Blues took to Kettler ice opposite the Capitals right as Dale Hunter was taking his first paces in his coaches warmup. Talk about a team seemingly walking into a Chinatown buzzsaw this week. A couple of Blues players even poked their heads in the other side of the rink to behold the spectacle of the Legend’s return.

* * * * *

Monday also delivered a brutal bittersweetness the likes of which I doubt I’ll ever encounter again. Bruce Boudreau’s dismissal necessarily delivered a deep bruise to that great hockey community just to our north. NHL rookie John Walton believes he’s in the big leagues today because of Bruce Boudreau. So you imagine his emotions on Monday. JW got to share about 10 weeks of the Dream with his advocate-friend, before having to say goodbye. On Monday he brought important perspective to the Boudreau legacy in D.C.:

“I learned of Bruce’s dismissal this morning around 8:00 a.m. As I drove into Arlington, I listened to the coverage of the coaching change on WTOP when a sad irony hit me. On Washington’s most listened to radio station this morning, the coverage of the coaching change was wall-to-wall. News at the top of the hour. Fan reaction on the talk back line. Sports at :15 and :45 was almost all Capitals. Joe Beninati on in the 9:00 a.m. hour . . . This happened on a Monday during football season. The Redskins won a football game yesterday, and there was almost no mention of it today. Has that ever happened around here?”

No, it hasn’t. Bruce Boudreau helped build this hockey town. Dale Hunter is elated to be here because he remembers well Washington’s ordinary status in this league of 15 years ago, and how extraordinary our standing is today. He’d be the first to acknowledge Gabby’s role in getting us there.

“The players will probably say [Hunter] is a players coach because they’d be too afraid not to say that.”
- Capitals’ General Manager George McPhee

Camp convened with perhaps only one roster spot genuinely open and available among the top nine forward spots (second line center) (or is it first?). It was pursued by a small assembly of center ice men who came to be known as ‘The Bubble Boys.’  But even with this storyline the drama didn’t build greatly, as Mathieu Perreault emerged early and decisively as the top performer. He led the Caps in scoring during the preseason. And after Sunday night’s camp-concluding exhibition game against Chicago, Bruce Boudreau said of no. 85, “I think our best player all of camp was Perreault. I think he played with energy every night.” On the radio last night, Mike Vogel was similarly impressed: “He’s been consistently good throughout the preseason regardless of which line he’s been on.”

The forward ranks offered this camp its exclusive intrigue, and that was muted drama. On the blueline, the top six were set before camp started, and likewise, the Capitals’ net was set before training camp’s first conditioning whistle blew.

This drama-free state of affairs was by design. In the middle of the offseason the GM overhauled his roster heavily for size and grit and experience up front on the wings, some character and a former captain’s experience and leadership to center the fourth line, and then the ultimate offseason coup — Tomas Vokoun. Offseason changer, that.  Training camp quickly became more a dress rehearsal than an audition.

Camp’s top storylines:

• As important as McPhee’s offseason roster moves were, it was what the GM did at his office keyboard while the wounds of another short postseason were still raw that likely set in motion the business-like tenor of this training camp. At camp’s dawning the Washington Post reported that early in the offseason that Capitals’ players were issued a written warning about changed expectations for fitness for duty come September:

” . . . players received letters early this summer warning them to expect an Albert Haynesworth-like timed fitness test with controlled recovery intervals at the start of camp.’

That was George McPhee the enforcer enforcing a culture change for his hockey club. Overdue, in my opinion. May it be the last time Albert Haynesworth’s name is evoked in connection with the Capitals.

• More on the conditioning/work ethic/maturation front: Ben Raby, writing for the Toronto Star, got captain Ovechkin to concede that his 2010-11 showing wasn’t up to par on a number of fronts. He approached last season looking past its regular season toward the postseason, and sacrificed his conditioning in the process. His owner took note:

“He tried something different,” Caps owner Ted Leonsis said. “He wanted to work his way into shape so that he would peak during the playoffs.”

Indeed, Ovechkin admitted that all year he “just wanted to be ready for the playoffs.

“I was starting, like, in the middle (of the season) to be in shape.”

• Vitally important testimony attesting to the Capitals fall-time fitness arrived at the dawn of training camp, from team strength and conditioning coach Mark Nemish.  “I already know [Ovi's] in shape; I can tell. “We’ve worked several times on the ice and, without a doubt, he’s in the best shape I’ve ever seen him.”

• The kiss or death . . . or well considered wooing?: The Hockey News tabbed the Caps as 2012 Stanley Cup champions.

• The GM sure likes his hockey club. At CapsCon, he told the assembled thousands that this year’s squad reminded him very much of the ’97-’98 club — the one that advanced to the Stanley Cup finals. “It’s going to be a hard team to play against. Maybe not as offensive, but more physical.” Superb coverage of CapsCon from the Examiner’s Michael Hoffman here.

• If the Caps hoped that Vokoun would inspire Michal Neuvirth it appears early on to have worked. Neuvy was especially strong this preseason. There may not be the 60-20 split in games between the two that a lot of folks thought about three weeks ago.

• McPhee also chimed in on realignment, all but stating that 2011-12 would be, mercifully, the final season for the Southeast division. What it’s looking like now: two 15-team conferences with 8- and 7-team divisions within. Apparently a popular plan would see the Capitals reunited with the New York clubs and the Flyers in a division. I say, why go halfway — get the best rivalry in all of hockey, and one of the best in all of sports, rekindled as well. Anyway, when it’s official, OFB I think will host a realignment party in town, where we’ll give away NASCAR posters and coupons for Waffle House. And certainly we’ll have a Gary Bettman pinata.

• Netgate.

• Camp standout: Dmitri Orlov. Still with the team partially because of John Erskine’s rehab, but also because he’s played with poise and impact that belie his years this preseason. Stock seriously on the rise.

• Camp standout, on the air: John Walton. If you haven’t given much thought to following Caps hockey on the radio in recent years, you should now.

• One of the biggest stirs in camp perhaps came with the team in Chicago for a game, and when red, white, and blue old timers returned to Kettler for the organization’s first-ever alumni game. Old timers Alan May and Kevin Kaminski drew blood from dropped gloves. I got a good chuckle from learning that Killer had earned the first-ever Alumni Game’s first-ever first star of the game designation.

• Don’t overlook this sidebar to the new season: the trading of Semyon Varlamov delivered to the Caps Colorado’s first-rounder next June. McPhee really likes the ’12 draft — it’s much stronger than this past June’s, he intimated at CapsCon. You might want to take a look at where Adam Proteau has the ‘Lanche finishing out West this season.

What might this season’s lines look like?

Ovi – Backstrom – Brouwer

Semin – MJ90/Perreault – Knuble

Chimera – Laich – Ward

Hendricks – Halpern – Beagle

Love those third and fourth lines.

Indeed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.”

Scoring First

How massive the pressure of scoring first tonight is for this organization. I told some friends right after Game 2 that if the Capitals could not pot the puck first in Game 3, the series would be over. It turns out they did score first, even if they didn’t, and it’s the only reason I am not sticking to my prediction — that and hope. These playoffs, the Caps have taken the first lead of the game twice, both times against the Rangers, and both times they won. Tampa Bay has relinquished the lead to the Caps twice (Game 1 and Game 3) in this series. But that volatility in scoring presents the Caps with the challenge of playing two different styles of games, one of catch up and one of disciplined defensive responsibility. I believe it is that very volatility that Tampa dealt with in the regular season and their series against the Penguins that made them comfortable playing in any situation.

There is no denying the Caps have dealt with the same pressures throughout this season and even prior, but I believe they are one-dimensional in the sense that they play either catch up — as they did in Game 4 against the Rangers and Game 2 this series — or team defense. They are the best team in the league when trailing. The inherent problem is that the Caps are a better team, as most are, when they score first and establish their strategy from the first puck-drop. Scoring a tying goal at the beginning of the second period as Knuble did last night, while huge for a team’s momentum, only gives the club 40 minutes to work its system. If the Caps can score first tonight, we should see their resiliency, but if Tampa can shake Washington out of the lead, we will know which club really deserves it.

Coaching

Pucksandbooks sent me a link this morning regarding Keith Jones and Mike Keenan’s reaction to Boudreau’s coaching ability. I watched CSN and didn’t catch their analysis. Last night, Boudreau asked his captain to serve the penalty for the Too Many Men call, which put the clubs four-on-four for well over a minute. The thrust of the Jones and Keenan critique was: How in the world could Gabby have the world’s best player confined to the sin bin for a minute-plus of 4-on-4 play? Additionally, what if Tampa had taken an additional penalty — think the Caps would have liked having Ovi out on the ice in that situation? Boudreau was badly outcoached last year against Montreal, despite going up 3-1 in the series, and he seems to be replicating his naivety of NHL playoff hockey. In fact, he’s making a rookie coach look like Scotty Bowman.

Last night, with Mike Green out, Boudreau elected to have John Carlson sit on the bench while Ovechkin attempted to skate through center ice on the breakout. If there’s been one composed player in the lineup skating the puck at center ice and dumping it deep, it has been Carlson. To leave him on the bench and go with five forwards (Brooks Laich at the other point) and Semin at wing, was in my opinion a grave error. Semin should have been on the bench. There is a reason why Boudreau has above a 70 percent win record in the regular season. There is also a reason why he is 17-19 in the NHL postseason.

Hendrinjection

This has plenty to do with Bruce Boudreau’s questionable coaching decisions, but I believe a dose of Matt Hendricks and possibly the first Caps fight of these playoffs can go a long way in Game 4. Katie Carrera of the Washington Post noted that Hendricks came off the ice early and was seen taping his sticks up, which is a positive sign, but just a sign. In our last post, I dissected the Caps errors and made particular note of the Caps’ inability to win pucks below the circles and behind the net. Hendricks does that for this team and is defensively reliable. Marco Sturm needs to be scratched for this game and Hendricks inserted.

Sturm has been a major on-ice disappointment  for the Caps since arriving, but he is a veteran and his past performances has earned him status. He’s been good for this team as a veteran member with leadership skills, but I don’t believe that he has contributed in any positive or lasting fashion on the playing surface. In fact, putting him on the fourth line is on par with Glen Hanlon’s decision to start Nicklas Backstrom on the Caps third and fourth lines back in 2007. Sturm should be playing at least third line minutes, but as Boudreau has seen his play dip, the coach assigned him fourth line duty for much of last night. Mistake. Hendricks will play the role of a fourth liner and Sturm will not – case closed.

If the Capitals can manage to score first, be composed on the ice and bench, and use Matt Hendricks in the corners and for some rough stuff, there is some hope for success tonight. Just ask Philadelphia or Chicago. Series turnarounds do happen no matter what the odds. Tampa’s hallmark may be the trap but they are also awfully inconsistent. Unless Boudreau & Co. can do to this series what they did in Game 4 against the Rangers, a new regime is in order by week’s end.

Sudden death overtime playoff hockey — truly there is nothing else quite like it in all of sports.

The New York Rangers Wednesday night, backstopped by a game-stealing performance from Henrik Lunqvist, skated just the type of game head coach John Tortorella likely hoped they would. They survived an opening-frame surge from the hosts, watched luck guide some Capitals’ shots into the iron behind Lundqvist, again successfully stymied Alexander Ovechkin by matching their minutes-gobbling Girardi-Staal defensive pair against Ovi (more than 65 minutes of ice between the Rags’ top pair defenders), and were poised to deliver a deflating defeat to a delicate Capitals’ psyche. They had the Caps just where they wanted ‘em. And 18,000 in red in the building knew it, too.

A first-frame of overtime appeared poised to head into a second. The puck was on the trustworthy blade of Marc Staal. He just had to lift a clearing pass up past 6-foot-5 Jason Arnott, stationed hard on the nearside boards at the blueline, defending against the hard-around. He didn’t.

Jason Arnott — he the veteran of 106 postseason games — grasped error and in an instant authored victory with it. He had a game-deciding moment in his glove there at the Rangers blueline. You could just tell, somehow, that Arnott would make a play — the play — in that moment. It’s who he quickly has become for this hockey club. Way up high above the proceedings I was part of a new media contingent seizing one another’s shirt sleeves for emphasis as Arnott corralled Staal’s suicide outlet and instantly recognized Semin’s sniper stationing. The big pivot quickly directed a centering pass to the unchecked Semin, some 20 feet in front of Lundqvist, and good Sasha turned and rifled a laser-blazer past the standout netminder.

Oh but ain’t it grand that Sasha’s signed for next season! 18,000 of the Red Army unanimously thought in their screams and hugs at that moment, looking down as the Russian winger became engulfed in the jubilant embrace of his teammates.

And ain’t it grand that Lou Lamoriello accepted that trade deadline day phone call from George McPhee — and that Arnott agreed to waive his no-trade clause to come to D.C.?

I’m naming my next dog Lou Lamoriello. Really: Where would this team be this postseason were it still competing with second line center by committee?

And what a difference a year makes. Almost a year to the day that the Montreal Canadiens came into Verizon Center as prohibitive underdogs for game 1 against the President’s Trophy winners, with a goalie named Halak standing on his head, forcing a tight game into overtime, and winning it thanks to Tomas Plekanec, the Caps and 18,000 clad in red Wednesday instead left Chinatown breathing an oh so elusive sigh of relief in spring.

We in Washington live to have our dreams not vanquished another day. More than perhaps we care to admit it, we needed that W last night. The Capitals may or may not be delicate of psyche this spring; they’ll certainly allege they’re not. We the spring-scarred on the other hand most assuredly are.

And through 53 minutes of action Wednesday, the Capitals gave the Verizon faithful every reason to suspect the onset of additional dread. They were scoreless, the Rags had a marker early in the final frame, and Lunqvist had the look of invincible.

So Bruce Boudreau went last resort — shifting Semin away from Arnott and placing him alongside Backstrom and Ovechkin. The Uber line struck on its first shift together. That it was a “dirty” goal was its innate beauty. Undone by a perimeter attack against the Habs last April, these revamped Caps got it done with the clock running down with their pretty boys going ugly.

Arnott and Semin were primary heroes last night, but add Michal Neuvirth — competing in his first-ever NHL postseason game — a poised Marcus Johansson, and most especially a no-rust-on-his-game Mike Green (26:30 of ice) to the list of do-gooders in this big game. Michal Neuvirth couldn’t have had a better introduction to the Stanley Cup playoffs than he did last night. He stopped 24 of 25 shots, many in key situations down the stretch. He fell on pucks and stopped play at all the right times. He looked very much like the right guy to get the call. He’s never, ever lost a playoff series in his professional hockey career.

It was a big game. The winners of game 1s in the Stanley Cup playoffs go on to win series nearly 70 percent of the time. That’s a telling stat, but trumping it last night in importance was the pervasive sense in this town that we just couldn’t watch another hot goalie for another underdog team lead his guys to a tone-setting upset at the start of a playoff’s opening round. Not in this postseason of referendum.

Saddle up, ye of springtime scars and grey-hair-from-overtime and just-below-the-surface doubts. Wednesday night strongly suggested that we’re in for another war on our nerves this April. Jason Arnott can’t shorten the journey of hard work and good luck required of a prosperous postseason, but it sure looks like he can lead it.