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Which skater’s post-season performance was most disappointing to you? Positively surprising?

Swede 1 and Swede 2, respectively.

I agree with Swede 1, then Swede 2 for the questions.

Is anyone else uneasy/annoyed about all the videos and pics that Erskine tweeted last night? I mean, I dont expect them to not let out some anger and have some fun. But, for me, I was/am still upset about their poor showing in Round 2. Pictures of them getting drunk at 2am just contribute to the their “undisciplined” image.

Most disappointing? Backstrom and Hendricks.

Most surprised? Johansson and Erksine.

If BB is going to stay, which players will likely not return next year due to contract reasons, and which ones will be trade bait come the trade deadline? What’s out there for free agents?

The most disappointing player this time around was Semin, and the money he’s getting paid makes magnifies that disappointment. I’d love to see him traded for a few role players.

Used to be the Caps couldn’t get it done because they “weren’t scoring enough to keep up with the NHL’s elite teams”. So they went out and scored a ton of goals…

…but then they couldn’t get it done because they “neglected their defense and couldn’t kill penalties”…

…so they went and tightened up the defense, fixed the penalty kill, added the grit and toughness that so many were clamoring for and started winning the close games…

…and, for a while, it seemed like it might actually work! Through all of the adversity of an eight-game losing streak; to a new commitment to team defense; to vanquishing a hated foe under the white-hot spotlight (and rain-soaked rink) of the Winter Classic; all the way to peaking at the right time and ending the regular season once again atop the Eastern Conference.

It was, in many respects—not all of them statistical—the best, most complete season of Washington Capitals hockey in recent memory. Indeed, when the Caps came back from a 3-0 deficit to win Game 4 against the Rangers in double-overtime, it seemed a huge monkey was finally off the club’s collective back. Then, when the Caps subsequently applied the coupe de gráce to dispatch the Blueshirts in Game 5…Well, they even had some of the most obnoxious naysayers believing that this might finally be The Year.

The Caps did so many things right—not least of which was defeating a first-round adversary in fewer than seven games, leaving the team relatively rested and able to heal prior to facing the next enemy.

…and then the Caps got swept by a team they had basically owned, all but twice throughout the regular season.

Suddenly—inexplicably—they looked like boys playing against men. Every Tampa pass ended seemed to end up on the tape of a Tampa stick—as did seemingly every other Caps pass as well. Where the Caps had to work, grind, crash the net and execute fundamentals for every goal they scored, Tampa’s scoring seemed to come from one bad turnover/lucky bounce/double-/triple-deflection after another. Everything Tampa tried seemed to work magically. Nothing the Caps tried seemed to work at all.

It was like the Bad Old Days against the Penguins, when Super Mario and his Buy-A-Vowel Line always, always, always found a way to beat our Caps.

Out-coached by Verizon-Face? I’m not so sure. Given Guy Boucher’s apparent inability to display any passion or emotion, I’m not entirely certain he is really even a human being. C’mon, the guy never played in the NHL and brings what? college hockey coaching experience? Maybe he’s actually just a remote-controlled robot used for the application of Steve Yzerman’s Red Wing Magic—after all, they say that winning does beget winning.

Whatever. The Caps didn’t deserve this. We, their fans, didn’t deserve this either. I, being an actual human being myself, can’t rationally justify throwing any member of this organization under the bus at this point. But what to do now? There aren’t any easy answers, folks!

Blow up the team? Uh-uh. Been there.
Fire the coach? Nope. Done that.
Get rid of the GM? Sorry, tried that too.

The hard, unfortunate, indisputable fact is this: The persistent, annoying, wriggling, squirming, heartbreaking escape of Stanley Cup glory from the grasp of the Washington Capitals for three and a half decades cannot—repeat, cannot be attributed to any single individual or group within the current organization. Any attempt to do so would be a cop-out at best; irrational and counter-productive at worst.

Despite herculean efforts to the contrary, this franchise seems to find itself unwittingly setting a new and different precedent for postseason futility—not only within the NHL but across all major professional sports—every single year. You can’t script this, you can’t plan this, you can’t possibly make this $#1+ up (even the Bad News Bears eventually won a title). It stinks, and as much as we all want to blame someone—anyone—for our misery, we really can’t.

"Bad luck," you say? I’m sorry, but there aren’t enough horoscope-charts-of-doom or venomous reptiles in the entire history of this planet for a team to be as star-crossed and snake-bit as this one seems to be.

Has failure become institutionalized to where it permeates the very brick and mortar that constitute the Phone Booth—to the point where it is beyond the ability of any man or group of men to overcome? Don’t think so: these playoff outcomes were much the same back when the team called Landover home.

The only conclusion I can come to is that the Hockey Gods for some reason harbor an enduring hatred of the Washington Capitals, and get their jollies from tormenting the team and its fans.

The questions then become: "Why?", followed by "What can be done about it?".

I don’t know, folks, but I think destroying every extant copy of the ASC "Cupholder" commercial might be a good start—such tremendous hubris just simply had to be a jinx.

After that, I don’t know…I just. don’t. know. All I can do is keep rooting for this team, and continue to hope, knowing that when they finally do "hoist", it’ll be that much sweeter. Two things are certain though: Martin St. Louis is no longer my favorite non-Caps player. And I will hate Shawn Bergenheim forever…

Soft physically and soft mentally. McPhee needs to trade Green badly—he’s improved some defensively, but he’s still soft and injury-prone and has been bad in the playoffs. He was TERRIBLE two years ago against Pittsburg, terrible running the the Power Play against Montreal last year, and did nothing positive in the playoffs this year—and then got hurt again. One of the most overrated players in the league. Trade him for the best player you can get.

I’d try to trade Semin too. Very skilled, a scorer—and to his credit he’s gotten a bit tougher and more durable the last couple of years. Who doesn’t like his offensive skills—but by and large he’s soft too, not strong on the puck, and just not, IMO, a playoff warrior. Will be hard to trade with his contract, but I’d try. Poti is also soft, and maybe Fehr too. So is Boudreau. It’s kind of surprising, but Backstrom was soft and invisible for about six or eight weeks. Were I the GM, i’d sack Boudreau and bring in a coach who can develop some mental toughness in this group—and trade Green and Semin. Green is a no brainer, if you ask me, but yea, I know, nobody has!.

If Ted Nolan isn’t mentioned at least twice tomorrow as a potential replacement, I’m going to burn this blog down.

Impressive – Chimera. Did anyone see him leading the team in game winning goals?
Unimpressive – Backstrom. It’s got to be, right? 2 points in 9 games for the team’s 1C? Sub-50 in the dot, third on the team in shots with 25, and (correct me if I’m wrong) no reported injury?

Tough to listen after the loss, but I think this week’s episodes was one of the best. Very good insight from Alan May.