From the outside looking in, I'm sure the Washington Capitals seem like a formidable playoff opponent. Their 92 points are good enough for third place overall in the Eastern Conference, giving them a 13-point lead over second place Carolina in the oft-maligned Southeast Division. As such, Washington is looking at no worse than a third-place finish in the conference and home ice in the first round of the playoffs.
Their young and fast lineup has scored 228 goals this season, fourth place overall in the NHL. Outside of the San Jose Sharks, no team has won more games at home than the Capitals with 26, as the home crowd at the Verizon Center has developed into one of the more boisterous -- and creatively nasty -- in the entire NHL.
So why, after watching this team all season long and seeing how deadly they can be do I still feel just a little uncomfortable with a little less than a month to go in the regular season? Well, Saturday night's 5-4 shootout win over Carolina provided more than a few examples of why I believe this team still has some work to do before the start of the playoffs.
Just a week ago, in the aftermath of what would turn out to be the end of a four-game losing streak -- all at home -- it was easy to see that despite a loss in the shootout to the Pittsburgh Penguins and Sidney Crosby that the team had already hit bottom and was putting its game back together. Subsequent wins on the road over Nashville (2-1 in overtime) and Philadelphia (2-1 in regulation) seemed to bear that out, as the team tightened up its defensive coverage, and managed, for the most part, to stay out of the penalty box. When they didn't, the penalty kill was perfect, not allowing a goal across two games over six enemy opportunities.
But on Saturday night against a Carolina lineup that's be energized offensively by the return of winger Erik Cole to the top line, those lessons seemed to all go by the wayside. Sure, the penalty kill was perfect again -- never more perfect than in overtime when the Caps killed one of those deadly four-on-three opportunities -- but the play at even strength left more than a little to be desired, as Washington nearly blew leads of 3-1 and 4-2 before finally winning in the shootout.
That was never more in evidence than in the second period, when the team failed to convert on a 5-on-1 break. With everyone caught deep in the Carolina zone and offensive wunderkind Mike Green failing to cover, Carolina's Ray Whitney was sprung free going the other direction. Though he was stopped thanks to a spectacular save by Washington's Jose Theodore, Eric Staal collected the rebound and wristed the puck past a sprawling Theodore to cut the Washington lead to 3-2.
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In the end, everyone went home happy as Alex Ovechkin shut the door in the shootout, but as I was driving home from the arena, I couldn't help but shake the fact that the Caps had allowed Carolina to escape with a point on a night when they should have put the Hurricanes away far earlier in the evening. Then again, as the team has shown on more than one night over the course of the regular season, this is a team that can often not play its best hockey yet still find a way to win.
It's clear that formula is good enough from October to March, but will it be enough in April, May and beyond? After watching this team all season, I've come to a number of conclusions. When the top line is clicking in conjunction with Green on the blue line, the Caps are a wonder to watch. Ovechkin and Alexander Semin are two of the deadliest wingers in the game, and Nicklas Backstrom in less than two seasons has developed into a patient and skilled pivot who is also on the verge of being mentioned among the NHL's elite talents.
Then again, I also know this: that for all their offensive potential, this team can lose focus very easily, leading to defensive breakdowns that leave their goalie horribly exposed. They're vulnerable physically in front of their own net, where a player like Cole -- or dare I say Johan Franzen or Tomas Holmstrom -- can cause all sorts of trouble. And when this team gets thrown back on their heels, they have a tendency to commit infraction after infraction, something that can leave their penalty killers exhausted and under siege.
I'm sure if I took as hard a look at every other team in playoff position, I could come up with a similar bill of particulars. So am I missing the forest for the trees, failing to realize that Washington is in possession of an embarrassment of riches that most other franchises would be glad to claim as their own? Perhaps. Then again, I'm not thinking of regular season success anymore, I'm thinking of the Stanley Cup. And like it or not, the ultimate answer to my questions can only be determined in April, May and June, not March.
Every Monday morning The Ice Sheet will take a close look at everything that's happened in the NHL since Friday night at 5:00 PM -- or if need be, anything else the author wants to bleat about. To read them all, click here.
The Ice Sheet: A Disquieting Caps Win originally appeared on NHL FanHouse on Mon, 16 Mar 2009 10:00:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds.