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(photo by Elsa)

If I’m being kind, the first 60 games of the Dale Hunter era appeared to be a work in progress for the Washington Capitals.

Some nights the players appeared to fully buy in to Hunter’s system and the results were typically enjoyable. Sure, the Caps were no longer the highest scoring team in hockey, but on the nights they were willing to sacrifice personal accolades for the good of the team, Washington was able to compete with anyone.

Of course, more than a few times during the transition things didn’t go quite as smoothly. There were definitely nights when players let off the gas or forwards failed to hustle back after coughing up the puck and that’s why the Capitals weren’t able to qualify for the postseason until the final week of the season.

That being said, if these first two playoff games are any indication of what these players are able to accomplish in this system when everyone in that locker room is on board, well, the Caps might not need to rush to drastic measures this offseason after all.

With a first-time coach and a rookie goalie in net playing against the defending Stanley Cup champions, the Capitals — who were terrible away from the Verizon Center for most of the season — have fared better than anyone could have reasonably expected through two contests.

On the road against a battle-tested opponent that thrives playing the punishing style of hockey that the run-and-gun Caps could rarely handle, Washington has had an answer for seemingly everything the Bruins have thrown at them.

Sure, that answer has largely been Braden Holtby, who has been sensational for the Capitals since taking over for injured goalies Tomas Vokoun and Michal Neuvirth. But he’s not the only player who has elevated his game with Washington’s season on the line.

There’s no reason to sugarcoat it — defenseman John Carlson was dreadful this season. After a wonderful rookie year in which he and partner Karl Alzner gave every indication they’d be holding down the blue line for the next decade or so in D.C., Carlson regressed more than anyone could have imagined.

Considering he played for Hunter in the minors, many people thought he’d be one of the players who made the easiest transition to the new system. But for whatever reason, that never happened and Captain America looked like a shell of his former self for much of the regular season.

And yet, as if a magical switch was flipped the minute the puck dropped for the opening round of the playoffs, Carlson has been as steady as any defenseman in this series. He’s been tough. He’s been physical. He’s been dependable.

In short, he’s been everything his team has needed him to be while the Washington offense has struggled to get going against Bruins goalie Tim Thomas.

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photo by Charles Krupa

Braden Holtby was spectacular in his NHL postseason debut as he single-handedly kept the game competitive while stopping 29 shots.

Unfortunately for the 22-year-old though, he plays for the Washington Capitals which means overtime in the playoffs can only end in disappointment and heartache.

Holtby was nearly flawless all night long. But the one that got away was the difference as the defending Stanley Cup champion Boston Bruins captured Game 1 of this first-round match-up by a score of 1-0.

As a franchise, the Capitals have participated in some of the longest playoff overtime games in NHL history. This was not one of them.

Never before had Washington played 60 minutes of playoff hockey without either team scoring a goal. Sadly, just 1:18 into the extra session, Bruins forward Chris Kelly unleashed a slapshot from the faceoff circle that Holtby misjudged and Boston escaped this tightly-contested affair with a victory.

“I don’t really know what happened on it,” Holtby said. “I kind of lost it a little bit. I really don’t know.”

While I firmly believe moral victories are for losers, there’s zero reason for Holtby to hang his head after this setback. Sure, he might have been seeing his first postseason action, but he was without question the team’s best player all night long.

His performance in the second period alone — when Boston outshot the Capitals 17-2 — was the only reason Washington was even able to force overtime in a game they were outhit, outworked and out-muscled for a majority of the game.

“I think he played a hell of a game,” said captain Alex Ovechkin said of his rookie netminder. “Most of the time he kept us in the game and I think he was nervous, but after the first shot you could see he was calm and he was on his roll.”

Even Tim Thomas, the Bruins goalie who has seemingly won every award and accolade possible, walked away impressed with what he saw from the opposing goalie in Game 1.

“I thought he played very well,” Thomas said. “I didn’t see a lot of holes tonight. He worked very hard. I’m hoping he expended a lot of energy and wore himself out a little bit, because I hope he doesn’t play that good every game. I thought he did a very good job.”

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(photo by Clyde Caplan)

The Washington Capitals haven’t even started their opening round series against the Boston Bruins yet and it already feels like all of the storylines have been beaten into the ground.

Let’s see, the top storyline coming out of Boston is, “Why does Tim Thomas hate America?”

Locally, the only question anyone is asking is, “Can Braden Holtby handle the pressure?”

And from a big-picture perspective (i.e. – the lazy national media), the only topic of conversation is “How many games will it take the defending Stanley Cup champs to send the underachieving Capitals packing?”

That about covers it, huh?

Well, rather than regurgitating those same tired subplots, I opted to focus my attention on the 1989-90 Capitals, and specifically an unheralded forward by the name of John Druce who enjoyed the hottest postseason streak in Washington’s franchise history.

Just a few short months after Holtby was born, the 24-year-old went on a tear that enabled the Caps to go deeper into the playoffs than ever before.

After scoring just 11 points in 45 regular season games, the second-year player racked up 17 points in 15 playoff games. For one magical postseason, Druce was the epitome of clutch.

Now, while it’s enjoyable to pause and think back to better days, that’s not the point of this exercise. Instead, I wanted to try and see if there might be someone on the roster capable of stepping up and carrying this team on his back the way Druce did more than two decades ago.

Simply put – who is the likeliest candidate to be this year’s John Druce?

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(photo by Jamie Squire)

Gather round boys and girls, it’s story time.

Once upon a time, the Washington Capitals were the epitome of a blue-collar team. Without the benefit of big-name stars, they were forced to hustle and grind their way through each and every season.

While they occasionally boasted a few talented players along the lines of Dino Ciccarelli, Scott Stevens or Rod Langway, unheralded guys such as Mike Ridley, Michal Pivonka and Kelly Miller logged plenty of ice time for the underdog Capitals.

For the purpose of this story, I’d like to take us back to the magical 1989-90 season. Now remember, these were the days of Sinead O’Connor, Vanilla Ice and MC Hammer in the music world while hits like Ghost, Home Alone and Pretty Woman owned the box office.

Imagine a time when only five out of 21 teams fail to qualify for the postseason, meaning you have to be fairly inept to miss out on the playoffs – which explains how the Capitals were able to advance to the postseason despite the fact that they went just 36-38-6 during the regular season.

That year, Washington finished with the seventh most points in the Prince of Wales Conference and earned a shot at 21-year-old Brendan Shanahan and the New Jersey Devils in the opening round of the playoffs.

Thanks to balanced scoring and solid play in net from goalie Don Beaupre, the Caps defeated the Devils four games to one, which earned them a second-round matchup with the New York Rangers.

While most local hockey fans would have expected someone like Dale Hunter, Geoff Courtnall or Ciccarelli to elevate their game in the postseason, Washington benefited from timely scoring from the unlikeliest of sources.

Seemingly overnight, a 24-year-old winger by the name of John Druce caught fire and went from a virtual afterthought to one of the league’s most lethal snipers.

For those of you too young to remember the 1989-90 season, Druce’s transformation is what Disney movies are made of.

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(photo by Clyde Caplan)

If I’m being honest, the opponent I would have handpicked for the Washington Capitals in the first round of the playoffs would not have been the defending Stanley Cup champion, Boston Bruins.

While the New York Rangers finished the regular season as the Eastern Conference’s top team, they were clearly an opponent the Caps felt comfortable against.

Look no further than the regular season finale in which Washington cruised to an easy 4-1 victory over a Rangers team that openly admitted they had something to play for.

Coach John Tortorella admitted before the game that one of his team’s goals was to take home the President’s Trophy, and yet, his team stalled out of the gate and was never really in the contest.

In fact, the Capitals have basically owned the Rangers over in recent years – going 11-5-2 in their last 18 regular-season games against New York and eliminating the Rangers in two of the last three postseasons.

So the Capitals would have had a solid chance of advancing past the first round had they drawn the Rangers* in the first round.

*The other reason a first-round matchup with the Rangers was so appealing to me is because Tortorella is completely unstable. Whether he’s squirting water bottles into the Verizon Center crowd or getting fined for mouthing off, he’s a highly-entertaining comic book villain who has always seemed easily distracted.

My second choice would have been the New Jersey Devils. Not only would the Caps have had home-ice advantage, which never hurts, but they would have faced a team that historically is content with winning every game 2-1.

When every game you play is so tightly-contested, you leave yourself very little margin for error. And while Martin Brodeur is easily one of the top goalies of his era, he hasn’t been the same dominant force these last two years.

In fact, Brodeur’s goals against average of 2.41 ranked 15th in the league this year and his save percentage of .908 was just the 33rd best this season.

With the Devils so vulnerable in net, facing them in the first round could have been a nice momentum builder for the Capitals.

Alas, because this team never does anything the easy way, they will now square off with a Bruins team that is obviously battle tested, having won the Stanley Cup one season ago.

Regardless of your personal feelings on the guy, there’s no disputing that Boston has a world-class netminders in Tim Thomas. When he’s locked in,* he’s as tough as anyone in the NHL to beat.

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(photo by Clyde Caplan)

Hours before the Washington Capitals took to the ice in a game that ultimately clinched a playoff birth, I asked forward Mike Knuble the simplest of questions.

With all of the drama and the highs and lows this team has faced during the 2011-12 season, I wanted to know if the veteran grinder was still having fun playing hockey.

“Yes, as a player, I do still think hockey is fun,” Knuble said. “Especially with the day-to-day drama and just how much things seem to change across the league on a daily basis — you’ve got coaches bickering in Philly and Pittsburgh, you see players going back and forth with each other through the media. There’s a little bit of everything going on right now, so it’s a fun time of year.”

Because the Capitals had an issue or two down the stretch trying to lock down a playoff spot, I asked Knuble how much scoreboard watching he’s found himself doing recently.

“During this last little bit I’ve been doing it a lot more,” he said. “During the early part of the regular season, I didn’t do it at all. I’ve got the hockey package on cable and I don’t think I’ve watched it too much. But in the last week or so I’ve been watching a lot more.”

At this point, I suggested that Washington hasn’t done all that well in “must-win” games — and specifically cited disappointing losses to Buffalo and Winnipeg as games the team “needed” to win, but was unable to do so.

“We feel like we’ve been playing ‘must-win’ games for the last 30 games,” Knuble said.

Clearly I struck a nerve with this question because at that point, forward Jason Chimera, who had been quietly getting out of his pads nearby, leaned over and added, “And we’ve won a majority of them.”

That being said, Knuble understood where I was coming from and admitted that the time for this team to let of the gas or fall asleep at the wheel has come and gone.

“The reality is you’re getting down to the last two here and everybody knows the deal,” he said. “Nobody needs to call them anything special because everybody sees the writing on the wall. We just need to go out and win some games.”

What struck me as we chatted was the demeanor of Knuble and the rest of the players in the locker room.

Everyone was completely at ease. No one looked to be burdened with the pressure of facing the Florida Panthers with so much on the line. Simply put, there was way more joking and laughing between the players than I’d seen at any other point this season.

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