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I’ve got a friend named Shawn.

He’s a good dude who is very easy going, never starts drama and he’s someone who I’ve always enjoyed hanging around.

Unless we’re playing poker.

If my group of friends decides to play a “friendly” game of poker, then Shawn is the last person in the world I care to see.

It’s not personal. It’s just that my buddy Shawn is skilled enough to have played his way into the World Series of Poker twice and at some point I realized that it was no longer fun donating money to the same guy over and over.

So if I know he’s going to be involved, I politely decline the poker invite.

We can still get together to do dinner, watch a football game or whatever, but poker is no longer an option between the two of us.

I bring this up because at some point I feel like this is what’s going to happen to Washington Capitals general manager George McPhee.

Eventually his peers are going to realize that no good can come from answering the phone when McPhee calls with a trade proposal, until one day the entire league has blacklisted GMGM.

The only question, at this point, is how long will it take his fellow general managers to catch on.

It’s like that scene in “The Wire” when you see some of Baltimore’s finest using a chessboard to play checkers because they don’t know the rules of chess.

Simply put, McPhee is playing a completely different game than his peers – both in hockey and our nation’s capital.

Take, for example, how GMGM handled the Semyon Varlamov situation. The Caps were saddled with a disgruntled player who was clearly unhappy with his current situation.

Rather than re-signing for a contract in line with what the Capitals paid fellow goalie Michal Neuvirth (who signed a two-year, $2.3 million extension in 2010), Varlamov wanted to be paid twice as much while also being guaranteed Washington’s starting job next season.

For now, I’ll refrain from stepping on my soap box and saying exactly how I feel about a player who is so afraid of healthy competition that he tries to force the team to promise him the job before ever stepping onto the ice.

This isn’t about injury-prone cowards who threaten to take their ball and go home. It’s about just how savvy McPhee is at what he does for a living.

So instead of calling out Varlamov for his clear lack of character, I’ll simply say that this particular youngster opted to put the Capitals in a tough spot by trying to force management’s hand.

Now, how does GMGM react? As cool, calm and collected as a hostage negotiator.

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(photo by Mitchell Layton)

Look, my stance on Washington Capitals general manager George McPhee is well known at this point.

His body of work – especially when compared to anyone else running a professional sports franchise in our nation’s capital – has earned him a lifetime achievement award in my mind.

At this point, I’m thinking GMGM would basically have to show up and punch my mom in the face in front of me to change my tune. (And even then I’d have to wonder what she did to provoke him, but I digress.)

So when I see the two moves that McPhee has pulled off in the last week – namely trading for Troy Brouwer and re-signing Brooks Laich – it only reinforces my belief the Capitals are lucky to have this man calling the shots.

For better or worse, the Caps are a team that excels in the regular season and then falls apart in the playoffs. The San Jose Sharks of the Eastern Conference, if you will.

Well, if that’s the challenge your team is facing, what’s the best course of action?

Do you make radical changes to the foundation of the team by trading away forward/enigma Alexander Semin and/or defenseman Mike Green? Do you stand pat and hope for the best? Or do you look at what it took for a team like the Boston Bruins to win the Stanley Cup and see how you can use that knowledge to benefit your franchise?

From the looks of it, GMGM opted for what was behind curtain number three.

The Bruins didn’t win their first championship since 1971-72 by having more skill players than their opponents. They didn’t take home hockey’s most prized possession because they put together a prettier highlight reel.

No, they won thanks in large part to a white-hot goaltender and a locker room of blue-collar workers who happily sacrificed personal accolades for the good of the team.

Boston won three Game 7’s during their postseason run because when the going got tough, they had the right kind of players who were willing and able to grind it out and do the little things that make a difference in the playoffs.

The Vancouver Canucks had higher-profile players, but the Bruins had players who were harder workers.

Which brings us back to McPhee’s moves in the last week.

Trading away the 26th overall pick for the rights to a 25-year-old power forward who has never scored 20 goals in a season could be viewed as a steep price, but I’m okay with it.

Honestly, the time for stockpiling draft picks has past. Don’t get me wrong – I don’t want the Capitals to suddenly become the Redskins (who never met a draft pick they wouldn’t trade away for a veteran player) – but this team’s window will not remain open forever.

Adding NHL-ready players now makes a lot more sense than drafting some kid who might develop into a contributor three or four years down the road.

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(photo by Brian Murphy)

While it might have been simply unfathomable heading into the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs, the Washington Capitals’ season has shockingly come to an abrupt halt.

After dispatching the New York Rangers in just five games and earning a week’s vacation while the rest of the Eastern Conference teams took turns beating each other into submission, the Caps failed to use the time off to their advantage.

The Tampa Bay Lightning showed up after outlasting the Pittsburgh Penguins in a grueling seven-game series against and, yet, from the moment the puck dropped, they looked like the hungrier team. They looked like the more determined team. The Bolts looked like the team that refused to accept defeat.

So here we are – just four games later – suddenly trying to figure out what went wrong with the 2010-11 Capitals. More importantly though, it’s now time to figure out where does this team go from here.

Think back to when it all began. Think back to the 2003-04 season when Capitals owner Ted Leonsis and his general manager, George McPhee, took a good, hard look at their team and came to the gutsy decision to blow it up and start over.

By their own admission, Leonsis and McPhee saw a talented team that was good enough to make the playoffs each year, but was rarely a threat to do anything once the postseason began.

These gentlemen refused to accept mediocrity, so they traded away a bunch of veterans to stockpile young prospects and draft picks while bracing for a painful rebuilding process. Sure, there were countless bumps and bruises along the way, but the move paid off.

Thanks to the decision to embrace a full-fledged rebuild, the Caps were in a position to land a franchise cornerstone like Alex Ovechkin. And Nicklas Backstrom. And Alexander Semin. And Mike Green. And so on.

In November 2007, Bruce Boudreau was named the interim coach of the Caps. After winning one Calder Cup championship with Washington’s minor league affiliate, the Hershey Bears, in ’06 and making it back to the finals in ’07, Boudreau earned the same call-up as his top-shelf talent.

Under Boudreau, a suddenly-motivated Caps team that had started the season 6-14-1, finished the year 37-17-7 and made the playoffs for the first time in five seasons.

In 2008, Boudreau took home the Jack Adams Award, as the NHL’s top coach.

And then the Washington finished the regular season as the Eastern Conference’s top seed.

This year, the Capitals earned their fourth-consecutive division title. All of which adds up to a regular season record of 189-79-39 (good enough for a .679 winning percentage, which is tops among active coaches).

But that’s only half the story.

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(photo by Nick Wass)

The Washington Capitals suddenly find themselves in the exact postseason scenario everyone in town dreads – with their backs against the proverbial wall.

While the Caps have made a living battling back in the regular season, this roster is far less accomplished this time of year.

Trailing two games to none against their division rival, the Tampa Bay Lightning, Washington needs to string together a couple victories sooner rather than later if this team is going to make some noise this year.

Unlike the New York Rangers in the opening round – a team with very little offensive firepower – the Lightning can trades goals with the best of them.

Case in point: New York was only able to score eight goals in five games against Caps goalie Michal Neuvirth. Tampa’s already got seven goals in just the first two games.

If the Capitals are going to make their way back into this series, it’s going to have to start in their own end. And in all likelihood, it’s going to have to start with veteran defenseman Scott Hannan.

Guys like Mike Green, Jeff Schultz and John Carlson have had their ups and downs in the playoffs. Some nights they’re steady as a rock. But on their off nights, some of the decision making and execution has been downright cringe-worthy.

Insert Hannan, who has 80 postseason games under his belt – more than twice as many games as any of his teammates on the blue line.

Against the Rangers, Hannan led all Caps defenders in time on the ice – logging more than 36 minutes a night. He’s got more games and more minutes than anyone else, and if anyone can help steady the nerves of a youngster cracking under the pressure of the playoffs, it’s Hannan.

“I’ll do anything I can to help out this team,” Hannan said. “Whether it’s helping out with communication with the younger guys or simply trying to lend my experience any way I can. Whether we’re talking penalty killing or minutes played, those are things that I relish – especially in the playoffs. We’ve got a lot of guys on the back end that log a lot of minutes and a lot of different players who play key roles. I’m just trying to do my part.”

And much like trade-deadline acquisition Jason Arnott, who has no problem speaking up when the moment calls for it, Hannan too is more than happy to sound off and hold players accountable for their actions – himself included.

Which is why Hannan blamed himself for the Lightning’s overtime winner Game 2. Although he had only been on the ice for 33 seconds, Hannan tried to make a change at an inopportune time and it backfired.

“It was a bad change,” he said. “I thought the puck was going in behind. You can’t make mistakes like that. It will cost you in the playoffs. I was a little tired and I thought I could get off in time and obviously I couldn’t. It was a bad play.

“It is frustrating,” Hannan continued. “It goes to show you in the playoffs if you make mistakes it will cost you. I will take the blame for that. I should have stayed on the ice and it would have been a dead play, a 2-on-2.”

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(photo by Bruce Bennett)

Earlier in the week, I wrote about the Washington Capitals having a tough decision to make when defenseman Dennis Wideman returns from injury.

The fact is, the team will have seven highly qualified defenders and only six spots in the lineup, so someone is going to have to sit for the good of the team.

After looking at the likely candidates, I came to the conclusion that the odd-man out would likely be defenseman John Erskine and since then it seems that some Caps fans have taken that to mean I don’t like Erskine or don’t want to see him in the lineup.

None of that is true, of course. I actually think he’s somebody who has worked hard to improve his game during his time in Washington and he’s exactly the type of gritty, sandpaper guy a team largely comprised of finesse players needs.

Coming off the heels of his stellar first-round series against the New York Rangers, I had the chance to catch up with Erskine and, as always, he was all smiles as we chatted about standing up to agitators, Wideman’s return and more.

“I think my game played well against the Rangers,” Erskine said. “They come hard at you and they play physical and both teams play solid defensively, so I guess it played right into my style of game. I love doing the hard hits and getting hit. That’s my kind of game.”

I would like to go back to one particular moment in the series, if that’s okay with you. When the Rangers scored a goal with time running out in Game 5 you basically got pummeled from behind. How do you not turn around and try to open up a can of whoop-ass on someone when that happens?

(Laughs.) “I tried,” Erskine admitted. “I tried and I got tackled by someone else. I think emotions were flying pretty high at the end there, especially with us knocking them out. There were a couple cheapshots at the end, but it’s all in good fun.”

I guess different people cope in different ways. Rangers players, it seems, opted to throw a temper tantrums when their season was over.

“Yeah, but we sent them home and we’re going on to the next round,” he said. “We’ve been in that position when you get beat out and I know it’s not a good feeling.”

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(photo by Brian Murphy)

There are a lot of takeaways — both positives and negatives — for the Washington Capitals after their opening-round series against the New York Rangers in the Stanley Cup playoffs.

On the plus side, Caps goalie Michal Neuvirth looked to be in complete control throughout the five-games series and seems poised for yet another successful postseason in North America.

The defense as a whole continues to excel as the Capitals prove they’ve happily embraced the new defensively responsible philosophy.

Washington was also able to seize control of this series faster than any other time since coach Bruce Boudreau took over, which was a nice change of pace.

On the flip side, no one is sure how seriously veteran forward Mike Knuble’s hand injury is or when he’ll be back in the lineup.

The head of defenseman Mike Green continues to be targeted by opposing teams as he recovers after missing 22 games earlier this season to a concussion.

And while the double overtime comeback made for great theater, the guys in that locker room should know better than to play with fire by sleepwalking through the first 40 minutes of a game like that. More times than not, that lack of effort is what sends teams home early in the playoffs.

But for my money, the two biggest subplots after the first round of action are centers Nicklas Backstrom and Marcus Johansson — two gentlemen from the same country who share the same position.

One played out of his mind in his first taste of the NHL’s postseason, while the other has yet to make his impact on the stat sheet.

Johansson, a 20-year-old rookie, continues to impress every time he hits the ice. After a slow start to his rookie campaign, the Landskrona, Sweden native finished the regular season with 13 goals and 14 assists for 27 points in 67 games.

Good, but not great.

In the playoffs though, the speedy Swede has stepped up his game – with two goals and two assists for four points in five games.

If there is such thing as a “rookie wall,” he hasn’t been introduced to it yet. And if he’s supposed to be cracking under the pressure of his for NHL postseason, no one’s told MoJo yet.

“I’m enjoying every minute out there,” Johansson said. “It’s been a lot of fun, especially when we’re winning games. I think if we continue to play like this in the playoffs, we’re going to be okay in the long run.

“I’m playing with good players all the time and getting a lot of ice time,” he continued. “The more you play, the more comfortable you get.”

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