Capital Punished

While it may be throwing the baby out with the bath water after another loss against a top tier team and their back-up (Thomas Greiss' Sharks won 5-3), you have to wonder how much time the Capitals have with Dale Hunter behind the bench and George McPhee as the GM. Sure, it's not been a good year all around and you could blame injuries, but it's proving that the Caps are not adjusting as well as many thought they would.

The Dale Hunter ideal is an interesting one because you have to wonder if owner Ted Leonsis will give him a full off-season to work with in order to get his schemes down and to pass along to the players. He acquired Bruce Boudreau's team and really hasn't had that much time to adjust the players to his system. If he gets a full off-season, he could be able to turn the team around.

With GMGM, you have to think that he's out unless it shows that Leonsis is too loyal and too proud to actually let him go. GMGM has been through the rough times and built a winner-- even though in the playoffs-- not much came from it. He was able to get the Caps relevant again, but in an off-season where many thought McPhee stole Tomas Vokoun away from everyone-- he hasn't has much to show from it. If the Caps fail to make the playoffs, he'd be the first to go.

One also has to wonder why they would throw Braden Holtby to the wolves, calling him up in the morning, waiting until he gets to Washington in the afternoon to tell him he's starting. Vokoun being sick is one thing to call him up, but is Michal Neuvirth not good enough to start back-to-back games?? That should speak volumes in confidence of the goalies right now.

That said, the Caps still have about one-third of a season to go and do have a history of making late-season runs to the playoffs-- most notably the run in 2006-07, winning down the stretch to knock off the Carolina Hurricanes to win the Southeast and get into the playoffs. We'll have to see if this team has something left in them and if they get the confidence and awareness to actually show and play the last 20+ games in the season.