"We played a very good game last night" - really Ted?

I wish you would enlighten me more on how you determined that the Caps played a good game last night Ted. Was it the absolutely atrocious passing throughout the game, the 39% faceoff win percentage, the overall team minus-4 statistic or the fact that your hockey players decided to show up and play the last twelve minutes of the game and your typical top liners all got a point? Finally showing up to play in the 3rd period is a really bad habit and the Caps do it far too often, including last night against the Flyers and Sunday night against Ottawa. If the Caps continue to play like they have lately with a ton of road games coming up on their schedule, they could miss the playoffs.

This team isn't very good right now and they are definitely the most frustrating Caps team I've watched since Alex Ovechkin has been here. I miss the early years of Ovie's career when the team worked really hard and Ovie was the most fun player to watch in the NHL. Neither situation applies today - the team doesn't work hard and Ovie hasn't figured out how to take it to the next level, maybe because there is no one to show him the way.

Besides Ovie, I don't know what is wrong with this team because I'm not a hockey expert. Is it the coach, the defensive first system the coach is trying to teach, or is it the players? All I do know is that something is dreadfully wrong when your super star sniper may not even hit 30 goals this year (his lowest total to date was 46 goals in his sophomore season), your super star playmaker, Nicklas Backstrom, is on a .89 points per game (PPG) pace (versus 1.23 and 1.073 PPG in his last two years) and your fans wish you could decline penalties because your power play is about as effective as Metro is at running the subway.

No, it's not about individual hardware anymore and I agree with Ovie on that. But, it's supposed to be about a Stanley Cup and this team seems to be going backwards in that regard. That is a travesty with the talent on this team. Something needs to change. It's a Washington sports team, though, so I'm not holding my breath.

Let's go Caps!