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The Washington Capitals lost again last night, this time in blowout fashion to the Boston Bruins. Remember all that angst about how they weren't playing well even while winning? It's back, now that they've been thoroughly defeated twice by a decent team, but not a spectacular one.
SB Nation's Capitals blog, Japers Rink, says it's not time to panic. On Frozen Blog, however, doesn't subscribe to that theory.
Seven games in and in all but one of them (New Jersey) the Caps have underwhelmed. Maybe they're playing possum. Maybe they miss Mike Green that much. Or maybe, just maybe . . . George McPhee is savagely wrong, and it wasn't merely a five-day anomaly last April that undid the Caps; maybe instead they're a fundamentally flawed club as they've been assembled. They'll outgun the majority of opponents they'll face this regular season, but that means nothing in the big picture.
OFB writes that we should be "very concerned" about the team's start. Should we? Sure, they've played poorly, and things don't look all that great. But what else can we expect when we're also constantly preaching that the regular season doesn't matter? If anything, all this stretch really shows is how important Mike Green is to this team, despite all the supposed shortcomings he has. That's a whole separate issue, and one that might manifest itself later in the year.
But freak out, over seven games? I dunno, I'm not there yet.
Today's must-reads from around the SB Nation network:
- The rest of that recap from Japers Rink.
- Bullets Forever crunches some numbers on the Wizards' preseason.
- Black and Red United writes that Andy Najar deserves the MLS Rookie of the Year award, despite the team's awful play.
- Hogs Haven talks to NFLPA Assistant Executive Director George Atallah about its "Block The Lockout" movement.