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Morning Commute: Is It Too Early To Worry About The Capitals?

Everything you need to know about D.C. sports in one place.

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:

 

On SB Nation D.C. today: Jack Anderson writes that this week offers the best chance for Brian Orakpo to finally have his breakout game. Also, Martin Shatzer pays tribute to retiring D.C. United legend Jaime Moreno and writes that D.C. United's fortunes over the years have been directly tied to him. Later, Jordan Ruby will recap all the high school football action in this week's Varsity News.