Capitals Looking to Make a Move

The Washington Capitals have more talent than they had at the end of last season, more experience and more healthy bodies. But as they left Ottawa’s Corel Centre late Wednesday night, headed for mini-vacations during this weekend’s All-Star break, the team (19-21-5) was in no better shape than it was last April.

“We’re obviously not where we want to be, but I think we’re on the right track,” defenseman Calle Johansson said, echoing the words of many of his teammates after a 5-1 loss to the lowly Ottawa Senators. “It would have been nice to get to .500.”

At the end of last season, a wild romp through March enabled the Capitals to finish 39-32-11, seven games above .500, and save them from missing their first playoffs in 14 years. They worked their way up to seventh in the Eastern Conference before losing to the Pittsburgh Penguins in the first round, an almost annual event over the past five seasons.

At this season’s All-Star break, Washington is two games under .500, with 37 games remaining in the 82-game season.

But the rest of the NHL is struggling, too, with only nine teams entering this weekend’s break over .500. That lands the Capitals squarely in the conference’s seventh spot again, a position that could pit them against--the Penguins.

“We obviously want to move up in the standings, but at least we are back in the playoff chase,” defenseman Joe Reekie said. “If we can get [defenseman Mark] Tinordi back healthy, we can make a strong run at the end.”

Health, much like it was last spring, is the key topic of conversation among the Capitals, who may have the hardest-working medical staff in the league. Last season, nine players were injured in the team’s playoff drive. This season, players have lost a total of 185 games because of injury. At one point, the team was missing all three of last season’s top scorers.

It actually put together one of its best unbeaten streaks when this season’s group of casualties first got hurt, but eventually the wins began to dwindle, even as players came back. Washington went on a 3-11-2 run that could haunt them in April.

But since the beginning of the year, the Capitals have put together a 4-1-2 run, with their only poor outing coming Wednesday in Ottawa. “We are in great shape,” center Joe Juneau said. “When people look back at the first half of the season, I think with all the injuries we had, our record is a great achievement.”

Coach Jim Schoenfeld believes the start of 1997 is a harbinger, not just another peak in an up-and-down season.

“I don’t think I’m being overly optimistic when I say that it would be really unusual to have the same turn of events in the second half of the season that we had in the first half,” he said, referring to the team’s injuries and subsequent slide. “I think we’ve had our tough time and now we’re fine.”

But while General Manager David Poile jokingly declared in November that no more injuries would be allowed, the injuries have continued, albeit at a slower rate. Tinordi is out for another five weeks with a broken ankle, left wing Todd Krygier is recovering from a sprained wrist and defenseman Sergei Gonchar is trying to come back from a strained back. Right wing Pat Peake, who shattered his heel during last season’s playoffs, had hoped to come back by Christmas but instead underwent more surgery last week.

Some of the injuries are flukes, like Tinordi’s, a result of a flying puck. But some are the result of the grind-it-out style the Capitals play.

“You can’t talk too much about injuries, because every team has them and the games still go on,” Johansson said. “We know we have the personnel and the system to win, and that is really the key.”

The system that Schoenfeld preaches almost daily is based in creating offensive opportunities from sound defense. Unlike teams rich in scorers, the Capitals rely on hard work to win games.

“That run to the playoffs was so crazy with so much pressure,” goaltender Jim Carey said. “We don’t want to do it again, and I’m not going to throw another [league-record] nine shutouts this year. That just doesn’t happen.”