On a second question, is Dale the best fit coach for this team? From my understanding he is a very defensive minded coach, but the caps are set up for a very offensive minded style of play. I believe he is a great coach and will succeed in the NHL, but will his success come with our beloved caps? I ventured to Verizon center all the way from the midwest last Friday to see the horrific loss to Winnepeg. It appeared to me that the 17-2 shots on goal in the third period were partially the players inability to clear the puck but mostly the defensive conservative style of play. 

Third and final question is what is the deal with practice. I have played sports all my life. In every season and on every team I played for, if we were failing to succeed we practiced more. I know this is difficult playing 82 games in a long season, but shouldn’t that be done with the multi millions these players are getting? It seems as if every game the caps depend on few players to succeed in the few opportunities (breakaways, odd man rushes) to score. No longer are the days when a lot of the goals come from battling low to get the puck in the net. Passes are not being made correctly or not being handled properly and insanely high number of turnovers are the story of most games. Do they not understand that teams succeed by doing the fundamentals correctly and not relying on the fancy skill of the few?

I am not usually one to go looking for blame but, if Verizon center is constantly getting sold out for these games, there must be results. I watch live streams of every game from online sites that have the quality that appear a potato is filming the game and it hurts to sit through that 77 games this season and see the results coming out. Something has got to give. Who’s fault is this and what needs to change for success? With Florida and Buffalo’s strength of schedule these next games, I have very low hopes for the playoff race and this is deeply depressing looking at the roster of players. You can rest assured that I will not be coming halfway across this country to watch another game until they get their game together.

When is opening day for the Nats, anyway? I think we’ll need to focus on that pretty shortly.