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Ovechkin, Capitals need to find joy again

Washington Capitals v Phoenix Coyotes

of the Washington Capitals of the Phoenix Coyotes during the NHL game at Jobing.com Arena on February 14, 2011 in Glendale, Arizona.

Christian Petersen

Before the Washington Capitals came to Buffalo to face the Sabres, Alex Ovechkin seemed like he was starting to get things back on track. The oft-criticized Caps captain scored three points and registered a +3 rating in his last three games. As usual with Washington, the bad times overshadow the higher moments, though.

Such a thought can be summarized in a simple stat line: Ovechkin failed to register a point while finishing with a hideous -4 rating tonight. To little surprise, Buffalo handled the rest of the team as they beat the Caps 5-1.

So many of you are asking: what’s wrong in Washington?

If you ask me, it’s a palpable lack of joy.

Look, I know that Bruce Boudreau is trying to be a tough guy. To some extent, he’s doing it to try to keep his job. One cannot begrudge him for that.

But really, it all goes back to last season’s square-peg-in-a-round-hole experiment to decelerate the offense. The Capitals abandoned their hard-charging style in favor of a more traditional mode, and in my opinion, they lost a bit of their soul in the process.

GM George McPhee made some great moves to help the team win the only way you supposedly can win, but I wonder if the real problem is that there’s a big cloud of misery hanging over that locker room.

Caps should go back to their attacking ways from before 2010-11

When Washington was at its best, they were playing a pace that gave other, slower teams heart attacks. The Phone Booth in DC was off the hook. Ovechkin was recklessly doing his own version of the Lambeau Leap into the boards and the Caps were satisfied with simply blowing the doors off of other teams. They didn’t grimace at every little mistake because the good heavily outweighed the bad.

Everyone wants to show that they can mold a supposedly unshaped lump of clay into a straightforward success. The reality is that 90 percent of the time, you shouldn’t try to change Tim Tebow’s throwing motion or generally ask someone to forget what made them good enough to become professionals. Instead, you just try to accentuate the positives and camouflage the weaknesses like a deft makeup artist.
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That’s just my take, though. Surely there are more complicated things going on in DC - and 12-9-1 isn’t a full-scale disaster. It just seems like the Capitals are stuck in bad marriage right now, so maybe they should renew their vows with their old, far more fun ways.