Goaltending should be interesting this year. With longtime mainstay Olaf Kolzig now in Tampa Bay and Huet now with the Blackhawks, the Caps have turned to Jose Theodore.
Don't get me wrong—I love what Kolzig has done for the Caps during his tenure, but he is at the end of his career, and not a solid number one anymore. (Which I'm sure he disputes.)
I'm sad to see him go, and it will be strange to see him in a different jersey. I wish him all the luck in the world in Tampa—except, of course, when he plays against the Caps.
Everyone thought Huet was going to be the guy for us for a few years, but he opted to sign with the Blackhawks.
Jose Theodore is a solid netminder. In 51 games with Colorado he won 28 and lost 21—three of those in OT. He posted a 2.44 GAA and .910 save percentage—remarkably close to his career numbers of 2.65 and .909—and had three shutouts.
Brent Johnson is still on the team, but I'm not sure how happy he is. He was pretty much cast aside when the Caps traded for Huet at the deadline, even though he was playing better than Kolzig at that point. In fact, he didn't evenappear in a game after February 24.
In 2007, the Caps struggled at the beginning of the season. After firing Glen Hanlon, Bruce Boudreau was named as interim coach on November 22. He lost the interim title on December 26—and not much else after that.
He captured the Capitals record for the fewest games to reach 20 wins (34) and 30 wins (53).
When he took over on Thanksgiving day the Caps were in 30th place in the league. After that, the Caps went 30-17-7.
At the All-Star break, the Capitals were in 14th place in the conference. Boudreau led the Caps to their first playoff berth in five years. He is the first coach in NHL history to accomplish that.
They had 17 come-from-behind victories, and posted a 20-6-7 record in one-goal games under Boudreau.
Deservingly, he won Coach of the Year.
A lot of his success is due to the fact that he was familiar with many of the players. As the coach of the Hershey Bears (the Capitals' AHL affiliate) for two years, he had seven current Caps play for him. He posted a 103-45-11-16 record in two seasons with the Bears, and won the Calder Cup in 2006.
With all these pieces in place, the Caps look to be serious contenders to get to the Stanley Cup Finals, for only the second time in franchise history.
Due to the delay caused by the lockout, Crosby and Ovechkin were rookies together and will be forever linked. I'm fine with that. Every truly great player needs someone to challenge him. Sampras had Agassi, Magic had Bird, Federer has Nadal, even Gretzky had Lemieux
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