Not Too Many Predicting Capitals to Win Stanley Cup

Guess who’s picking the Washington Capitals to get back to the Stanley Cup Finals?

Well . . . um . . . nobody. I mean, I suppose somebody, somewhere is. But good luck finding ‘em. You can pick up all the preseason previews you want and you’ll find prognosticators picking Detroit or Dallas in the Western Conference, and Philly or New Jersey in the Eastern Conference. Danny Sheridan’s odds against winning the Stanley Cup has the Capitals ninth, and fifth in the Eastern Conference behind a Buffalo Sabres team that the Capitals aced out of the playoffs four months ago.

Everybody’s picking the Capitals to win their division, the newly configured “Southeast,” which includes Carolina, Florida and Tampa Bay for now, with expansion Atlanta on the way in 2000. But that’s hardly a bold forecast of greatness. The Carolina franchise (formerly based in Hartford) has missed the playoffs six straight seasons, though the Hurricanes should be better now with Ron Francis, Martin Gelinas and Ray Sheppard. The Florida Panthers had the second-worst record in the league last season. And Tampa Bay had the league’s fewest victories, points, goals scored, etc. These guys make the NFC East look like Murderers’ Row.

But once you’ve tasted life in the Stanley Cup Finals, a division title isn’t exactly going to float your boat. I asked Ron Wilson the other night if his team is perceived as an elite member of the NHL, or a good team that got a little lucky last year and still has to prove it belongs with the Detroits and Dallases.

“Generally speaking? Probably the latter,” Wilson said. “Hey, I’m not a fool. I have to wonder myself, too.”

Wilson’s brutal honesty is one of the best attributes of the Capitals franchise. Late last season, just before the playoffs, he told his players that because of the Winter Olympics and the three-week break that disrupted the flow of the regular season, “This could be the year some [top-seeded] teams will fall by the wayside. This is gonna be the year of the upset.” And of course, Wilson was right. After one round, the Devils, Penguins and Flyers had been knocked off, leaving the fourth-seeded Capitals the favorite to win the conference.

Though there are more first-round upsets in the NHL than MLB, the NBA and the NFL combined, the Capitals sit around waiting on that kind of good fortune again. So what’s fair to expect beyond a spot in the playoffs and a division title?

“You can expect 10 percent more,” Wilson said. “That’s kind of our theme this year: 10 percent more. In the effort, and that should show up in the standings. Last year we finished with 90 points and eight overall.” Wilson said coming in third, fourth or fifth would put the Capitals in good position, and added, “[Top-seeded] teams have shown over the last few years that you’re pretty much spent all your energy worrying about first place.”

What Wilson would like, ideally, would be a good start, a well-played and well-paced middle where players stay healthy, and a little burst toward the end that signals the team is playing well and ready mentally for the postseason. “What’s fair to expect,” he said, “is that we play as hard as we can every night. We have the talent to be right where we were last year.”

Wilson is prepared to be particularly tough on players early in the season, “when our minds could be wandering,” he said, “when the crowds aren’t perhaps as into it, when the regular season games don’t seem to mean as much as the most recent [playoff] games you’ve played. I’ve got to make sure I have my finger on the pulse of this team . . . keep them playing hard.”

And even though the team could use unsigned free agents Sergei Gonchar and Andre Nikolishin, GM George McPhee made a nice move to pickup Dimitri Mirinov from the Red Wings to replace Phil Housley. And there’s a trio of young Eastern European forwards-Jan Bulis, Richard Zednik and Yogi Szejkovsky-who many in the league expect to have breakout seasons. They’re the kind of speed-and-skill players the Caps have never had in abundance, and who could combine with Adam Oates, Peter Bondra, Brian Bellows, Joey Juneau, Steve Konowalchuck and Chris Simon to overpower teams offensively. More firepower could be the order of the day now that the league has gone to more space behind the net, two referees sometimes who presumably will call more obstruction penalties, stiffer suspensions for elbow and kneeing offenses.

Whether any of this will help the Capitals pull even with a team like Stanley Cup champ Detroit, which returns everybody of signifiance, or surpass a team like Dallas that just added Brett Hull, or New Jersey, or Philadelphia, whose defense managed to sabatoge all that offense in the playoffs, is something that will unfold over another long season. But the best news possible for the Capitals is they aren’t so menacing yet that they can’t sneak up on people. Again.