In Washington, It's Three Up and Three Down

If you'd asked most Washington Capitals fans before the season if they would have been happy with a 3-3-0 split after the first six games of the 2007-08 campaign, I would have guessed that most of them would have been a touch dissatisfied.

Expectations going into this season were as high as they'd been in years, with three smartly priced free agents arriving to fill some big holes and ownership confidently predicting that the rebuild -- one that had taken a little more than three painful years including the NHL lockout -- was over.

But 3-3-0 is exactly where the Caps find themselves today after last night's 5-2 home loss to the New York Islanders -- the team's third in a row after starting the year with three straight victories. So after outscoring the opposition 7-2 in the first three games, at times looking dominant in the process, the Caps have seen the tables turned on them dramatically, being outscored 15-6. The five goals Olie Kolzig yielded to the Islanders were as many as he had given up all season before last night.

But while there's certainly cause for concern -- if the Caps expect to be a playoff team then dropping two points at home to the Islanders, whether it's in October or April is simply unacceptable -- there's no reason to panic. At least not yet.

Why is that? At even strength, the Caps held their own. Alex Ovechkin got his fourth goal in six games, and young winger Tomas Fleischmann got his first goal of the year off a pretty pass from behind the net from rookie Nicklas Backstrom. But as I discussed with my FanHouse colleague Greg Wyshynski and On Frozen Blog's John Keely, the Caps are playing shorthanded with a pair of injuries that have severely hamstrung them on special teams. And with the Caps, solid improvement on special teams over the course of the season may very well mean the difference between a playoff spot and a spot on the first tee at Congressional Country Club come April.

With New York scoring three power play goals on just five chances, it was hard not to notice the absence of Washington's most talented defensive forward, Boyd Gordon. It's Gordon who is usually assigned the duty of shadowing the opposition's most talented forward as well as leading the penalty kill. But with him sidelined with back spasms, the Islanders pretty much had their way with the extra man -- including a 5-on-3 situation that was created after Kolzig took a rare roughing penalty that resulted in Guerin's first goal.

The other skater currently missing in action is left wing Alexander Semin, a critical cog on the power play. Unfortunately he's on the shelf with a sprained ankle. Without Semin, Washington went 0-for-6 on the power play and now stands at just 4-of-32 for the season.

What does Semin mean for the Caps? "With (Alex) Semin, we would have what we felt would be two power play groups instead of one," said Head Coach Glen Hanlon. "Like on a night like tonight that something wasn't going right, the second group could kind of take over and make things happen."

There was no such luck tonight, and with Semin not expected back anytime soon, Hanlon is going to be forced to make some changes: "We are what we are. We've got offensive players, but we're just going to have to make the mix different."

With only two days before Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins come to town, Hanlon is going to have to make like a short order cook to be ready in time. Thankfully for him, it's October and not January. Stay tuned.