Originally Posted by mister_mcgoo

That's all purely by the numbers Dobber but where's the heart? He's got that C on his jersey for a reason, it means he's supposed to lead his team, he's supposed to drag them up when their spirits sag, he's supposed to lead by example and be the ultimate teammate. I saw a guy trying to do it all himself most of the time and jawing at his teammates for not getting him the puck, you'll never win a cup with that attitude I don't care how gifted you are. Sure there's lots of blame to go around, it wasn't just OV, it looked like a group of talented individuals playing a pickup game where they all agreed beforehand that the guy with the most goals didn't have to pay for beers afterwords...there was very little chemistry and flow to their game and only Backstrom seemed to be playing as a teammate. The point I'm trying to make is that when OV hits a wall of adversity he tries to skate thru it (or shoot thru it), he hasn't learned that you can't do it all yourself and that there are about a dozen more important things to being a Captain than how many goals you score

Originally Posted by praba

i said it at the trade deadline, the caps did not improve their main weakness: defence. they went out and got joe corvo, when instead they should have gotten a stay at home dman. the caps have more then enough scoring weapons, but their defence is terrible. ovechkin is to be blamed-to an extent. there were many times where he tried to do things all himself (i.e rushing into the offensive zone and trying to dangle through 2 guys). but i definitely agree with dobber that the supporting cast was terrible. semin had some close chances, but how he wasn't able to bury even 1 goal is pathetic. what washington needs to do:

1) let theodore walk
2) varlamov and neuvrith split starts
3) sign/trade for a stay at home shutdown dman (atleast 1)
4) trade semin for a dman + forward

Originally Posted by Dobber

Belanger was a good acquisition and helped with the defense (he won so many draws!). I think this team blew it more for their offense. Semin and Green were terrible.

Originally Posted by delaney8

I agree with most of the points made but I don't think you blow it up now. I still think this team can win the cup with a little more seasoning (most of the prime guys are still very young). They came pretty close last year to making it past the Pens and it did take most of the 'dynasty' type teams a couple of playoff trips to figure it out too.

Originally Posted by SeaDawg

A lot of people can be blamed for the Caps failure, including Ovechkin and Boudreau. But they are certainly not at the top of the list. You are correct, imo, in putting the majority of the blame on players like Semin, Green, and Fleischmann. The only player, imo, who deserves no blame was Backstrom. If anything, this kid's stock only increased with this series. He was the best player (besides Halak) in many of the games.