For some reason no one can really comprehend, the New Jersey Devils are leading the Metro. For reasons everyone gets - I assume - the Capitals are just one point out of the basement.
The bad news: Carolina and the Rangers are both better teams and they're the ones chasing Washington at the moment.
The Good news: The Caps had a good run! Three President's Trophies, the best goal scorer of all time and about a decade of being a Cup Contender (for the most part).
But it's time to re-tool. The Captials have three injured core players, ten non-NHL players on the roster, and zero cap-space. Its time for a partial rebuild.
The NHL in the salary cap era is kind to rebuilding teams, however, and with the Capitals core, they don't really need a full-scale tear-down and redo. They just need to punt this year, re-tool and come back strong next year.
It's really too bad about that T.J Oshie contract. If not for that - and it should go down as one of the worst mistakes in pro sports team management history - the Capitals could have kept a few other players and had the cap space to make them competitive.
But let's be realistic: no team featuring Djoos on the top pairing, Smith-Pelley, Tom Wilson, whoever the $$$$ "Chandler Stephenson" is (my guess? a disguised Alex Semin) Anthony Peluso, Jay Beagle, Alex Chiasson, Taylor Chorny, Madison Bowey or Brooks Orpik is going anywhere.
That's ten guys, and maybe two of them could be on a "good" NHL roster.
So let's just be smart about this and move forward intelligently. Ovechkin can't be traded because he IS the franchise. You'd love to get out of that crazy-ass Oshie contract, but it can't be done.
So what to do? Besides Carlson and Grubaur, who clearly are going to get traded if this team gets much further behind, the Capitals need to seriously consider trading Nick Backstrom. As much as that sucks, it's the only option I can see.
This should give them a few cheaper assets to add to the team, and clear up some much needed cap space. If they could find a way to jettison Orpik, they'd be laughing.
If the Capitals are smart - and we know they're not - they'd punt the rest of this year, regroup and return next year with a more balanced, more talented lineup.
It will be terrible to part with Backstrom, but he's an elite player who should bring back a ton from a contending team. By shedding just one or two major assets, and coming back younger, cheaper and with more talent on the bottom of the roster, the Capitals could compete again next year.
But this year they're already done. All that is left is the crying. Better to be proactive than to pretend.
The Capitals play the Islanders tonight, by the way.