For the first time since Bruce Boudreau became the coach of the Washington Capitals, the team dispatched a lower seed in the postseason with relative ease in April.
The Capitals defeated the New York Rangers in five games -- the first series to not need the full seven in Boudreau's tenure -- and Washington was looking like the Stanley Cup contender it is supposed to be.
Then the season unraveled in less than a week. Washington was swept out of the playoffs by Tampa Bay in the second round, dropping a game in overtime because of a horrific line change and then contests on back-to-back days at St. Pete Times Forum for a swift and sudden demise.
General manager George McPhee had another fantastic offseason, and once again the Capitals are expected to challenge for the Stanley Cup. First, they need to have a smoother regular season than last year, which included a long losing streak and several critical injuries. Then they have to prove they can advance past the second round for the first time since surprisingly reaching the Cup final in 1998.
The players who are gone were rentals or role players -- defenseman Scott Hannan and forwards Jason Arnott and Marco Sturm joined the club during the season and were never likely to return. Fourth-line forwards Matt Bradley and Boyd Gordon were valuable, but both received more money elsewhere than the Capitals were prepared to pay.
Tyler Sloan was a depth defenseman who also filled in at forward in times of need, but was passed up for playing time when injuries struck in the postseason. Eric Fehr was traded to Winnipeg in part because the Capitals had a surplus on the wings and in part because they needed some salary cap relief. Fehr never seemed to totally have the trust of Boudreau, and could flourish with more ice time in Manitoba.
The biggest loss could be defenseman Tom Poti. He's still on the roster, but the Capitals are not counting on him to play this season. He missed much of last season with a recurring groin injury, and if he's not ready for training camp will likely end up on the long-term injured list.
"We don't expect Tom to be able to play," Washington general manager George McPhee said earlier this summer. "It would be great if he can because he's played very good hockey for us, but at this point the injury doesn't seem to be any better than it was six months ago. We felt we had to make a move for another defenseman in picking up [Roman] Hamrlik. He gives us a veteran guy who plays a lot of minutes, he's good defensively and he can move the puck." Adding Hamrlik, a free agent from Montreal, was part of a roster makeover that earned McPhee rave reviews. It began with trading the club's first-round pick at the 2011 Entry Draft to Chicago for forward Troy Brouwer.
The Capitals added Hamrlik and forwards Joel Ward and Jeff Halpern on July 1, but the biggest move came the next day when McPhee took advantage of a dried-up market to grab goaltender Tomas Vokoun at a deep discount.
