On Nov. 23 the Capitals were the worst team in the National Hockey League. That is not an opinion. It was a stone-cold fact.
They had the fewest points in the NHL. Their coach, Glen Hanlon, had been fired the day before and replaced by a career minor-leaguer. A promising season seemed over at 6-14-1.
It would have taken a lot of gumption to predict the Caps would not only qualify for the Stanley Cup playoffs, but win the Southeast Division. Somehow, they did both with a 37-17-7 record for coach Bruce Boudreau over the ensuing four-and-a-half months.
“I couldn’t understand why we were losing so much then and I certainly couldn’t envision winning so much now,” said Caps general manager George McPhee. “It was frustrating at the start of the year because I thought we had a good team. I couldn’t figure out — with the personnel we had — why we couldn’t score goals, whether I had misread it or not.”
That led to Hanlon’s firing. Boudreau rushed from Hershey, Pa., where he coached the team’s AHL affiliate, to D.C. for a press conference and his first practice. It took a few weeks. But the Caps gradually adjusted to Boudreau’s style — an aggressive attack that gives skilled players a chance to force turnovers and take advantage of them.
“Sometimes good teams just don’t do well. It doesn’t mean they’re not good,” said Caps forward Matt Bradley. “They may just need a little tweaking, maybe something different on systems or guys playing differently. But whatever that little tweak was Bruce did it and guys bought into it and we were successful.”
