Fred Bowen's "The Score" column,
April 15, 2010, Washington Post

Capitals had NHL's best season, but any playoff team can win the Stanley Cup

The Washington Capitals are the best team in the National Hockey League. The Caps had the most wins during the 2009-2010 regular season (54). They also scored the most goals (318).

Perhaps the best indication that the Capitals are the strongest team in the NHL is that they had the biggest difference between the number of goals they scored during the season and the number of goals they gave up. The Caps scored 85 more goals than they let in. The next-best team, the Chicago Blackhawks, scored 62 more goals than they surrendered.

The Capitals are loaded with high-scoring superstars including Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, Alexander Semin and Mike Green. So the Caps, who play their first game in the playoffs tonight against the Montreal Canadiens, should be a shoo-in to win the Stanley Cup, right?

Not so fast. In hockey, the best team during the regular season does not always win the Stanley Cup, or even make it to the championship series. In the past 10 NHL seasons, the best teams in the Eastern and Western conferences -- that's 20 teams -- made the finals of the playoffs only six times.

That's because every team that makes the playoffs has a chance to win any series. The Capitals proved they were a much better team this season than the Canadiens. But that only gets the Capitals one more home game during their series with Montreal. (Each series in the NHL playoff is best of seven, so the first team to win four games advances.) I know the fans at Verizon Center will "Rock the Red" Thursday, but I don't think that is such a big advantage.

It's as if you got all A's during the school year and your best friend got all C's. But your friend could get a better mark for the year if she just does better on a couple of tests at the end of the year. That doesn't seem fair.

Of course, the playoffs in pro sports aren't meant to be perfectly fair. They are meant to be exciting. And the NHL playoffs are really exciting. The hockey playoffs are filled with hard-fought series highlighted by close games. Last year, more than 40 percent of the Stanley Cup playoff games were decided by one goal. That means an underdog team can upset a favored team with a lucky goal or a great save.

So the Capitals better be careful. Just because they were the best team during the regular season doesn't mean they will even make it past the first round.

The Caps will have to hustle every minute of every game and play as a team. If they do that, they can win the Stanley Cup.
That would be really exciting.

Fred Bowen writes the KidsPost's sports opinion column and is the author of 14 books for kids. He will be signing his latest books at Barnes and Noble in Bethesda on Sunday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. as part of the Bethesda Literary Festival.

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