Well-Traveled Capitals Plan a Final Trip

The guys are loose.

Defenseman Rod Langway got up to accept a good guy award, looked at Washington Capitals General Manager Dave Poile and asked, “Where am I being traded?”

Bob Gould won the award last year, and now he’s a Boston Bruin. The year before, it was Mike Gartner, and now he’s in Minnesota.

“Gee, I wish I had won,” quipped center Dale Hunter. “You get two airline tickets to anywhere and I’d probably head back to Russia.”

After a training period that included stops in Sweden and the Soviet Union, not to mention Birmingham, Ala., the Caps got down to serious business Friday night opening up against the Philadelphia Flyers at the Capital Centre.

Philly, recall, eliminated Washington from the Stanley Cup playoffs back in April, souring the Patrick Division champions’ season once again.

“Funny,” Hunter was saying, “I don’t think I’ve heard last season mentioned more than once or twice the last month.” Which indicates the swing through Moscow and environs served a double purpose of getting the team ready and casting out demons.

“Maybe the trip will serve to get us off to a good start,” continued Hunter, well aware that his club of two seasons is notorious for stumbling breaks from the gate.

“No matter how long you play the game or what team you’re on, there’s always a lot of enthusiasm starting any season because the guys just want to get going again,” he continued. “I don’t know, maybe we’re too anxious and too aware we haven’t done well early.”

Generally speaking, it actually bothers management more than it does the players. The latter, according to Hunter, are aware that the seemingly endless 80-game season has a way of evening things out.

“Some time in late January or February you hit a lull,” he said. “That’s when you have to have a guy or two who can pick you up. After that, it’s a race for playoff positions and it’s easy to keep going. Thing is, everything is geared to winning in April.”

Winning in the spring is something the Caps have never been very good at. The best example came last season when, in a dramatic stretch drive, the team claimed its first division title. The glory lasted, oh, 15 minutes before the Flyers showed up.

“Better we had come in fourth (in the division) and done something in the playoffs,” saidHunter.

Toward the goal of not only sustaining through the six-month regular season but also making some noise thereafter, the Caps made a ton of moves during the off-season.

As Poile pointed out, “Almost half of the players (11) currently on the 23-man roster have played less than 16 games for the Caps. Several have experience elsewhere, but we’ll be breaking in five or six new men.”

For at least the fifth year in a row, the general manager said the team has the most depth it has ever had. As opposed to last year, when he nearly predicted a trip to the Stanley Cup final, however, Poile fell back to a secondary position, saying the Caps “would be very competitive against anyone.”

Listeners, readers and other interested parties are free to affix any meaning they want to such a statement.

Asked constantly about his team’s yearly October awfuls, Coach Bryan Murray sees the side trip to the Soviet Union as having a curing effect. He recalls being asked before leaving the country if he realized the Caps might lose every game.

“It was not an unreasonable question. We had been practicing for less than a week and we were playing good skating teams that had been in training for two months,” he said. The Caps won five of six, two in overtime, playing on larger international rinks they’re not accustomedto.

“What I really liked was the way we battled back. We were down 3-0 in a game in Sweden and won (7-4). We were down 2-0 to Spartak (U.S.S.R.) and won (8-7). We trailed 3-0 in Leningrad and won (5-4). We showed mental toughness that just wasn’t there in a lot of games last year.”

Mental toughness, that’s what a 25-week regular season in the Patrick Division against the likes of the Flyers, Penguins, Islanders, Rangers and Devils is all about, especially when that’s just the introduction for the all-important playoffs.

Chicago followed the Flyers on Saturday as Washington plays six games in the first 11 days of the season. No easing into it for these guys. No wonder they’re loose.