All Former Capitals Team

In order to make changes one must let go of the past. As we celebrate the new players in Washington this week, here's a lineup of former Capitals still in the NHL. Michael Nylander might just get another tryout on Jagr's line with the Flyers, but until it happens he's ineligible as an AHLer, along with Alex Henry, Graham Mink, etc...

Tomas Fleischmann Jason Arnott Jaromir Jagr

Matt Pettinger Brendan Morrison Chris Clark

Boyd Gordon Eric Belanger Dainius Zubrus

Brian Sutherby David Steckel Marco Sturm

Matt Bradley

Joe Corvo Sean Morrison

Brian Pothier Milan Jurcina

Sergei Gonchar Steve Eminger

Nick Boynton

Simeon Varlamov

Jose Theodore

Arnott, Morrison and Clark, at the right price, could still be back in depth roles this year, but each looks unlikely and the rest are off the table right now. Still, looking at them all together isn't so hard to take. They certainly don't stack up well against a current hypothetical Capitals opening day lineup of, say:

Alex Ovechkin Nicklas Backstrom Mike Knuble

Alexander Semin Brooks Laich Troy Brouwer

Joel Ward Marcus Johansson Eric Fehr

Jason Chimera Jeff Halpern Matt Hendricks

Mike Green Dennis Wideman

Karl Alzner John Carlson

Roman Hamrlik Jeff Schultz

Tomas Vokoun

Michal Neuvirth

As a Caps fan used to seeing Boyd Gordon and Brooks Laich playing wings and ready to take faceoffs, it would be great to see one more solid center in this lineup, but it would be nearly impossible to fit one under the salary cap without Mike Green sitting out the whole season with "post-concussion syndrome," and usually you set that up with a few more stories over the summer if it's what you're planning.

But that lineup totally kills the former Caps team above, especially on the wings and on defense. Goalie might be close and center might be even after the first line, but once you start comparing Ovechkin to Fleischmann, it's pretty easy to see a winner.

That former-caps team couldn't even compete with my leftover-UFA's team of yesterday. This really shows how Ted Leonsis and George McPhee have brought in a strategy of developing and keeping their own talented players.

As much as David Poile was an incredible general manager and put the Washington Capitals on the map (not to mention helping keep them in town) he had a lower budget and had to make some tough sacrifices to stay competitive. It was hard to look around the league and see former Caps starring in different cities. You'd try to build a Former Caps team when Leonsis took over the franchise and it would stack up pretty well against the team in town, and you'd start out with Joe Sakic, Jason Allison and Andrew Brunette. You could build a team.

In 2004, when you looked around at Robert Lang, Jaromir Jagr, Peter Bondra, Michael Nylander and Gonchar back when he was good, compared to the prospects developing in DC, it was tempting to want to go backwards. This club mostly resisted that temptation, and the results are terrific.