Celebrate A Division Title?

from John Feinstein of the Washington Post, It wasn’t giving up three late goals to the Toronto Maple Leafs in a game that was over after 14 minutes. That’s something a good coach such as Bruce Boudreau can harp on in practice for a couple of days, but in the course of an 82-game season, letting up with a 6-1 lead in the third period isn’t something to really worry about. The mistake actually came before the puck was dropped: Rather than slowly raising its 2009 Southeast Division championship banner to the rafters, the team decided to merely unfurl it. It was almost as if the Caps were saying, “This isn’t good enough, so we’ll just unfurl it fast and move on."… The Caps will win a lot of games this season, and they will have quite a few 6-1 leads. None of it will really matter though until April, May and perhaps June. Ted Leonsis, Boudreau, Ovechkin and company have good reason to believe the banner they raise next October will be the one they want to raise. In the meantime though, downplaying progress—as in back-to-back division titles—isn’t the way to go. Most important, it could lead to bad karma. more