In Washington, All Eyes on Jose Theodore

Last summer, when unrestricted free agent goalie Cristobal Huet spurned an offer from the Washington Capitals to sign a free-agent offer sheet with the Chicago Blackhawks, Capitals GM George McPhee needed to put a Plan B into action to fill the gaping hole the team had in net.

With Huet gone to Chicago, veteran goalie Olie Kolzig cut loose and the team not willing to hand the starting job to backup Brent Johnson, McPhee made the best of a bad situation and signed veteran goalie Jose Theodore to be his starter. The book on Theodore was pretty simple: After winning the Vezina and Hart trophies in 2002, Theodore lost his touch, leading Montreal to dump him on the Colorado Avalanche in the midst of the 2005-06 season.

In a little more than two season in Colorado, Theodore seemed to get his act together, backstopping the Avs to victory in the first round of the playoffs in 2007 and 2008, while putting together respectable numbers during his last regular season in Denver. Still, doubts lingered, and in the days and weeks after he signed with the Capitals, it wasn't uncommon for me to get messages from Avalanche fans happy to be rid of Jose "Three or More."

Fast-forward to Wednesday at Verizon Center after the Capitals' 4-3 loss to the New York Rangers in Game 1 of their Eastern Conference playoff series. The media gaggle was waiting to board an elevator to take us to the lowest level of the arena for the postgame interviews. Right beside the elevator is a little-used door that leads to the upper bowl of the arena.

Most nights that door is closed, but that night it was wide open, and peeking around the edge of the doorway was one peeved Capitals fan who kept asking us if we were going to write about -- you guessed it -- "Jose Three or More."

At the postgame press conference with Capitals coach Bruce Boudreau, the questions continued. Pierre LeBrun of ESPN asked if Boudreau was ready to pull Theodore and replace him with rookie backup Simeon Varlamov. Widely regarded as the future of the franchise and projected to be the starter as soon as next seasons, Varlamov has but five NHL starts on his rather bare resume. Later, Tarik el-Bashir of the Washington Post asked if Boudreau had considered pulling Theodore before the start of the third period of Wednesday's game. And after watching Theodore let in four goals on 21 shots, who could be blamed for at least asking the question?

While the Capitals cruised to one of the best seasons in team history, things haven't been smooth for Theodore. His start to the season was more than shaky, leading Boudreau to force him to share the starting job with Johnson until an injury forced Johnson out of the lineup. As for Theodore, he righted his own ship around Christmas, but if you ask any Caps fan if he has lingering doubts about the goalie's ability, the honest answer would have to be yes.

So what does Boudreau do? Though he admitted after Game 1 that when things go wrong a coach needs to make changes, he's yet to tip his hand as to the identity of his Game 2 starter. My guess is he'll stick with Theodore but won't hesitate to give him a quick hook in favor of Varlamov if he sees any signs of weakness that might lead to Game 2 getting out of hand.

Here in D.C., locals are calling Theodore the logical "bridge" between former franchise goalie Kolzig and Varlamov. But even the most pessimistic observers didn't expect the bridge to give out quite so soon.

This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.