The NHL is mounting a big campaign to bring direct pressure from fans on DirecTV to end this stallmate with Versus. In case you're not aware, the Caps opening game against Boston is exclusively on Versus and that means DirecTV susbcribers like myself won't be able to watch it at home. The league has put out an e-mail address which goes directly to DirecTV  so you can let them now how unhappy you are with their decision. If you care about watching the Caps when they're on Versus, write them and let them know how you feel. The address is: versus@directv.com

Michael Nylander has arrived, according to Coach Bruce Boudreau. But how long the veteran will remain in Washington is unclear. Boudreau acknowledged that Nylander and the Caps are actively seeking a deal to send the 36-year-old center to Europe.

"I hope it doesn't become a distraction," Boudreau said.

-Capitals Insider

I just felt there was too much smoke for there not to be a fire; Nyls not being at the morning skates, his house up for rent, his calls to Jags. Looks like it may finally happen.

The discussion in this morning's Friday Clips about Nylander got me wondering if his home was still for sale. Sure enough, it apparently is . However, in my search for the real estate listings I happened to discover that the Nylanders have also put their house up for rent as of August 22nd. There are a couple of possible scenarios. Maybe Nyls and his wife have gone ahead and purchased another big home while the one in Potomac sits on the market. However, given his very tenuous situation with the Caps, I find it hard to believe they'd do that although it's not out of the question. The second, and maybe more likely possibility is that they have no intention of being in Washington much longer. Heck, maybe the family isn't even in DC now. Of course, this is all shear speculation on my part. However, these facts appear pretty accurate: according to the Montgomery County Real Estate records, the Nylanders still own the home in Potomac. The home is still up for sale and, now, the home is up for rent. I could be completely wrong, but this doesn't sound like a family planning on being around in the foreseeable future.

If you’ve been following AOL’s Fanhouse countdown of the top 50 players in the NHL, you’ve probably been wondering where our Nik Backstrom was going to end up. After Alex Semin came in at 28 and Mike Green arrived at 26, many of us were figuring Nik would come in somewhere in the high teens. Well, I hate to disappoint you, but it’s pretty obvious now that Backstrom isn’t going to make the top 50 list. Jarome Iginla just popped in at the #5 spot and Ovechkin, Malkin, Crosby and Datsyuk still haven’t been named. So I would say the chances are slim and next to none that Backstrom is going to make the list. For those of you keeping count, that means that the writer who compiled the list, Adam Gretz, has adjudged guys like Shane Doan, Brenden Morrow, Paul Stastny, Patrick Kane and the Sedin twins, just to name a few,  to be better players right now than Nik. And I say “right now” because that’s the criteria the author used in determining who would make his top 50.

“It's simply about the best players right now. Well, it's my opinion of the best players right now. Age isn't a factor and, most importantly, contracts don't matter. This isn't about the best values, or the best contracts, or the players with the best long-term upside, it's just about the best players”, wrote Gretz.

If he had said he was basing who made the list on what they’ve accomplished over the course of their careers, I could understand a little better his leaving Backstrom off. However, by his own words, career achievements had nothing to do with his rankings. So, if we’re living in the “now”, based on last year you’d have to go all the way down to the #24 ranked player, Marc Savard, to find someone who scored as many points as Nik did last year. And all the way to the #19 ranked player, Ryan Getzlaf, to find someone who had as many assists.

And if you think one year is too small a sample, then compare the last two years for all the guys I listed at the top of the page. When you do that, only Henrik Sedin has a higher total (and that’s by just one point):

Henrik Sedin-158 points

Nik Backstrom-157 points

Daniel Sedin-156 points

Shane Doan- 151 points

Patrick Kane- 142 points

Paul Stastny- 107 points

Brenden Morrow- 89 points

Now, a couple of those guys, Stastny and Morrow, had injuries but shouldn’t durability be a plus in evaluating a player’s worth?

I know in the grand scheme of things, this listing means nothing and there are probably a lot of other deserving players left off. Here in Washington, we all understand what a special talent Nik is and given his age, there are only a handful of players I’d rather have before him. Still, when I see guys like Thomas Vanek ranked in the top 50, I have to wonder what Adam Gretz is thinking when he puts this list together.

For those of you that care, here’s the entire list to date. Based on his previous ranking, I can only guess who’s going to be his #1.

No. 50 -- Shane Doan, Phoenix Coyotes
No. 49 -- Brenden Morrow, Dallas Stars
No. 48 -- Paul Stastny, Colorado Avalanche
No. 47 -- Patrick Kane, Chicago Blackhawks
No. 46 -- Dan Boyle, San Jose Sharks
No. 45 -- Brian Rafalski, Detroit Red Wings
No. 44 -- Shea Weber, Nashville Predators
No. 43 -- Tomas Kaberle,Toronto Maple Leafs
No. 42 -- Andrei Markov, Montreal Canadiens
No. 41 -- Scott Niedermayer, Anaheim Ducks
No. 40 -- Kimmo Timonen, Philadelphia Flyers
No. 39 -- Johan Franzen, Detroit Red Wings
No. 38 -- Anze Kopitar, Los Angeles Kings
No. 37 -- Jay Bouwmeester, Calgary Flames
No. 36 -- Jeff Carter, Philadelphia Flyers
No. 35 -- Dion Phaneuf, Calgary Flames
No. 34 -- Jason Spezza, Ottawa Senators
No. 33 -- Marian Gaborik, New York Rangers
No. 32 -- Daniel Alfredsson, Ottawa Senators
No. 31 -- Evgeni Nabokov, San Jose Sharks
No. 30 -- Thomas Vanek, Buffalo Sabres
No. 29 -- Sergei Gonchar, Pittsburgh Penguins
No. 28 -- Alexander Semin, Washington Capitals
No. 27 -- Martin St. Louis, Tampa Bay Lightning
No. 26 -- Mike Green, Washington Capitals
No. 25 -- Niklas Backstrom, Minnesota Wild
No. 24 -- Marc Savard, Boston Bruins
No. 23 -- Mike Richards, Philadelphia Flyers
No. 22 -- Zach Parise, New Jersey Devils
No. 21 -- The Sedin Twins, Vancouver Canucks
No. 20 -- Rick Nash, Columbus Blue Jackets
No. 19 -- Ryan Getzlaf, Anaheim Ducks
No. 18 -- Eric Staal, Carolina Hurricanes
No. 17 -- Chris Pronger, Philadelphia Flyers
No. 16 -- Dany Heatley, Ottawa Senators
No. 15 -- Marian Hossa, Chicago Blackhawks
No. 14 -- Vincent Lecavalier, Tampa Bay Lightning
No. 13 -- Ilya Kovalchuk, Atlanta Thrashers
No. 12 -- Zdeno Chara, Boston Bruins
No. 11 -- Martin Brodeur, New Jersey Devils
No. 10 -- Henrik Lundqvist, New York Rangers
No. 9 -- Joe Thornton, San Jose Sharks
No. 8 -- Henrik Zetterberg, Detroit Red Wings
No. 7 -- Nicklas Lidstrom, Detroit Red Wings
No. 6 -- Roberto Luongo, Vancouver Canucks
No. 5 -- Jarome Iginla, Calgary Flames

First off, a big h/t to The Puck Stops Here (TPSH) on Kukla’s Korner for all this data. I’m hardly an expert on Corsi Ratings, but they do seem to present a different perspective that a lot of people find useful. In any case, there’s been a great deal of discussion about Eric Fehr and his potential as a top six player. I’m in the camp that believes Eric had a pretty good season last year and with increased time could blossom into a legitimate scorer in the league. Of course, the big proviso on any discussion of Fehr are his ongoing injury problems. His recent double shoulder surgery and the news that he hasn’t even started weight training or skating makes me worry that this season could be a waste (despite Eric’s assertions that he’ll be ready for opening day).

All that brings me to the Corsi numbers that TPSH just released. As they explain, "The Corsi Number is the difference in the number of shots directed at the net (shots on goal, blocked shots and missed shots) taken by a team while a given player is on the ice and those taken by his opponents in five on five situations."

In their latest post, TPSH has adjusted those numbers to reflect per minute of ice time to see which players were most effective regardless of how much ice time they received. From what I can determine, there doesn’t appear to have been a limit on how little ice time a player received ( I could be wrong on that), but players had to appear in at least 50 games to make the list. So given those qualifiers, here are their top 20 adjusted Corsi ratings for 2008/09:

Now, the first eight names on the list aren’t that surprising. However, seeing Fehr pop up in the top ten kind of shocked me. As TPSH explained, "This adjusted Corsi list is a group of players who succeeded in the roles in which they played last year.  Those that played more limited roles are ready to increase their playing time with their team.  Those that played frontline roles are NHL stars."

I don’t know if this validates the belief that Fehr is deserving of more ice time, but it at least raises questions of what he could do if given top six minutes. Again, I’m not a Corsi expert by any stretch, so I’m putting this out there in the hopes that those who do know this stuff can explain the significance of these numbers. At least it’s something to talk about on a slow August day.

For those who want to see the original post, just click here.

In his Ted’s Take blog, Leonsis loudly declared that Pittsburgh’s Stanley Cup win meant nothing to the Caps. Maybe he was just trying to lessen the sting of the Pens victory, but, in reality, Pittsburgh’s win actually could mean a lot to the Caps and in a very positive way. The chart below shows all the Calder Cup Finalists for the last 18 seasons along with their NHL affiliation. If you examine the results, you’ll see that winning a Calder has no immediate impact on the parent club’s ability to make it to the Stanley Cup Finals the following year or two. However, there appears to be a decided correlation between making it to the Calder Cup finals AND making it to the Stanley Cup Finals 3-5 years later. Before I get into the specifics, a couple of caveats: 1) I’m not a statistician so I don’t know if the numbers I’m presenting have significance in a statistical fashion and 2) matching up the parent club in the early 90’s wasn’t easy. So if I made a mistake, I apologize.

Assuming that the parent clubs are accurate, here are some of the results I found interesting:

-While there doesn’t appear to be any carryover from making it to the Calder Cup finals to the Stanley Cup finals in the first two years, there is a definite uptick  three to five years after a Calder Cup Finals appearance. The obvious implication is that it takes a few years for young players to make the transition from the AHL and become important contributors at the NHL level.

Specifically:

• Detroit- Adirondack won the Calder in 1992. The Red Wings made the SC Finals in ’95 and won the Cup in ’97 (& ’98)
• Washington- Portland won the Calder in 1994 and the Caps made the Finals in 1998
• New Jersey- Albany won the Calder in 1995 (the same year the Devils won the Cup) and the Devils won the Cup in 2000
• Buffalo- Rochester won in 1996 and the Sabres made it to the Finals in1998
• Colorado- Hershey won the Calder in 1997 and the Avalanche won the Cup in 2001
• Calgary- Saint John won in 2001 and the Flames made it to the Finals in 2004
• Edmonton-Hamilton (which was getting players from both the Oilers and the Canadiens) made it to the Calder Cup Finals in 2003. Edmonton made it to the Finals in 2006
• Pittsburgh- the Baby Penguins made it to the Finals in 2004 and, of course, the Pens made it to the Cup Finals in 2008 and won it in 2009.

If you discount the 1990-91 through 1992-93 Finals to give the parent club time to incorporate their minor league prospects into the NHL, that means that from 1993-94 to 2008-09 there have been 15 Stanley Cup Finals involving 30 teams. During that period, 10 of those teams that made the Finals have had their minor league affiliate involved in the Calder Cup Finals 3-5 years earlier. I’ll leave it to the stat wizards to tell me if a 33% ration is meaningful.

However, the number that I do find really interesting is that out of the last 15 Stanley Cups, 10 of them have involved a franchise whose minor league affiliate has played in the Calder Cup Finals within a three-five year window. That’s a 66% success ratio. As we all know, the Hershey Bears won the Calder in 2006 and were runner-ups in 2007. Based on the numbers, next year could be the season the Caps really reap the rewards of that ’06 Hershey squad that had guys like Steckel, Laich, Green and Gordon playing for it.

We talked about the possible replacement of one or both of Bruce's assistants in an earlier  Fanpost and it looks like the Caps were listening.

Assistant Coach Jay Leach will not return to the Caps after five seasons with the team, GM George McPhee confirmed this afternoon. Leach coached the defensemen.

"It was a mutual decision," McPhee said. "He's a good man and a good coach and he helped us get to where we are."

Coach Bruce Boudreau's other two assistants, Dean Evason and Dave Prior, will return next season. Boudreau inherited Leach, Evason and Prior when he took over in Nov. 2007.

A replacement for Leach has not been named.

Capitals Insider

So the question now is, who do they find to replace Leach and what should they be looking for in that replacement?

Yesterday, I posted the column from Kevin Paul Dupont suggesting that it might be time for Bruce Boudreau to go, which just about everyone, including myself, thought was absurd. So now, I'm going to move down the ladder to the more realistic suggestion of making a move to bring in a new assistant coach. As Ken Campbell of the Hockey News noted:

But what the Capitals need most is for someone to teach them there are rewards to playing diligent hockey without the puck and inside your own blueline. But it must be done without stifling the creativity and spontaneity that has made the Capitals the most exciting young team in the league....Now, Capitals coach Bruce Boudreau is not the man to instill that philosophy on the Capitals and there’s nothing wrong with that. He brings so many other positive attributes to the job and has such loyalty from the players that there is no doubt he is the right man to be behind the bench. But what Boudreau needs now is someone to help him get that message across to his team. What he needs is an assistant coach such as Craig Ramsey or Perry Pearn, a guy who’s perfectly content to be the second-in-command and is willing to stand by and quietly do his work, while all those around him get rave reviews for their work. There are a lot of those kinds of guys out there and the Capitals would be well advised to get their hands on one of them.

-THN

Keep in mind, Leach and Evanson were not Bruce's choices. They were kept on after Hanlon was fired. I assume the reasoning was that Boudreau needed some experienced NHL assistants to help him understand how a big league team was run. There's no denying that the three have formed a successful partnership, but you have to wonder if the time hasn't arrived for another voice behind the bench, particularly someone with strong defensive instincts. So the question is, do the Caps need to add one or two new assistant coaches as they try to make the move to a true Stanley Cup contender? Fire away.

The reviews are starting to come in on Bruce's coaching in the Pens series and some of them are downright ugly. I usually like what Kevin Dupont writes but I can't agree with his take which is basically that Bruce has outlived his usefullness. Without doubt, the Caps need to play a more defensive style to succeed in the playoffs, but I doubt that means they have to fire their coach to do that. Still, it's interesting to hear an outside opinion on the Caps situation, even if it's overly harsh:

The Capitals were atrocious in their Game 7, wiped out by the Penguins, 6-2, which left far too much blame pointed at rookie goaltender Simeon Varlamov (yanked early in the second period). Sure, the 21-year-old stopper could have been sharper, but the Caps' overall attack, from start to finish, was a damn-the-torpedoes approach that lacked bench intelligence.

Could the Caps already have outgrown their let-it-all-hang-out-there coach? It might sound crazy, given how they've delivered during the regular season under Boudreau. But keep in mind, for different reasons the Penguins were asking themselves similar questions last June after Michel Therrien led them to the Cup finals. For all their success, they looked as if they needed something, or someone, more. Late in the season, GM Ray Shero finally ditched Therrien and now the Penguins are back in the Eastern Conference finals - having found clear passage around those Washington torpedoes.

Bruce Boudreau, who took over the Washington bench in November 2007, has had a lot of success since succeeding Glen Hanlon. But if he's going to move his slick bunch beyond first- or second-round KOs, he's going to have to install a defensive template that even his high-end trapeze artists can adhere to and still perform. There was no safety net in Game 7. Or at least no one paid attention to it. Either way, there's a problem.

Forget about yanking Varlamov. How about pulling back on the likes of Alexander Ovechkin and Alexander Semin, and getting the blue line crew to close down the defensive zone? Jordan Staal's goal at 11:37 of the second period made it 5-0, by which time Washington forwards must have turned the puck over at least 15 times. Horror show.

-Boston Globe

"He won three games and I think it's nuts for him," Ovechkin said Monday. "He can't win every game like that if the team doesn't help him. It's going to be hard for him to stop the puck and have some opportunities and some luck -- and I think he knows that, too. If we're going to play the same way, probably they won't have many chances to win the game."-nhl.com