Caps Take Final Shot at Boston

Whatever hopes the Capitals have at getting the top seed in the East are on the line this afternoon at TD Banknorth Garden, as Washington plays a 1PM matinee in Boston.

After a brief swoon in a pair of games in Florida, the Bruins came back to Massachusetts and blasted the Panthers and Ducks at home this week, outgunning their visitors by a combined score of 12-1, while the Capitals are coming off a 3-2 homestand and play their lone road game in a 10-game stretch today before heading home for a four-game homestand tomorrow afternoon.

While the Capitals trail the Bruins by nine points with 20 games to play, the question should be if the team will be able to catch them in the standings - and if the payoff of the extra home game should they play Boston in the Eastern Finals will be worth it.

For the players themselves, they certainly are gunning for Boston, telling the Post that they know the importance of the contest if they harbor any hopes of catching them.

Of course, this is a very unusual position for any Capitals team, since unlike most of the previous editions of the franchise and the first time since the team's previous high watermark of the mid-1980s, Washington's playoff berth is virtually assured with still just under a quarter of the season to play.

Back in the Patrick Division setup during that era when the top four teams qualified for the postseason, those versions of the Caps finished as many as 60(!) points ahead of the fifth-place team in the Division, leaving the Caps to try to earn a better seed instead of fighting for their playoff lives for a long stretch of the second part of the season.

But this feeling is unusual for this team, as even in recent years where the Caps have won the Southeast, most of those banners involved having to outlast an opponent down the stretch. In 1999-2000, the Caps had to chase down Florida down over the final months of the season, erasing a 14-point deficit in January to take the title and not taking the division lead until mid-March. Of course, last season, the Caps had to chase down Carolina for the third seed, with the final outcome not decided until the result of contest No. 82 when the Caps passed Carolina in their final game of the season.

In recent times, only the 2000-01 edition of the Caps were relatively as comfortable in February of their fate. This year, with a 13-point lead over Florida heading into Saturday's action, even if the Capitals just go .500 over their remaining contests, the Panthers would only be able to drop nine points in their last 22 games to be able to catch the Caps.

So with the Southeast secure, the Caps focus now in the final six weeks on trying to run down the Bruins and holding off the Devils for the highest possible seed.

But what is the No. 1 seed really worth in the East? In recent seasons, not much.

Last year, the Canadiens edged the Penguins down the stretch to get home-ice in the Eastern half of the playoffs. Yet they never got a chance to use it against Pittsburgh, as while Montreal lost to Philadelphia in the second round, the second-place Penguins ended up skating to the Finals.

Two years ago, Buffalo rolled to the Eastern top seed, outlasting second-place New Jersey by six points. However, the Sabres didn't parlay that into a Finals appearance, as New Jersey and Buffalo both ended up losing to the fourth-seeded Senators.

And three years ago, the Sens edged Carolina for the top seed in the East, but it was the Hurricanes who enjoyed the real honor, claiming the franchise's first Stanley Cup as the Senators suffered an early exit.

In fact, only twice in the last 10 seasons has the top Eastern seed made the Stanley Cup Finals (the 2000-01 Devils and 2003-04 Lightning), and over that same period, the second seed has advanced three times to the finals, including two of the last three.

With the Stanley Cup playoffs being all about matchups, with the current Eastern race having just two points separating the sixth through tenth seeds, there won't be much of a difference in the squads the teams the third, second and first seeds draw in the first round. The Caps likely are going to face the Rangers, Penguins, Sabres, Hurricanes or Panthers regardless of where they finish as a division winner, so the only real benefit will be an extra home game in the second and third rounds - if the other division winners actually advance.

The top two seeds have both advanced to the Eastern Finals just once in the last 10 years, with the only time it happened, the second-seeded Devils beat the top-seeded Senators in 2003, rendering Ottawa's home ice useless.

So, while the Capitals focus on catching the Bruins to keep a focus through the final quarter of the regular season, while it would be a nice feather in their cap, it certainly shouldn't be taken as a barometer of success or failure of the team's ability in the postseason.