Camp is right around the corner. Players are trickling in, working out and skating together. The coaches are all here. The office is starting to buzz again after a long summer. In fact, I spoke to 200 or so new season ticket holders last night at our offices at Kettler Capitals Iceplex. The air is crisp. The new merchandise for the players has arrived to wear in camp. It is a time of hope and freshness and possibilities. The phones are starting to ring. It is getting loud in our offices.

Today someone asked me if I thought we could be better than we were last season. My response was straightforward. ”Yes. We didn’t meet our goals last year. We have to be better!”

I am proud of what we accomplished last season but I don’t care much anymore. That one is in the books. We will celebrate in a more low key way the SE Division Championship we won for the second time in a row but we are hunting much bigger game now and we hope to improve.

As I see it right now, the main way we will and can improve is Experience, Health and Systems Play.

• Experience. We are still a young team but our core players have now been through two years of playoff wars and have played in our system for a long time. They still have upside and I believe will only get better with time and experience. Most great players don’t hit their true stride and peak performance until they are 27 years old. We have miles to go before we sleep here and we have a bunch of even younger prospects that will push our young vets and established vets to play better. Camp will be hyper competitive. Our young players will get better and better. That is our hope for our future.
• Health. We had a ton of injuries last season during the regular season and the playoffs. We can’t use it as an excuse. It will be wonderful to see a healthy Chris Clark; Michael Nylander; Brian Pothier; Tom Poti; Mike Green; Alex Semin; Quintin Laing; Jeff Schultz; and on and on. We haven’t had the luxury of being a fully healthy squad yet we had a great season last year in terms of points and productivity on the ice. Injuries are huge distractions and we rebounded nicely last season but I am hopeful that we can be a healthier squad this coming season. I am hopeful that Eric Fehr recuperates quickly too from his off season shoulder surgery. We have a lot of depth and we missed lots of games from lots of players last season. Just getting us healthy should help us to improve.
• Systems Play. I also believe that we should be more balanced in our forward lines. We can ice a team and we have lines that have play-making centers and centers that can shut down other teams’ stars. We also have more players now that will pay the price by going to the net. I think we can now have 3 or 4 lines that can have net crashers and I also believe that we have the potential to be one of the highest scoring teams in the NHL again. We are a big team as well.

Certainly we have Ovechkin; Backstrom; Knuble; Semin; Nylander; Morrisonn; Clark; Laich; Fleischmann; Fehr; and Green who have or can score 15 to 20 goals or more in this league. There aren’t many teams that can honestly say they could have 10 or more 15 to 20 goal scorers on their team.

And our D, if healthy, will have a lot of depth; lots of returning vets; and some prospects fighting for ice time. And they now know the system and can communicate well with their goaltender as well, a very important nuance. We introduced three new goaltenders to our system last season. Our young D men will be older and wiser and bigger and stronger too.

And our goaltending is a point of strength for us now. I am confident we will be much improved with a more settled in Theodore; Varlamov knowing he can play in the NHL and prosper; and Neuvirth knowing he can play championship quality pro hockey. We are now loaded in the goaltending position and that is great news.

I am excited and hopeful. The weather is perfect, crisp and clean. It is starting to feel like a new season is upon us.

Labor Day is right around the corner and then the summer is officially over and we all get back to work with purpose and a higher calling. I hope to see you at some practices and can’t wait for the new season to start. Go Caps!