Tonight the Capitals will face the decisive game of their season. After weeks of injury troubles and youthful inconsistencies, the team finds itself in position to drop from twelfth in the East down to fourteenth, all in one night. The Capitals, who finished near the bottom of the league last season and retooled over the summer to perform better this season, are in a position to slip behind the Florida Panthers and Boston Bruins, who finished horribly last season and made no improvements.

The Florida Panthers fired their General Manager this summer after the team's horrible start was further tripped up by injuries to ancient and distasteful acquisitions Todd Bertuzzi and Ed Belfour. Last week Belfour beat the Caps. We're in no position to speculate about steroid use, even in the case of someone who's always been reportedly keen on conditioning, and certainly not in the case of anyone who once assaulted a hotel guard when the latter prevented him from pursuing a woman. However, even with a potential competitive edge, no forty-one year old goalie should strike fear into the hearts of any professional hockey team, let alone one with two of the top eight goal scorers in the NHL.

Photograph of futility and absurdity at MCI center by Eli Resnick

With the Panthers only one point behind them in the race for fourth place in the Southeast, and the last playoff spot seven points ahead of them, the Caps will have to do more than simply defeat Florida tonight to make something out of this season. However, if the Capitals give Florida the lead now, and give life to one more of their rivals, their chances of gaining eighth place in the next thirty games slip far beyond slim, and they might as well start thinking about draft day and summer free agency again.

How are the Capitals preparing for this momentous meeting of the worst in the East? How are they hoping to avoid another lottery finish? What great changes will the team make to ensure that they are buyers instead of sellers at the trade deadline? Well, Mike Vogel's lineup prediction has the team scratching sixth-leading scorer Kris Beech, and bringing Richard Zednik back from injured reserve.

Beech has consistently helped his teammates score goals every game that he has played. When he has played with Alexander Semin, Semin has had every opportunity in the world to shoot. Now, with Semin playing on a line with Eric Fehr (pronounced "fair") and Brooks Laich, (pronounced "like") Beech has been playing with bruisers.

Of course, Beech has responded to his demotion by setting up beautiful opportunities for enforcer Donald Brashear, who scored his second goal of the season on a play that was entirely Beech's creation on Tuesday night, while the Fehr-Laich-Semin line fired blanks.

With luck, this is one of those times when Vogel is just guessing, and has no inside information. Beech has been productive all season, has worked hard at both ends of the ice, and has elevated the play of those around him. He merits a great deal of praise for Alexander Semin's success so far this season, as Semin has shot up in every statistical category both times the two have been paired together, but Beech is also useful without Semin.

If Zednik really is ready to return from his injury, the player to bench is Eric Fehr, who needs another year in the AHL before he is ready to contribute regularly in the NHL. Fehr has only scored one goal in the NHL, and he got it by stealing the puck from Semin. If the Capitals really want to beat the Panthers, and make a drive for a playoff berth, they need to recognize that Beech is helping them get there, and let him play, rather than continually evaluating talent while the season is on the line.

BREAKING NEWS
The Bruins have just given the Capitals defenseman Milan Jurcina. Hopefully this means that Boston is more interested in this year's draft lottery than Washington. We shall certainly watch tonight at 7:30 on CSN to find out how much difference the change makes.