This weekend the Capitals won their first two games under new head coach Bruce Boudreau. WashingtonCaps.com Senior Writer Mike Vogel announced that Boudreau had turned the team around by fixing the power play. This is true, but Vogel writes that he fixed it by "promoting Nicklas Backsrrom (sic) and Mike Green to the first unit and moving Alex Ovechkin up to his more customary forward spot from the point, where he had been stationed for the first 21 games of the season."

The Capitals have certainly been bad this year, and they may have driven many to drink, but we're surprised to see a team employee completely forget the beginning of this season. He must have drank something tasty to forget that, other than Boyd Gordon and Dave Steckel who stayed on the checking line and first penalty killing unit, and Eric Fehr who stayed injured, no other Capital played the same role for all of the first twenty-one games. Fact is, the Caps started out with three straight victories, thanks largely to a first power play unit that starred Mike Green on the left point and Alex Ovechkin at his customary position of left wing. Recently dismissed head coach Glen Hanlon moved Ovechkin to the point only recently, as a desperate attempt to cope with a prolonged injury to Alexander Semin.

Nicklas Backstrom started out the season on the team's second power play unit with fellow Swedish center Michael Nylander there to mentor him. Backstrom is a rookie; the team brought him along slowly until he got his bearings. In recent games, Backstrom has gone to the net more and started scoring goals. Therefore it made sense to give him some more time with the man advantage, and Hanlon had been gradually increasing his opportunities.

Still, Hanlon wanted to run two power play units with roughly equal firepower and almost equal ice time. When things got rough, which was always, he changed the units up, mixed them together, and shuffled in anyone who played hard. Boudreau is only using one power play unit and has yet to change it, so he hasn't so much promoted Backstrom as he has demoted Viktor Kozlov, Brian Pothier, Chris Clark, Matt Pettinger, Milan Jurcina, Jeff Schultz, Brooks Laich, Tomas Fleischmann and Donald Brashear.

Hanlon used to put out a different set of players every thirty seconds, but Boudreau has kept his starting power play unchanged through two entire games, and played the same five men for almost every second that the Caps have enjoyed a man advantage. This means that Michael Nylander and Nicklas Backstrom know that they can take turns circling deep in the right corner, while opposing defensemen stay close to Alex Ovechkin at the left goal post. Nylander and Backstrom also know that when they get into trouble down low on the right side, they can pass diagonally back to Mike Green, pinching in from the left point.

They don't have to wonder who is over there, or where they'll be. They can pass to Green because they know he will be on the far wall, ten to twenty feet inside the blueline, ready to shoot before the goalie can skate across the net to face him. This is why Green has scored the first goal in both of Boudreau's games as the Caps' head coach, and this is why Boudreau is the right leader for this team right now.

Hanlon, at the end of his rope after several disappointing seasons, morosely requested consistency from players who had consistently failed him. Boudreau, who knows half of the team from their days together as AHL champions, provides consistency and demands success, allowing this talented club to produce the offense it is capable of.

Now if they only had a goalie.