Last night the Hershey Bears lost the decisive fifth game of the Calder Cup Finals to the Hamilton Bulldogs. The Bulldogs will now get raises and promotions to the NHL, while the Bears will go home to dark, empty apartments and watch nature shows, searching for an equally absurd example of an obnoxious housepet dominating a bear.
Actually, losing in the finals is a perfectly acceptable outcome from the Capitals’ standpoint. Their young players got to play in as many high-pressure playoff games as they would have played if they had been champions. The Bears could probably even have won if last season’s unsung playoff lynchpin, Lawrence Nycholat, had been back on their blueline. However, the Capitals wisely traded Nycholat away to Ottawa, where he rode the bench for the Stanley Cup losing Senators. This opened up space in Hershey for Caps prospects Mike Green and Jeff Schultz to play bigger minutes in each game.
Combined with a forward corps that includes once and future Caps Tomas Fleischmann, Jakub Klepis, Alexandre Giroux, Eric Fehr and Dave Steckel, this year’s playoffs provided a unique extra opportunity for young Capitals to develop into better players with brighter NHL futures.
