The skies are partly cloudy overhead with a high of 84 degrees and the winds are blowing a blustery four miles per hour. This can only mean one thing. Hockey is back in the Nation’s Capital. Of course the Capitals would hardly know it tonight as they start their season in cold, rainy Atlanta, Georgia. At least they’ll be home tomorrow to play Carolina.

For the third year of probably only three years, the NHL has a division-heavy schedule where each team plays eight games against each of the other teams in its division. For Washington, this means four visits to Georgia, four visits to South Carolina and eight trips to two different cities in Florida. It also means playing a lot of games against teams that they didn’t used to care about, but by now they’re finally starting to hate.

For instance, tonight’s game against the Atlanta Thrashers would have been meaningless a few years ago because it doesn’t snow in Atlanta and they had never won anything. Then, two years ago, the Thrashers hired the Caps’ all-time leading scorer and last year they somehow won the Southeast Division. Along the way, the Caps started to really respect them.