Photo used under a Creative Commons license with Garyisajoke.

It’s not as hard as netting a game-winner or facing down Steve Downie (after all, we can’t all be Matt Bradley), but covering the NHL’s top team during the regular season is a pressure-filled assignment for the Washington media. Since we get to cast judgments and analyze the Capitals’ play all year, it only seemed fair to ask the players themselves how well we — the media — have performed this season.

Turns out, winger Eric Fehr is pretty qualified to judge.

“I read quite a bit of [the coverage]. I get the paper delivered to my house, so I like to see what they have to say in the paper, and I follow things online, so I have pretty good knowledge of what they’ve been talking about,” Fehr told DCist on Friday during the Capitals’ final media session of the season.

From the broadsheets to the blogs, Fehr seemed pleased with this year’s performance, saying the coverage was on top of most everything. He was especially pleased that D.C.’s media corps helped shine a spotlight on hockey with an ever-swelling quantity of Capitals stories and analysis this season.

“We’re trying to grow the sport, and the more media coverage you get, the better it’s going to be for growing the sport,” Fehr said.

Fehr, who played his first game for the Capitals during the 2005-2006 season, compared this season’s spotlight to earlier, drier periods of coverage for the team.

“My first couple years here, there was maybe two guys reporting for the team, and that was it,” Fehr recalled. (Of course, to your trusty DCist Caps reporter — who may need a right arm transplant after jockeying for position in a mass of journalists during three-plus hours of interviews at Kettler — this sounded delightful). “Now, it seems like there’s more people in the dressing room than there are players reporting for the team.”