Too Many To Count

Alexander Semin, Mike Green (pictured), Tom Poti, Chris Clark, Jeff Schultz, Sergei Fedorov, Tomas Fleishmann, Tyler Sloan, Eric Fehr, and John Erskine.

For those of you at home, thats:

41 goals, 56 assists, and a +/- rating of +28.

Wow.

The injury bug has certainly hit the Caps. Hard. Even a replacement - Tyler Sloan - got hurt. Top prospect Karl Alzner was called up to replace Sloan and suffered an injury against Columbus, but hasn't missed a game. Alexander Ovechkin has been playing phenomenal but has a nagging groin injury. Viktor Kozlov just came back into the lineup. And I'm not even counting Brian Pothier, who has been out since last spring, when Boston forward Milan Lucic gave him a concussion.

And speaking of Boston, the injury-depleted Caps take on the Eastern Conference-leading Bruins at Verizon Center in a little less than an hour. It will take a Herculean effort to continue to hold the Southeast Division lead with all the injuries, but if the Caps can make it to overtime - or even better, win - then they will have proved to me that they are finally, after years of struggling teams, done with rebuilding. It would mean that they have the depth in the organization to be able to withstand injuries. A year ago, if you told me that they would lose all these players and still compete regularly, I'd laugh at you.

Now, their depth is being shown. They're getting contributions from the young call-ups such as Alzner and Sami Lepisto (and I anticipate some chances generated by AHL rookie of the month for November Oskar Osala).

Luckily, Semin, Green, Poti, Fedorov, and Sloan are due back this week (for Sloan, tonight). They are going to need those players for the stretch run, when the playoffs are in sight. But for now, they are doing ok.

Oh, and Boston comes into DC with a 6-game winning streak. You know what happened last time they came to DC with a 6-game winning streak? A 10-2 Capitals win.

Let's hope a similar fate results at Verizon tonight.

(Photo: Washington Times)