Old Ghosts Haunt Caps

Last night's Washington Capitals' loss (3-1 to the Nashville Predators) marks the team's sixth defeat in the past nine games and its fourth in the past five outings. This comes after a 7-0 start when the squad did so many things correctly. But during the current downswing, painful memories are coming back to haunt the team:

* Sloppy defense: the Caps have allowed 21 goals in regulation in seven November games, not a good sign for a team that supposedly has an improved, stingy defense. By comparison, the team allowed 23 goals in all of October (nine games), and seven of those came in a messy 7-4 loss in Vancouver. It's eerily reminiscent of last year at this time, when Coach Bruce Boudreau went to a modified trap that pretty much sucked the offense life out of the team.

* Inconsistent Special Teams: The Caps are in the middle of the league (83 percent) when it comes to the penalty kill, and at 20 percent (eighth) on the power play. By comparison, at the end of the seven-game winning streak, the Caps were 29.6 percent effective on the power play, while the penalty kill stood at 81.8 percent. So the penalty kill has only slightly improved and the power play has fallen off the wagon. This is part of ghost No. 2: the Caps either do really well on the penalty kill or the power play -- not both. Right now, the extra-man advantage is powerless and the penalty kill isn't doing that great either.

* No. 28 is Missing: The Enigmatic One, Alex Semin, has eight whole points (three goals, five assists) in 16 games, good for 170th in the league. He's only got two points this month and has looked pretty lost. In fact, Boudreau actually benched him for the third period against the New Jersey Devils on Nov. 11, when Semin played just 8:25 in a 3-1 win. He hasn't exactly endeared himself to the "new" playing style this season.

For once, goaltending isn't haunting the Caps. Yes, there have been some hiccups for Tomas Vokoun and Michal Neuvirth, but overall, they've been pretty good in leading the Caps to a 2.75 goals against average. Most of the inflation, though, is due to the defensive play in front of the Czech (team)mates and not the goalies' performance.

So the Caps are back in a similar situation as previous years, despite many efforts to make things different. Granted, it's a long season and a lot can change. But the fact that a team with many of the same players are going through the same things as previous seasons is a bit troubling and could derail a lot of good in a hurry.