No More Kissing Your Sister

After Sunday’s win over Florida put the streaking Caps officially at 21-21, all the focus was about playing “.500 hockey.”

“That was our goal when Bruce (coach Bruce Boudreau) came in was to get back to .500,” said Caps defenseman Tom Poti in a team-released quote, “and we’ve done that.”

Everywhere but in hockey, that would mean as many wins as losses. But, in the NHL, .500 doesn’t really mean as many wins or losses, because, well, there aren’t as many losses as wins.

In fact, you’d have to look to the Special Olympics to find a competition with fewer losers than the NHL.

Beginning with the 2005-2006 season, the NHL did away with ties. But losses in overtime or shootouts still earned the losing team a point, and were no longer counted in the loss column.

In the NHL, not only is it theoretically possible for every team to finish with more wins than losses - that almost happens.

After Monday’s win at Pittsburgh, the Caps press release bragged about being “above the break-even point.” Only 7 of the 30 teams in the league couldn’t make the same claim.

The Caps real W-L record is 22-26.

So just keep winning.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008 at 9:27 am and is filed under Sports, Washington Capitals. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.