Ever since Bruce Boudreau took over as head coach of the Washington Capitals on the day after Thanksgiving 2007, the hockey news out of Washington, D.C. has been uniformly positive. There was the last year's late-season drive to make the playoffs, followed by an offseason filled with awards, a key to the city for Alex Ovechkin and elevated expectations going into the 2008-09 NHL season -- expectations that, thus far, have been fulfilled as the team surged to second place in the Eastern Conference. But through it all there's been one minor, yet discordant note: the speedy attacking team was skating on one of the worst home ice surfaces in the NHL.
