No matter how well a given professional sports team might be playing, there are always critics and detractors to temper enthusiasm. When the Caps are playing well, those voices tend to come from either side of the Keystone State. We've all heard the "Caps have no Cup" and "it's only January" arguments, but since division realignment, the most common hit on our Capitals is the fact that they play in the NHL's weakest division. Not that I'm a John Buccigross disciple, but I do read his "Mother of all Mailbags," and this particular inquiry bugged me yesterday (and let's give Bucci some credit for sticking up for our Caps with regards to goals against):

John,

You continue to put Washington in Bucci's Power 5. Are the Washington Capitals that good or is it just because they play in a terrible division? They play four of the worst five teams in the East six times each. Put them in the Atlantic or Northeast Divisions to play good teams, and I think their point total would be much lower.

Chris Mullin
Unionville, Pa.

Let's go ahead and ignore the fact that this dude lives less than forty minutes north of Steeltown and just look at his argument. This morning the Caps woke up with a 21-point lead over the second place Panthers, with an opportunity to extend that canyon-sized gap tomorrow night. It doesn't help a strength-of-schedule argument when you look at the Caps' extremely intradivisional record (which stands at 10-2-0) either. For the sake of argument, let's look at the East's top four seeds and how they stack up against their own divisions as well as the others. How do their points break down? How would they do in the other Eastern divisions?

What does all of this mean? Well first of all, the Caps have an equal or higher points-per-game total against each division in the Eastern Conference than the other top-four seeds. That being said, they're also WAY better against their own division than any other team, and they get the advantage of playing those teams a total of 24 games (four teams, six games each) as opposed to 20 games for each of the other guys (five teams, four games each). Obviously if the Caps played fewer games against the Southeast and more against the other divisions, their point total would be lower, but how much so?

Let's first extrapolate these PPG totals over a full Eastern Conference season schedule. In the current format, each team plays their own division 24 times and the other two a total of 40 games, so this covers 64 games of the 82-game season. If each team earns points at the same rate against each division, we can figure out how many points they would get if they were placed in the Southeast, Northeast, and Atlantic Divisions in a given season. Here's how the teams' Eastern Conference points shake out under the current division alignment:

Now let's compare that number to how they would perform in the other two divisions using the same PPG model:

In Southeast: 95.68 Points
In Northeast: 94.52 Points
In Atlantic: 94.60 Points

In Southeast: 93.00 Points
In Northeast: 92.68 Points
In Atlantic: 92.72 Points

In Southeast: 83.48 Points
In Northeast: 83.84 Points
In Atlantic: 83.56 Points

In Southeast: 83.08 Points
In Northeast: 83.52 Points
In Atlantic: 83.00 Points

Based on these statistics, the point totals change slightly, but the standings wouldn't. The biggest gap when you shift divisions is a one-point difference, which is only significant in a razor-thin playoff race. The Caps have the greatest point total no matter what division they're placed in, while the Devils come in a close second with the Sabres and Pens in a distant third and fourth. I understand that this model doesn't take fatigue into consideration. For example, someone might say that the Caps don't wear down against non-divisional opponents because they play so many easy teams in their division. However, this effectively proves that the Caps earn more points against conference opponents than any other Eastern Conference contender. While some people think the Caps beef up on weak opponents, this proves that they're more consistent than any other contender, regardless of the level of competition.