A Kiss Of Death If I Ever Saw One

Ok, seriously, this isn't me just being a nattering nabob of negativism here and while I enjoy bashing the Worldwide Leader in Schlock, them deciding to follow the Caps this season just comes across as a bad omen.

Think of this as ESPN.com's "print" version of "The Season." Did any of the teams that ESPN pick for that program ever meet their expectations? Look, I know certain people want all the exposure they can get for this team and the sport overall. Along as Burnside reports in a respectful manner and the season doesn't go totally to pot very quickly, the series will be a good thing.

But as I said this week, if everybody is picking the Caps as a "surprise" and "darkhorse," just how are we a darkhorse and a surprise? Shouldn't we be favorites in that case? It seems to me that ESPN expects big things out of the Caps this season and only increases the pressure.

And let's not kid ourselves either, the odds of this increasing the exposure of the NHL on the Worldwide Leader in Schlock is rather slime because this will run only on the internet and not on the network itself.