“Of course we’ve only had that team on ice for eight games. We’re 8-0 in those games.”

Unfortunately for the Caps, the NHL doesn’t track records only when teams are healthy. Monday’s 5-3 loss to the San Jose Sharks, with the building half-empty at the finish, dropped their record to 28-23-5. Their 61 points put them in ninth place in the Eastern Conference with 26 games to play.

Which means, quite simply, that a team that began the season with serious Stanley Cup hopes would not be among the 16 teams competing for the Cup if the playoffs began today.

Of course, the playoffs don’t begin until the second week in April. That gives the Caps a little less than two months to get healthy and become something approaching that 8-0 team McPhee likes to talk about.

“I still think if we get our guys back and if we can add something here in the next couple of weeks we’re good enough to win the Stanley Cup,” McPhee said. “Then again, a lot of teams are looking to add something right now, too.”

Which is why McPhee faces a major dilemma with the trading deadline less than two weeks away. He’s going to make some kind of a move to try to improve his team — of that there’s no doubt. The question is how major will that move be; how much will he be willing to risk?

He expects to have Mike Green, the team’s power play quarterback, back in the next week — perhaps even sooner. “If he can get through practice on Wednesday and Thursday it’ll be no more than seven to 10 days and it could be this weekend [in Florida]. That’s a long shot, but I’m not ruling it out.”

Nicklas Backstrom is another story. He hasn’t played since January 3, when he took an elbow to the head from then-Calgary Flames forward Rene Borque. He still isn’t skating and, as seems to be the case with most concussions nowadays, there is no way to know when he will play again.

“It could be two days, two weeks, two months, two years,” McPhee said. “You just don’t know.”

And then there is the never-ending question in Caps-world: will the real Alexander Ovechkin show up anytime soon? Ovechkin has played better in recent weeks but remains on pace to score fewer than 35 goals and 70 points. In fact, the phrase, “Back when Alex was Alex,” has become as much a part of Caps-lingo as, “Rock the Red.”

Which is why McPhee is faced with trying to come up with answers between now and February 27th when he isn’t sure of the questions. He still believes the team he put together last summer is capable of playing until the weather in Washington turns hot and humid. But he doesn’t know when or if Backstrom will be healthy and when or if Alex will be Alex.