ODENTON, Md. (AP) – The Washington Capitals are at the bottom of the NHL standings, a start so embarrassing that coaches and players are re-examining how they look at the season.

“We’ve never been this low,” center Jeff Halpern said Tuesday.

“At this point, it’s become so bad you just start playing really for your self-pride and the pride of your teammates. We’re seven games under right now. Nothing’s going to happen overnight – if it happens.”

Sentiments such as those type are usually uttered in March by a team that’s been mathematically eliminated from the playoffs. The Capitals (5-12-1) can only hope their coach is right about bad beginnings.

“It becomes more short-term than long-term when you start slow,” coach Bruce Cassidy said. “You start thinking about how are we going to win the next game, the next game. You sort of lose your big picture plan because everything becomes more immediate.”

What’s so amazing is that such talk is coming from a team that has won two of its last three games.

But this team doesn’t know the word momentum – not the right kind, anyway. One would expect that the players would show up for an inspired practice Tuesday, having had two days off following Sunday’s victory over division rival Carolina.

Nope. The players didn’t respond to Cassidy’s plan to work on the defense and build on the positives, so he sent them through a punishing conditioning regimen instead.

“We switched gears because we didn’t seem to have a lot of focus,” Cassidy said. “Unfortunately, today was a step back for us.”

The problems are many. The Capitals are inexperienced on defense, having lost Ken Klee and Calle Johansson during the offseason. Talented forwards Jaromir Jagr and Peter Bondra aren’t scoring.

Halpern, who once centered the best checking line in hockey, has a minus-8 rating. Goaltender Olaf Kolzig, the team’s best player and emotional leader, has had a few bad games.

Only Robert Lang, who has 10 goals and 13 assists, can escape any blame for the dismal run.

“We’re not a 12-5 team. We’re not 5-12,” Kolzig said. “Realistically we could be about a .500 team right now. Every night it seems like something’s not clicking.”

Several factors have backed the Capitals into this corner. First and foremost is the expected lockout next season.

Teams are trimming payroll ahead of what could be a prolonged work stoppage. That makes it nearly impossible to trade for an experienced defenseman.

“We’re not going to enter into any long-term deals,” general manager George McPhee said. “There’s no need to.”

Even if the lockout weren’t looming, the Capitals need to cut costs after losing some $20 million a year since Ted Leonsis bought the team in 1999. Leonsis invested heavily in top-notch talent – including an $88 million contract for Jagr – but he has seen little dividend in the standings or at the gate. Jagr’s inconsistent play and huge contract make him virtually untradeable.

“We realized at the beginning of the season that we weren’t going to add to the payroll,” Kolzig said. “We know the boat we’re in right now. We’ve got to find a way out of it ourselves.

“It’s an easy way out to think, ‘Hey, when are we going to make a trade to help us?’ But it’s tougher times these days in the league.”

Attendance has suffered as well, although the Capitals are a tough draw even when they’re winning. Leonsis boosted season-ticket sales from 3,000 to a peak of 12,000 in three years, but this season they have dropped to 9,000. The announced average attendance is about 14,000, but there are far fewer fans in the seats.

One would expect the Capitals to draw upon the fact that the franchise frequently starts slow. The playoff chase never seems to get going until late December or so, and their January and February records are usually among the best in the league.

But this year is different. The team never played quite this poorly, and there are so many new faces that past legacy means little.

“You can’t look at it like ‘we’ve done it in the past, we can do it again,’ because we’re a totally different team,” Kolzig said. “You literally take it one game at a time. You don’t try to overload with the fact that you’re seven games under .500 and we need to win seven in a row. That’s the only way you can do it.”

AP-ES-11-18-03 1941EST