Do you seriously think the attitude that the Canadian hockey media has had regarding the Caps from day one of their existence doesn't have anything to do with their so-called non-traditional market? Because if so, you're dead wrong.
We look at DC now as an established NHL market with decades of solid support, but back in the Next Six expansion they got lumped in with the Seals, the Kings and the Blues and just got heaps of disdain dumped on them by the traditionalists. The Seals of course "proved everybody right" by failing miserably, but Pittsburgh NEVER took as much crap for sucking early on as Washington did. The Blues blew away the critics by being good right out of the gate, and LA was mocked early but grudgingly accepted over time ... largely due to Marcel Dionne being an all time great who publicly embraced the market with a convert's passion. But DC was always a redheaded stepchild to the Toronto and Montreal media and a culture of dismissing the Caps was firmly established. It's so deeply rooted that I don't even think hard liners like Damien Cox at the Toronto Sun are even aware of how quick they are to dismiss the Caps. It didn't help in recent years when the Caps were great but just couldn't get over the hump in the playoffs. That played into the loser market narrative neatly.
Screw it. Win and shut 'em up. That's always the answer.