This year's Caps, on paper, should block more shots than almost any team in the league. Last year, without any stalwart defensive defensemen, the Caps played defense by committee and placed a respectable seventh with 1257 blocks.
To be clear, blocking a shot in hockey is very painful. It's not like in football, where a block just means standing in front of someone so they don't knock over your quarterback. In hockey, that's not even a stat, unless you bump into someone who has the puck, in which case it's called a "hit." A block, in hockey parlance, is when you intentionally fall down on a rock-hard sheet of ice so that a small, heavy chunk of hard rubber which has just come out of a bucket of ice to make it harder will hit you somewhere between seventy to a hundred miles per hour.
Last year's defense-first strategy on the Capitals translated into over a hundred blocks from seven of their regular defensemen. John Carlson led the group with an amazing 160 blocks, throwing himself successfully in harm's way twice per game. The rookie standout was followed by constantly-improving giant Jeff Schultz at 138 and world-class youngster Karl Alzner at 132. These guys are all defensively sound players who should be expected to sacrifice their bodies to keep the other team from scoring.
Scott Hannan and John Erskine fit that mold too, and aren't too surprising on this list. However, Dennis Wideman and Mike Green are considered power-play specialists. The fact that they finished the year with 126 and 109 blocks, respectively, is a testimony that Boudreau really got the Caps to commit to a defense-first system. Green finished 89th in the league in the stat, despite that he played only 49 games.
Hannan's respectable 122 blocks will certainly be missed, but his replacement, Roman Hamrlik, blocked an incredible 192 shots last season, fourth in the league. Just the exchange of Hannan for Hamrlik through free agency this summer could give the Caps seventy more blocks, which would put them in second place last year in the league, with 1327. This would still be sixty behind the Islanders, but the Caps only had Dennis Wideman for less than half the season. Having Wideman's 126 block pace for even half the year would give them 63 more, for a league-leading 1390.
One might ask, though, how important is shot-blocking, really? Three of the six teams who finished ahead of Washington missed the playoffs. The Caps certainly didn't spend this offseason trying to be more like last year's Maple Leafs, Islanders and Thrashers/Jets. The answer lies in looking at last year's post-season numbers. In spite of their stalwart corps of defense-first defensemen, the Caps blocked the fewest playoff shots last year of any team who made it to the second round.
When the season was on the line, Detroit, Nashville and Philadelphia all blocked more rubber than the Caps. It's hard to say whether this low number was more of a cause or an effect of the sweep by the Tampa Bay Lightning, but it's easy to see that unfortunate injuries to Wideman and Green played a role in the Caps early demise last season. The Caps actually enjoyed a healthy advantage, even in the playoffs in their number of shots blocked per game over their fellow two-round teams, but trailed both Tampa Bay and San Jose, who each made it to the third round. Stanley Cup winner Boston and finalist Vancouver were both among the bottom three in shot blocking during the playoffs, ahead of only Phoenix, so blocking shots isn't everything, but because the playoffs are based on one team eliminating another, the winning team must have the ability to play different styles depending on their opponent.
Hopefully the addition of Hamrlik's durability and the likelihood that one or more of Wideman, Green and possibly even Tom Poti could be healthy for next year's playoffs can help the Caps focus on what they do best this Spring: putting their own shots behind opposing goalies.
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Monday, July 18, 2011
Buy The Numbers: Plus One
It is often said that plus/minus is not the most useful statistic for evaluating a player's defensive performance. This statement makes more sense in the last couple of years, now that the NHL keeps track of other defensive statistics, such as hits, shots blocked, time on ice, time in the defensive zone and other little indicators of how a player affected the progress of the puck away from his own net and into his opponent's.
Still, for a number of years plus/minus was hockey's only defensive statistic and it remains a decent judgement of a player's effectiveness. The stat is simple. Every time you are on the ice when your team scores a goal, you add one. Every time you are on the ice when your time gives up a goal, you take away one. Power play goals don't count, because they're measured by other statistics (although these are mostly team statistics, and some more individual statistics on special teams effectiveness could be very helpful in evaluating hockey players' performance).
Since plus minus measures both offense and defense in relation to each other, it isn't just a gauge of whether a player is playing effective defense. It is a gauge of whether the energy that player spends on defense is worth it. Coaches will often preach that if players work harder in their own end, they will spend more time with the puck and score more goals. This makes logical sense, so it is rarely questioned.
Under most of their seasons with Bruce Boudreau as coach, the Capitals were given some guidelines on defense, but few hard and fast rules. Mostly, they just had to go score goals. After a few years of that plan, the Capitals posted the four best plus/minus marks in the league in 2010. Alex Ovechkin, Jeff Schultz, Mike Green and Nicklas Backstrom topped the charts at +50, +45, +39 and +37. You have to look back to 2008 for anyone else to break forty, and '03 for someone to break fifty.
Last year the Capitals all focused on defense. They worked really hard at keeping opponents out of their own zone. They played in conservative positions, staying back behind opponents instead of rushing up the ice in front of them. What did it get them?
Well, they let in fewer goals, but they also scored a lot fewer. Ovechkin and Backstrom tied for the team lead in plus/minus, but this time their top mark was +24. The Caps fell from 1st in 2010 to 19th in 2011 in goals scored. At the same time they improved from 16th to 4th in goals against. So their offense went from the best to being worse than a few non-playoff teams, while their defense went from being worse than a few non-playoff teams to being just worse than Nashville's.
It is often said that defense wins championships, but it sure doesn't win regular season games. Nashville played better defense than the Caps and wound up eighth in the West. But from preseason to postseason each hockey game is won by the team that scores more goals than its opponent. That means that no matter how good you are at preventing your opponent form scoring goals, you also have to score a couple of your own.
That said, I would predict a resurgence in the Capitals' offensive and defensive fortunes this year, simply from the acquisition of Tomas Vokoun. Vokoun is the type of goalie who gives his team confidence. Who needs to play defense when the other team can's score on your goalie anyway?
With Vokoun in net and so much talent still up front, the Caps are bound to maintain close to their current defensive numbers and get back among the league leaders in goals scored. Whether they attribute their improvement to an offensive or defensive system, the difference is simply that they have better personel.
Last year, by putting an incredibly talented roster into a constant defensive formation, Boudreau managed to land novice goalie Semyon Varlamov among the league's top five in goals against average and save percentage. This led to a trade of Varlamov for next year's top pick from Colorado, who chose second overall this year. While a bird in hand is worth two in the bush, the Caps could be looking at a Chris Pronger or an Evgenei Malkin in the bush next year, and the trade also serendipitously led to Vokoun's arrival.
So their defensive play has earned them a high future draft pick and a better goalie for right now, which is good because it didn't get them much else. The whole point of switching to a defensive strategy was officially to perform better in the playoffs. Only six active NHL players have posted a season of +5 or better in the playoffs. None did it last year.
Of those six, Ovechkin and Tom Poti have each broken that incredibly modest barrier twice, but didn't make it under 2011's defensive system. Backstrom and Carlson each played big roles in the 2011 playoffs, but didn't put up big numbers defensively. The other two, Sergei Gonchar and Milan Jurcina, missed this year's playoffs with Ottawa and the New York Islanders, respectively.
The Caps 2011 leader in plus/minus, with a lame +4 was Jason Arnott. Arnott earned four million dollars last year in what was supposed to be a victory lap with the Devils, but performed well enough down the stretch with the Capitals to get a chance with the developing St. Louis Blues next year. Because he was only with the Caps for a few weeks before the playoffs, his performance is easier to credit to the defensive strategies he practiced in New Jersey than here.
In the playoffs, the Caps gave up the seventh-fewest goals per game at 2.67, but scored only the eleventh-most of the sixteen playoff teams at 2.56. The previous year they gave up a frustrating 2.86 goals per game, but scored an impressive 3.14. Rather than blaming the Caps system, the team's ownership and management logically looked at their club's overall inexperience and a run of injuries to defensemen.
Next year everybody they kept will be one year farther along their learning curves, but the addition of Roman Hamrlik on the blueline and Vokoun in net means that in the 2012 playoffs, the Capitals can count on veteran leadership to take care of defense, and their forwards can go back to focusing on scoring goals.
Buy The Numbers: More Soft Euros, Please
Reading the comments a few Caps fans post on message boards and news outlets, it's hard to tell which direction the Caps should have taken this summer. Everyone agreed that the team needed to add more players who perform well in the playoffs. The Caps have already shown they can win the regular season, goes the mantra. Now they need guys who are best at the playoffs.
To a lot of fans, this means getting rid of European guys who score lots of points in the regular season and picking up guys born in North America who measure their regular seasons in bruises instead of goals and assists. This sort of silly jingoism doesn't actually stand up to even a cursory look at the numbers.
In order, here are the players who have had the best single-season playoff scoring totals in Washington Capitals history: Alex Ovechkin, John Druce, Joey Juneau, Adam Oates, Nicklas Backstrom, Alexander Semin, Andrei Nikolishin, Brian Bellows, Geoff Courtnall, Michal Pivonka. While that list is 50% North American, the team, like the league, has almost always been well over 50% North American. Most of the significant European players in Caps history are represented. In fact, the two crucial European players you don't see, Bengt Gustafson and Peter Bondra, are eleventh and twelfth.
More importantly, all of the key European scorers on the Caps right now are represented in the top six, each scoring above all but two guys from the 1998 team that made the Cup Finals. While we're at it, those two guys--Adam Oates and Joey Juneau--aren't exactly the prototypical North American power forwards and role players that some of the club's most vocal fans keep claiming help you win playoff games.
Between the unpronounceable name, the spin moves and the pass-first mentality, Juneau could be an honorary European. Speaking of pass-first mentalities, Oates performed his dazzling feats of stickhandling and play-making in Washington to regular chants of "Shoot The Puck!" While Oates is a nice, easy to pronounce name, that didn't really translate to a hard-nosed presence in front of the net. Oates was a six-time finalist for the Lady Byng award as one of hockey's most gentlemanly players.
Both Oates and Juneau graduated from a prestigious engineering school, and each was capable of doing the math on how to help a team succeed without paying a physical price. Opposing players would often acknowledge in interviews that there was no point hitting Oates because he never took shots and he never hit anybody unless he absolutely had to. This all flies in the face of everything hockey apparently stands for, but when the Stanley Cup was on the line, Oates and Juneau put up more points than beloved cementheads like Dale Hunter, Dino Cicciarelli, Kevin Hatcher or even Hall of Famers like Scott Stevens and Mike Gartner.
In fact, while Courtnall and Bellows were certainly more comfortable with a little bit of contact than the RPI nerds who outscored them when it mattered, they each had their share of speed and skill as well. The only true "power forward" on the list is John Druce.
Druce is a folk hero around here, a gritty role-player who elevated his game in 1990 to carry the Capitals almost single-handedly to the conference finals. In fifteen playoff games that year, Druce destroyed opposing goaltenders for fourteen goals and three assists. At the same time, he scuffled his way to twenty-three penalty minutes. Never an offensive force before or since, Druce captivated our imaginations with a few weeks of incredible goal-scoring, brought the Capitals to their first unsuccessful conference final and became a larger-than-life figure.
I think John Druce is the reason some Caps fans overlook the other eleven players in that top twelve. We saw in 1990 that a tough team where one guy suddenly, magically, becomes unstoppable can get pretty far in the playoffs. In the Caps other playoff runs their play may have been prettier and faster, but its explanation was more logical, and therefore less memorable. Druce fans are the people you see asking again and again for the team to trade Semin, owner of the franchise's sixth-best playoff performance ever and a commensurately skilled hockey player, trade Backstrom who holds its fifth-best postseason mark or trade Ovechkin who didn't impress anybody when he broke Druce's team record because we all knew knew he could do it.
The only Caps star who's not on that list is Mike Green. Mike Green, in fact, isn't even in the top five of a single-season playoff scoring chart for Capitals named Mike. The only North American born offensive dynamo on the current squad, Green falls behind two solid seasons by Gartner (16th, 29th) and three by Mike Ridley (20th, 23rd and 27th) on that list. If Caps fans are looking to get rid of offensive stars who fall apart in the post-season, it's very strange that they tend to name Alexander Semin more often than Mike Green, whose top season of nine points ranks at 42nd on the team's all-time list, and is only one point ahead of Semin's second-best offseason.
Obviously, the Caps have been wise not to get rid of Mike Green. The type of offense he can bring is very difficult to replicate at all from a blueliner, let alone at a price like his. In the last year of a four-year contract over which league salaries have increased by a huge margin, Green provides great value even if he isn't quite a superstar anymore. But the other important thing to notice about the last year of a contract is that Green's got more motivation to perform this year than in the last few, so maybe he will start to look like a superstar again.
Of course, the Caps have also wisely recognized this offseason that a Druce-like player would really help them succeed. Enter Joel Ward who just went from total anonymity to national heroism after posting thirteen points over twelve games in just his second NHL postseason. Ward has shown he can have the same kind of explosive breakout year as Druce when it counts, in pursuit of a championship.
Now lets just hope he can follow up on his star turn better than Druce, who went on to average 1 point per season in six more playoff years with Washington and Philadelphia. With six points in his last thirty-seven playoff matches, John Druce should really make us hope Joel Ward is no John Druce. Given that Ward managed four points in six games in 2010, he's already a lot more consistent than Druce, so we have good reason to hope, in spite of their similarities.
Friday, July 15, 2011
The Sun Isn't Yellow. It's Smilodon.
Somebody needs to put David Poile in touch with Stacy and Clinton.
When Poile was with the Caps, their uniforms took a screaming nose-dive from a respectable, if dated text logo to an eagle falling on its face, over a teal background.
Poile found better sartorial company in Nashville, but they've just moved to yellow-on-yellow.
It reminds me of the time my big sister and I dressed up as Batman and Robin, and she was able to halfway make a batman costume with her five-year-old's crafts skills, but I basically spent the day running around in a pair of yellow shorts and a yellow bed sheet.In order for this uniform to look good on you, you have to be a building. Not just any building, but a tall, angular building constructed entirely out of tinted windows. That is how cool you have to be to pull this sweater off in public. A single pair of sunglasses will not suffice. A helmet and ice skates?
Those won't help either. Seriously, walk around your local mall and count all the people wearing heavy, rubber-lined plastic helmets. I bet you won't run out of fingers, even if you only use your littlest one.
That's just not what the kids are into these days. A helmet won't help you look normal in khakis and a polo shirt. A helmet with a cage over your face won't make you look cool in a three piece suit. The face cage might call to mind dogs with biting problems or circus bears, but it certainly won't help you pull off a pair of yellow plastic pajamas.
Sorry. The sabre tooth tiger is kind of cool. But it's not helping you look like a grown up, either.
It's a surprise that fashion mishaps would follow Poile around so steadily. I've always counted on him for fashion advice. He's basically famous for using appearance to improve people's perceptions. After all, Poile is famous for becoming the youngest general manager in the history of the NHL by growing a moustache before the interview to look older.
Boyd Has The Right Attitude, But He'll Learn.
In sports interviews, players routinely drool out so many streams of the same cliches that experienced reporters often don't even bother attending. It was for this reason that Washington Post sent hockey-beat newcomer Shermar Woods to talk to prospect Travis Boyd today at development camp, while I followed Post hockey writer Katie Carrera's lead and stayed home.
Woods did a great job and got an unusual quote from this year's sixth round pick, Travis Boyd. Boyd told Woods that he's just having fun, playing some hockey and not worrying about making the Capitals lineup.
After falling asleep reading through daily Cody Eakin interviews where the hopeful fifth line center tells us again and again about his drive, determination and competitiveness to make a team that added three outside veterans this summer and totally doesn't need him, it's nice to see someone who understands the lay of the land and isn't worried about it.
Additionally, Boyd should not worry about making the Capitals. If he did play in the NHL this year, he'd lose his eligibility to play for the Minnesota Golden Gophers, a team that developed current NHL players like Phil Kessel, Blake Wheeler, Erik Johnson, Alex Goligoski. He's already graduated from the US National Development Team, which has helped train Johnson, Patrick Kane, James Van Riemsdyk and forty other NHL players.
While a sixth round pick normally has less than a snowball's chance in Atlanta of making the NHL, Travis Boyd is in very good company. He obviously needs to give every chance to play hockey his full attention and learn all that he can, but it's refreshing for once to hear someone who isn't going to make the NHL acknowledge that fact and put it in a positive light.
Incidentally, another former Golden Gopher who has a way-outside chance of making the Caps out of training camp is Ryan Potulny. Potulny has mostly played in the AHL and is likely to end up in Hershey this year, but he put up fifteen goals with Edmonton in 09-10 and has a total of 49 points in 126 games. If Boyd can follow a similar development path, he will greatly exceed the expectations of a typical sixth round draft pick. If not, no one will be surprised or disappointed, so why shouldn't he have fun along the way?
Woods did a great job and got an unusual quote from this year's sixth round pick, Travis Boyd. Boyd told Woods that he's just having fun, playing some hockey and not worrying about making the Capitals lineup.
After falling asleep reading through daily Cody Eakin interviews where the hopeful fifth line center tells us again and again about his drive, determination and competitiveness to make a team that added three outside veterans this summer and totally doesn't need him, it's nice to see someone who understands the lay of the land and isn't worried about it.
Additionally, Boyd should not worry about making the Capitals. If he did play in the NHL this year, he'd lose his eligibility to play for the Minnesota Golden Gophers, a team that developed current NHL players like Phil Kessel, Blake Wheeler, Erik Johnson, Alex Goligoski. He's already graduated from the US National Development Team, which has helped train Johnson, Patrick Kane, James Van Riemsdyk and forty other NHL players.
While a sixth round pick normally has less than a snowball's chance in Atlanta of making the NHL, Travis Boyd is in very good company. He obviously needs to give every chance to play hockey his full attention and learn all that he can, but it's refreshing for once to hear someone who isn't going to make the NHL acknowledge that fact and put it in a positive light.
Incidentally, another former Golden Gopher who has a way-outside chance of making the Caps out of training camp is Ryan Potulny. Potulny has mostly played in the AHL and is likely to end up in Hershey this year, but he put up fifteen goals with Edmonton in 09-10 and has a total of 49 points in 126 games. If Boyd can follow a similar development path, he will greatly exceed the expectations of a typical sixth round draft pick. If not, no one will be surprised or disappointed, so why shouldn't he have fun along the way?
Burning a Hole
Assuming, as the rest of the hockey press are assuming, that Tom Poti is out for the regular season, the Caps have two million dollars to spend on one or two NHL free agents. They've just signed Karl Alzner to a two year deal paying less, over both years, than the three million most writers expected Alzner was asking for per year, given his high draft status, solid play and leadership experience as captain of the Canadian team in the World Junior Championship.
If Poti does miss this regular season, the Caps have Alzner to thank now for two million dollars in salary cap space. That could be enough to sign one or two more solid veteran leaders now, or it could be room to trade for two or three such players at the trade deadline.
The salary cap only counts dollars spent on actual paychecks to healthy players, not total contract values. If the Caps wait three quarters of the season and save those two million, they can afford to pick up players whose annual salaries total eight million.
However, as we saw last year, eight million dollars of annual salary for expendable veterans from non-playoff teams might get you a few overpaid players who have seriously underperformed all season. Maybe a Jason Arnott suddenly finds his rhythm and gives you a few great weeks before tapering back off again, but just as often a Marco Sturm continues slumping in a new environment, or a Scott Hannan plays slightly better on a better team, but not well enough to carry them through the playoffs single-handedly. Hannan and Sturm earned a combined 7.5 million dollars last year, but each of them, sadly, played like a million dollars.
The Caps strategy so far this summer seems to be finding veterans who are interested in being part of a bona fide Stanley Cup contender at affordable price tags. They've already publicly said that they're looking to add such players at the start of the year and give them a chance to acclimate to the team and its strategies. Maybe two million dollars buys one or two more good players who can help a little bit and, when the playoffs roll around, play like a little more than a million dollars each
The Capitals don't have a lot of holes to fill, and it's unusual for teams to carry more qualified veterans than can fit on a twenty-man roster card, but the team has said in the last few days that it took a few steps back last year with the amount of youth it brought on, so a reaction in the opposite direction may be possible.
As it currently stands, three qualified rookie-ish players are auditioning for the fourth/fifth center spot on this club: Mathieu Perreault, Mattias Sjogren and Cody Eakin. Most teams do like to give their young players some space to develop each season. Still, great teams have depth to make up for injuries, and this year's available un-signed veteran centers still include Vincent Prospal, John Madden, Kris Draper, Brendan Morrison and Brian Sutherby.
There are also still some decent defensemen available to add depth to this club, including Craig Rivet, Radek Martinek, Bryan McCabe, Niclas Wallin, Brent Sopel, Hannan and Steve Eminger.
Some of the players listed above wouldn't be blamed for questioning whether to sign for under two million dollars to try to win a Cup in Washington, which may be incredibly stacked with the Vokoun signing, but has never won one before.
Eminger and Sutherby are of slight interest because they are two former Washington first round draft picks who made a combined salary of about two million dollars last year. They were each underwhelming in their final seasons as Caps, but maybe they've picked up some experience as they've traveled the league? With so little to spend, they're not top priorities, but at the right price they'd offer solid help and provide a calming presence in the press box.
Madden and Draper may be too old to still lift their copious collections of championship rings, but they can probably each still win some faceoffs and kill some penalties. Prospal and Morrison are each quite talented and capable of playing as second-line centers, but old enough and injured often enough to accept different roles.
Rivet and Hannan may be the best of the bunch through last November, but they each earned around four million dollars last year and each was basically invisible by mid-April. For a million or less, each could be an ideal 7th/8th defenseman on a contender, but no team would insult either established rearguard with such a low offer. They'd have to pick up the phone and dial on their own.
Who else is still available? Former-future-star Nikolay Zherdev only earned about two million last year. Zherdev was Ovechkin's line-mate before they crossed the pond, but Nikolay is such a jerk he didn't fit in with the Blue Jackets, the Rangers or even the Flyers, who are basically the NHL's jerk store. Also, Zherdev repordedly Elin Nordegrened his wife's Bentley in the middle of a busy intersection this year, so he's probably not the strong communicator to come in and help the Caps work together as a team.
Former Caps captain Chris Clark is also still on the market, but his salary is also still inflated from his days playing on Ovechkin's line, as well. Last year, Clark earned 2.6 million and scored fifteen points. When he used to clear space in the corners for the Great Eight, Clark topped out at thirty goals and fifty-four points.
He's not likely to oust Knuble or Laich for another chance in that role, so his value to the Caps now is closer to that of Jason Chimera, the third/fourth liner he was traded for. The Caps are pretty stacked at right wing now, with newcomers Troy Brouwer and Joel Ward pushing Laich, Knuble and enforcer Matt Hendricks for minutes, but Clark has given a lot of teeth to this franchise, and is beloved by its fan base.
If Poti does miss this regular season, the Caps have Alzner to thank now for two million dollars in salary cap space. That could be enough to sign one or two more solid veteran leaders now, or it could be room to trade for two or three such players at the trade deadline.
The salary cap only counts dollars spent on actual paychecks to healthy players, not total contract values. If the Caps wait three quarters of the season and save those two million, they can afford to pick up players whose annual salaries total eight million.
However, as we saw last year, eight million dollars of annual salary for expendable veterans from non-playoff teams might get you a few overpaid players who have seriously underperformed all season. Maybe a Jason Arnott suddenly finds his rhythm and gives you a few great weeks before tapering back off again, but just as often a Marco Sturm continues slumping in a new environment, or a Scott Hannan plays slightly better on a better team, but not well enough to carry them through the playoffs single-handedly. Hannan and Sturm earned a combined 7.5 million dollars last year, but each of them, sadly, played like a million dollars.
The Caps strategy so far this summer seems to be finding veterans who are interested in being part of a bona fide Stanley Cup contender at affordable price tags. They've already publicly said that they're looking to add such players at the start of the year and give them a chance to acclimate to the team and its strategies. Maybe two million dollars buys one or two more good players who can help a little bit and, when the playoffs roll around, play like a little more than a million dollars each
The Capitals don't have a lot of holes to fill, and it's unusual for teams to carry more qualified veterans than can fit on a twenty-man roster card, but the team has said in the last few days that it took a few steps back last year with the amount of youth it brought on, so a reaction in the opposite direction may be possible.
As it currently stands, three qualified rookie-ish players are auditioning for the fourth/fifth center spot on this club: Mathieu Perreault, Mattias Sjogren and Cody Eakin. Most teams do like to give their young players some space to develop each season. Still, great teams have depth to make up for injuries, and this year's available un-signed veteran centers still include Vincent Prospal, John Madden, Kris Draper, Brendan Morrison and Brian Sutherby.
There are also still some decent defensemen available to add depth to this club, including Craig Rivet, Radek Martinek, Bryan McCabe, Niclas Wallin, Brent Sopel, Hannan and Steve Eminger.
Some of the players listed above wouldn't be blamed for questioning whether to sign for under two million dollars to try to win a Cup in Washington, which may be incredibly stacked with the Vokoun signing, but has never won one before.
Eminger and Sutherby are of slight interest because they are two former Washington first round draft picks who made a combined salary of about two million dollars last year. They were each underwhelming in their final seasons as Caps, but maybe they've picked up some experience as they've traveled the league? With so little to spend, they're not top priorities, but at the right price they'd offer solid help and provide a calming presence in the press box.
Madden and Draper may be too old to still lift their copious collections of championship rings, but they can probably each still win some faceoffs and kill some penalties. Prospal and Morrison are each quite talented and capable of playing as second-line centers, but old enough and injured often enough to accept different roles.
Rivet and Hannan may be the best of the bunch through last November, but they each earned around four million dollars last year and each was basically invisible by mid-April. For a million or less, each could be an ideal 7th/8th defenseman on a contender, but no team would insult either established rearguard with such a low offer. They'd have to pick up the phone and dial on their own.
Who else is still available? Former-future-star Nikolay Zherdev only earned about two million last year. Zherdev was Ovechkin's line-mate before they crossed the pond, but Nikolay is such a jerk he didn't fit in with the Blue Jackets, the Rangers or even the Flyers, who are basically the NHL's jerk store. Also, Zherdev repordedly Elin Nordegrened his wife's Bentley in the middle of a busy intersection this year, so he's probably not the strong communicator to come in and help the Caps work together as a team.
Former Caps captain Chris Clark is also still on the market, but his salary is also still inflated from his days playing on Ovechkin's line, as well. Last year, Clark earned 2.6 million and scored fifteen points. When he used to clear space in the corners for the Great Eight, Clark topped out at thirty goals and fifty-four points.
He's not likely to oust Knuble or Laich for another chance in that role, so his value to the Caps now is closer to that of Jason Chimera, the third/fourth liner he was traded for. The Caps are pretty stacked at right wing now, with newcomers Troy Brouwer and Joel Ward pushing Laich, Knuble and enforcer Matt Hendricks for minutes, but Clark has given a lot of teeth to this franchise, and is beloved by its fan base.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Marty St. Louis mistakenly given wrong trophy.
The Hockey Writers Association gave this year's Lady Byng trophy for gentlemanly play to Martin St. Louis? Dude is 5'6". What's he gonna do, anyway?
When the smallest man in a full contact hockey league is consistently near it's top scorers, I'd celebrate the gentlemanly play of his opponents.
That's not to say it doesn't take guts to play full contact ice hockey against guys twice your size. But the award for perseverance is called the Masterton trophy.
Nice one, Hockey Writers...
When the smallest man in a full contact hockey league is consistently near it's top scorers, I'd celebrate the gentlemanly play of his opponents.
That's not to say it doesn't take guts to play full contact ice hockey against guys twice your size. But the award for perseverance is called the Masterton trophy.
Nice one, Hockey Writers...
Dear Dany Heatley, Thanks so much. Love, your BFF, Winnipeg
My old friend and the captain of my first roller hockey team, Josh Marks, made a strong case this spring for the viability and importance of Atlanta as an NHL City. As the ninth largest market in the US (and one of the fastest growing over the last couple decades), Atlanta is one of the more important places a league trying to build itself up in the US should concentrate its marketing efforts.
Now that a second NHL franchise has left Atlanta for Canada with its ready-made hockey fans and ubiquitous instant ice (just add water), it becomes clear that the NHL is not trying to market itself to the US in any organized fashion.
NHL owners see expansion as a chance to collect expansion fees from new investors. They don't see the potential to increase TV market share and build themselves up to a regular network tv event. A new franchise in the NHL means nothing to the existing teams. In fact, as the move from Quebec to Colorado in the early nineties showed, even an old franchise doesn't mean too much to its fellows.
As such, an NHL stands or falls based on the players it drafts and the teams it builds around them. The Atlanta Thrashers were lucky enough to draft Dany Heatley and Ilya Kovalchuck, to top choices who panned out perfectly as star players capable of elevating the status of their team. Unfortunately, those teams haven't been in Atlanta.
After Heatley killed one of his teammates in a drunk driving accident, he requested a trade to a contender and helped the Ottawa Senators reach the Finals. Kovalchuck hung on for a few years in the South before signing a huge contract with the New Jersey Devils. The Devils haven't won a playoff round with Kovalchuck, either, but at least New Jersey now has the status of the team Kovalchuck chose to sign a $100 million contract with. That's better than Atlanta, where after almost a decade with hardly any solid players around him, Kovalchuck passed up a $101 million contract.
To the average fan in Atlanta, that has to send a bit of a message.
The Capitals, by contrast, have been very lucky with their most recent high draft picks. Alex Ovechkin was drafted by the Capitals, enjoys playing in Washington and signed a long-term, hundred million dollar deal to stay in Washington without really looking at other teams. He's showed flashes of playoff brilliance and has the potential to win it all one day with the team that picked him and built itself carefully and conscientiously around him.
When Ovechkin works well with someone, that person stays on the team. When it looks like people can't quite keep up with all of his brilliant moves, they go somewhere else. So to some extent the strength of the current team in Washington is a matter of good management. But it also has a lot to do with building around a star who is strong enough to hold the team together and lead it.
While Dany Heatley's desire to leave Atlanta and start over somewhere new after killing his friend and totaling a new Ferrari in a drunk driving accident is somewhat understandable, it's a lot nicer to cheer for a top athlete who knows how to pick a designated driver.
Now that a second NHL franchise has left Atlanta for Canada with its ready-made hockey fans and ubiquitous instant ice (just add water), it becomes clear that the NHL is not trying to market itself to the US in any organized fashion.
NHL owners see expansion as a chance to collect expansion fees from new investors. They don't see the potential to increase TV market share and build themselves up to a regular network tv event. A new franchise in the NHL means nothing to the existing teams. In fact, as the move from Quebec to Colorado in the early nineties showed, even an old franchise doesn't mean too much to its fellows.
As such, an NHL stands or falls based on the players it drafts and the teams it builds around them. The Atlanta Thrashers were lucky enough to draft Dany Heatley and Ilya Kovalchuck, to top choices who panned out perfectly as star players capable of elevating the status of their team. Unfortunately, those teams haven't been in Atlanta.
After Heatley killed one of his teammates in a drunk driving accident, he requested a trade to a contender and helped the Ottawa Senators reach the Finals. Kovalchuck hung on for a few years in the South before signing a huge contract with the New Jersey Devils. The Devils haven't won a playoff round with Kovalchuck, either, but at least New Jersey now has the status of the team Kovalchuck chose to sign a $100 million contract with. That's better than Atlanta, where after almost a decade with hardly any solid players around him, Kovalchuck passed up a $101 million contract.
To the average fan in Atlanta, that has to send a bit of a message.
The Capitals, by contrast, have been very lucky with their most recent high draft picks. Alex Ovechkin was drafted by the Capitals, enjoys playing in Washington and signed a long-term, hundred million dollar deal to stay in Washington without really looking at other teams. He's showed flashes of playoff brilliance and has the potential to win it all one day with the team that picked him and built itself carefully and conscientiously around him.
When Ovechkin works well with someone, that person stays on the team. When it looks like people can't quite keep up with all of his brilliant moves, they go somewhere else. So to some extent the strength of the current team in Washington is a matter of good management. But it also has a lot to do with building around a star who is strong enough to hold the team together and lead it.
While Dany Heatley's desire to leave Atlanta and start over somewhere new after killing his friend and totaling a new Ferrari in a drunk driving accident is somewhat understandable, it's a lot nicer to cheer for a top athlete who knows how to pick a designated driver.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Laich Gets A Shot At The Big Time
I was reading a terrific blog post by Paddy Miller on the significance of the big, long-term contract the Caps gave Brooks Laich. I realized, for all of my talk about reading tea leaves, I hadn't yet picked up on the obvious significance of the biggest deal the Caps gave out this year: Brooks Laich is the Caps' first line right wing.
Down the stretch last year, Knuble got a few looks on the second and third lines. Lach has had occasional shifts with Ovechkin, mostly on the power play. But he's never had the chance to play top line minutes full time, because the team had too much to lose.
The last time the Caps put young players with free agency ahead of them on Ovechkin's line, those players put up career years and signed big free agent contracts elsewhere. Jeff Halpern is finally back in a Caps uniform, eight million dollars richer. Brian Willsie is back, and helping out in Hershey. Dainius Zubrus may retire in New Jersey.
This phenomenon isn't unique to the Capitals. Sidney Crosby's best young wingers, Ryan Malone and Colby Armstrong, are now raking in high dollars in other towns. Malone even helped knock the Penguins out of the 2011 playoffs. The Penguins usually avoid this loss of young talent by signing only guys on the edge of retirement to play with Crosby, and the Caps have copied that with Mike Knuble, but even that doesn't always work for Pittsburgh. Crosby's first overage accomplice, Mark Recchi, went on to play several more years after rejuvenating his value in Pittsburgh and didn't retire until he won another Stanley Cup with Boston this year.
Laich plays a similar game to Mike, who has played on Ovechkin's right for the last two years, but is likely to retire some year soon, somewhere. Laich could easily take over the role of an agitator in front of the net to tip in a couple rebounds off Ovechkin's constant shots. Laich is younger and a little bit faster right now than Knuble. While he'd have to gain thirty-five pounds to cut as imposing a figure in the crease, he may still have greater potential to become a perennial thirty goal scorer if he gets acclimated to playing with Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom. Laich's speed could also help get Ovechkin back over fifty goals a season.
Now that Laich is signed to play with the Capitals for the next six years, there is no threat of another team giving him a pay raise to leave town. The time is right. The future is here. Let's welcome Brooks Laich to the starting lineup of the Washington Capitals, now and for the next six years.
Down the stretch last year, Knuble got a few looks on the second and third lines. Lach has had occasional shifts with Ovechkin, mostly on the power play. But he's never had the chance to play top line minutes full time, because the team had too much to lose.
The last time the Caps put young players with free agency ahead of them on Ovechkin's line, those players put up career years and signed big free agent contracts elsewhere. Jeff Halpern is finally back in a Caps uniform, eight million dollars richer. Brian Willsie is back, and helping out in Hershey. Dainius Zubrus may retire in New Jersey.
This phenomenon isn't unique to the Capitals. Sidney Crosby's best young wingers, Ryan Malone and Colby Armstrong, are now raking in high dollars in other towns. Malone even helped knock the Penguins out of the 2011 playoffs. The Penguins usually avoid this loss of young talent by signing only guys on the edge of retirement to play with Crosby, and the Caps have copied that with Mike Knuble, but even that doesn't always work for Pittsburgh. Crosby's first overage accomplice, Mark Recchi, went on to play several more years after rejuvenating his value in Pittsburgh and didn't retire until he won another Stanley Cup with Boston this year.
Laich plays a similar game to Mike, who has played on Ovechkin's right for the last two years, but is likely to retire some year soon, somewhere. Laich could easily take over the role of an agitator in front of the net to tip in a couple rebounds off Ovechkin's constant shots. Laich is younger and a little bit faster right now than Knuble. While he'd have to gain thirty-five pounds to cut as imposing a figure in the crease, he may still have greater potential to become a perennial thirty goal scorer if he gets acclimated to playing with Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom. Laich's speed could also help get Ovechkin back over fifty goals a season.
Now that Laich is signed to play with the Capitals for the next six years, there is no threat of another team giving him a pay raise to leave town. The time is right. The future is here. Let's welcome Brooks Laich to the starting lineup of the Washington Capitals, now and for the next six years.
Monday, July 11, 2011
A conclusion that refutes its own argument.
It's fun to write about sports. In this internet age, anybody can publish an essay about sports. You can say anything you want to. You can say that your favorite team is better than another team. You can say that your favorite team would be better if they gave more opportunities to your favorite player. People will read anything.
This is why you have a responsibility to think your thoughts through before you publish them. It's okay to write multiple drafts. It's alright to change your thesis. Until the public sees it, there's no shame in completely switching up the direction of your article when you realize that you've written something completely absurd.
But when you publish seven pages on whether the Caps should get rid of Jeff Schultz or Alexander Semin in order to make room for the free agent signing of a thirty-eight year old John Madden, well, you've got only yourself to blame.
John Madden is a consistent fourth line center who has been part of three championship teams. Last year he scored ten goals while missing the playoffs with the Minnesota Wild.
Schultz has led all NHL defensemen in plus/minus, the stat that measures whether a player helps his team outscore the opposition during the time he is on the ice. Schultz is the biggest player on the Capitals and is just entering his prime. On a third defensive pairing with Dennis Wideman, Schultz is certainly an asset who will help the Capitals in the playoffs.
Semin is a great player. He is entirely unreplaceable with any currently available free agent. Ten years ago, yes, you'd rather have Alexei Kovalev than a teenage Semin, but right now, you wouldn't want to trade him without getting an equivalent offensive player.
The Lightning get a lot of credit for being tough and having "role players" who contribute, but back when Barry Melrose was their general manager, it was often pointed out that he was putting together an all-star team for 2001. The Lightning didn't beat the Caps because they had a bunch of scrappy ne'er do-wells and a strong game plan. The Lightning won because they got secondary scoring from guys like Ryan Malone and Simon Gagne who used to provide primary scoring on better teams.
The Caps have already overhauled their supporting cast. They've already brought in Troy Brouwer to bring a perspective on how the Chicago Blackhawks won their most recent Stanley Cup. They've tried bringing in Jason Arnott to tell their youngsters tales of the New Jersey Devils' championship strategies, and that didn't get them far. They've brought in a veteran defensive center to anchor their checking line in Jeff Halpern. What else Can Madden offer Washington?
If John Madden wants to join the Caps as a thirty-eight year old, he's not going to get a million dollars because he doesn't bring anything unique. He's welcome to ride shotgun on one more title run, but he's not going to force the Caps to trade away a former first round pick who has panned out roughly as expected in either Schultz or Semin.
Madden's skillful role playing could certainly find a spot in the Caps' lineup come playoff time, and a combination of Madden and Halpern could win as many faceoffs and kill more penalties than the Caps' recent combination of Gordon and Steckel. But the Caps don't need to give up a chunk of the future of their blueline to get it. Madden just has to want to contend badly enough to take what's left at the edges of Washington's salary structure. It worked for Tomas Vokoun.
This is why you have a responsibility to think your thoughts through before you publish them. It's okay to write multiple drafts. It's alright to change your thesis. Until the public sees it, there's no shame in completely switching up the direction of your article when you realize that you've written something completely absurd.
But when you publish seven pages on whether the Caps should get rid of Jeff Schultz or Alexander Semin in order to make room for the free agent signing of a thirty-eight year old John Madden, well, you've got only yourself to blame.
John Madden is a consistent fourth line center who has been part of three championship teams. Last year he scored ten goals while missing the playoffs with the Minnesota Wild.
Schultz has led all NHL defensemen in plus/minus, the stat that measures whether a player helps his team outscore the opposition during the time he is on the ice. Schultz is the biggest player on the Capitals and is just entering his prime. On a third defensive pairing with Dennis Wideman, Schultz is certainly an asset who will help the Capitals in the playoffs.
Semin is a great player. He is entirely unreplaceable with any currently available free agent. Ten years ago, yes, you'd rather have Alexei Kovalev than a teenage Semin, but right now, you wouldn't want to trade him without getting an equivalent offensive player.
The Lightning get a lot of credit for being tough and having "role players" who contribute, but back when Barry Melrose was their general manager, it was often pointed out that he was putting together an all-star team for 2001. The Lightning didn't beat the Caps because they had a bunch of scrappy ne'er do-wells and a strong game plan. The Lightning won because they got secondary scoring from guys like Ryan Malone and Simon Gagne who used to provide primary scoring on better teams.
The Caps have already overhauled their supporting cast. They've already brought in Troy Brouwer to bring a perspective on how the Chicago Blackhawks won their most recent Stanley Cup. They've tried bringing in Jason Arnott to tell their youngsters tales of the New Jersey Devils' championship strategies, and that didn't get them far. They've brought in a veteran defensive center to anchor their checking line in Jeff Halpern. What else Can Madden offer Washington?
If John Madden wants to join the Caps as a thirty-eight year old, he's not going to get a million dollars because he doesn't bring anything unique. He's welcome to ride shotgun on one more title run, but he's not going to force the Caps to trade away a former first round pick who has panned out roughly as expected in either Schultz or Semin.
Madden's skillful role playing could certainly find a spot in the Caps' lineup come playoff time, and a combination of Madden and Halpern could win as many faceoffs and kill more penalties than the Caps' recent combination of Gordon and Steckel. But the Caps don't need to give up a chunk of the future of their blueline to get it. Madden just has to want to contend badly enough to take what's left at the edges of Washington's salary structure. It worked for Tomas Vokoun.
Slight Overstatement of the Day 2: Caps Focus on Keeping Alzner
After shedding Fehr’s salary, Caps’ focus shifts to keeping Alzner
So claims the headline in the Washington Times.Actually, the Caps are probably a little more focused on their development camp, where they are spending this week evaluating a lot of potential future Capitals.
Alzner is a restricted free agent. In hundreds of restricted free agencies, only one player has changed hands by signing an unmatched offer sheet. Only six offer sheets have even been submitted.
While every team in the NHL would love to have Karl Alzner, the only way they could get him through restricted free agency would be to sign him to a contract the Capitals could not match. That would have to be for enough money that they'd wind up giving back three or four high draft choices. If a team was looking to give up that much, they could probably find a better deal by just trading for Alzner.
Since no trades have materialized, it's reasonably safe to assume that the restrictions have trumped the free agency in this case. That means that all the Caps have to do is give Alzner enough of a raise that he feels valued and wants to stay in Washington the next time he is a free agent. By trading away Eric Fehr, they have made room to do this.
Now all that remains is the formality of letting Alzner and his decline a paltry qualifying offer so they can feel like they've got all the leverage they can get out of the situation. Then the two sides wait another week or so, sit down together, meet in the middle of their salary expectations, and give the kid a couple million dollars a year to play a really fun game on a world-class team.
Capitals sign Paul Newman
Oh wait. He's not playing this year. But the Caps will have the league's largest collection of Slapshot movie memorabilia this year. It was funny enough that their coach, Bruce Boudreau, had played as an extra in some of the hockey scenes.
Now the Caps have signed Christian Hanson, whose father Dave played one of the Hanson brothers, the three notorious goons who clear enough room on the ice for the Chiefs' one good player to score a goal at the end of each game.
Hanson joins Danny Richmond as one of Hershey's new veterans this year with over a half a season of NHL experience. For all that the Caps talk about building their own talent, and for all that they really do develop their own draft picks successfully, they've also done a marvelous job since their affiliation with Hershey began of signing guys who have had decent but not overwhelming auditions with other teams.
Tyler Sloan, until his trade request and subsequent buyout, was a great example. Matt Hendricks remains one. Keith Aucoin, who has chipped in nine points in twenty-two games with the Capitals is another of the best.
Now the Caps have signed Christian Hanson, whose father Dave played one of the Hanson brothers, the three notorious goons who clear enough room on the ice for the Chiefs' one good player to score a goal at the end of each game.
Hanson joins Danny Richmond as one of Hershey's new veterans this year with over a half a season of NHL experience. For all that the Caps talk about building their own talent, and for all that they really do develop their own draft picks successfully, they've also done a marvelous job since their affiliation with Hershey began of signing guys who have had decent but not overwhelming auditions with other teams.
Tyler Sloan, until his trade request and subsequent buyout, was a great example. Matt Hendricks remains one. Keith Aucoin, who has chipped in nine points in twenty-two games with the Capitals is another of the best.
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Semin, Green both still in town.
Yesterday The Hockey News suggested the Caps may have to trade Alexander Semin or Mike Green to fit Karl Alzner into the salary cap. Semin's six million dollar salary would certainly leave room for Alzner's expected three million dollar paycheck, but it's a bit of a relief the see the Caps were able to clear enough cap space instead by trading away Eric Fehr.
While Fehr has long maintained the promise of becoming a key goal scorer in high-pressure situations, Semin has actually performed that feat at the NHL level a lot more often. Really, it's the results at the NHL level that matter.
In the same day, Winnipeg traded away Angelo Esposito, a kid who led the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League in scoring when he still had another year left of junior eligibility. Esposito was the consensus #1 overall draft pick going into his draft year, but he struggled as an eighteen year old to replicate his previous success. In the draft, he slid down to the end of the first round, where the Pittsburgh Penguins picked him up. He wound up in Atlanta as the key component in a trade for superstar Marian Hossa.
But Esposito didn't play a single game in Atlanta, either. Now that he's been traded to Florida for a forward who scored three points in thirty-three NHL games last year, the Canadian Press headline reads simply, "Winnipeg Jets acquire Kendal McArdle from Florida for prospect." In the NHL, you're nobody until you're in the NHL.
Eric Fehr scored 59 goals in his final year of junior hockey, but by junior hockey standards he's no Angelo Esposito. Still, in the NHL, where Angelo Esposito is certainly no Eric Fehr, Eric Fehr is only the sum of what he has shown in the big league. With one twenty-goal season and a major shoulder injury every year, Fehr is okay, but it's much easier to keep a team going without him than without Semin or Green, who also struggle with injuries, but still manage to consistently produce point totals that would let them lead less talented clubs.
Now that the Caps have made a sacrifice to the salary cap, hopefully it will leave them alone and let them keep their great team together.
While Fehr has long maintained the promise of becoming a key goal scorer in high-pressure situations, Semin has actually performed that feat at the NHL level a lot more often. Really, it's the results at the NHL level that matter.
In the same day, Winnipeg traded away Angelo Esposito, a kid who led the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League in scoring when he still had another year left of junior eligibility. Esposito was the consensus #1 overall draft pick going into his draft year, but he struggled as an eighteen year old to replicate his previous success. In the draft, he slid down to the end of the first round, where the Pittsburgh Penguins picked him up. He wound up in Atlanta as the key component in a trade for superstar Marian Hossa.
But Esposito didn't play a single game in Atlanta, either. Now that he's been traded to Florida for a forward who scored three points in thirty-three NHL games last year, the Canadian Press headline reads simply, "Winnipeg Jets acquire Kendal McArdle from Florida for prospect." In the NHL, you're nobody until you're in the NHL.
Eric Fehr scored 59 goals in his final year of junior hockey, but by junior hockey standards he's no Angelo Esposito. Still, in the NHL, where Angelo Esposito is certainly no Eric Fehr, Eric Fehr is only the sum of what he has shown in the big league. With one twenty-goal season and a major shoulder injury every year, Fehr is okay, but it's much easier to keep a team going without him than without Semin or Green, who also struggle with injuries, but still manage to consistently produce point totals that would let them lead less talented clubs.
Now that the Caps have made a sacrifice to the salary cap, hopefully it will leave them alone and let them keep their great team together.
Caps Add Winnipeg's Coveted Fourth Round Pick, give up part-time right wing...
Well, okay. Maybe that pick wasn't the focus of the trade that sent Eric Fehr home to Manitoba in time for the first NHL hockey in his home province in a decade. The fourth round pick is likely to fall somewhere around 105th in the upcoming draft, giving the Capitals a strong chance of adding a young player who will never play in the National Hockey League. The Jets also threw in a player who is reportedly getting a lot of penalty minutes in the East Coast Hockey League.
Eric Fehr, a former first round draft pick, has overcome multiple shoulder injuries to score key goals in helping the Hershey Bears win a Calder Cup and put up 46 goals in the NHL, seven of them game winners. He's also added five goals and one assist in twenty-six playoff games--admittedly not stellar, but not too shabby for a team that struggles with playoff scoring.
As a fan, this trade kind of hurts. When you look at the reviews in the newspapers, you just kind of get the feeling that the Caps are giving up on a formerly bright prospect who has struggled with injuries. In the same summer that the Caps gave up of former first round pick and six foot seven defenseman Joe Finley, this reads like another reminder that it takes a lot to make it in the NHL and you never know who is going to contribute until they get there and make a difference.
I don't totally buy it. The Caps could easily have kept Fehr and Poti on injured reserve and stayed under the salary cap. They could have added Mike Green to IR for about the first seven games and had enough cap room to trade for Jason Arnott again at the deadline. This trade happened primarily because the Jets are making a concerted effort to stockpile native Manitobans (sp?) and Fehr, while average in the NHL due to repeated shoulder problems, was unstoppable from his childhood in Winkler, Man through his junior hockey days in Brandon, Man.
The trade works for the Capitals because they've more than replaced Fehr's clutch playoff scoring on the right wing by signing Joel Ward and Troy Brouwer, and because the prospect Winnipeg threw in, while still only proven in the ECHL, is the type of player the Caps need, especially after letting Steve Pinizzotto walk to Vancouver.
Danick Paquette is tougher than nails. While capable of scoring a few goals on each special team in juniors, Paquette is a fearless fighter. For his first bout in professional hockey, he took on Joe Finley. HockeyFights.com doesn't list a winner for that bout, but given that the 6'7" giant lost his job in the Caps system to the 6'0" two-way forward, I think we can safely give the decision to Paquette.
I think we can also safely say that Paquette will get a real chance in the AHL with Hershey this year, and a chance to play with the Caps in the future. The description of paquette on Hockey's Future calls him the "a perfect example of a player that teams love to have on their own side, but hate to play against."
Is this a fair return for Fehr, who still could turn into a regular twenty goal scorer in the NHL if he can ever stay healthy? Not really, but if Fehr stays injured every year, it's an incredible return, and the Caps currently have a lot of guys who can play right wing more consistently than Fehr. Mike Knuble and Alexander Semin often take shifts on the right side. Brouwer and Ward are comfortable on the right.
Fourth line right wing Matt Hendricks has yet to register a point in the NHL playoffs but managed to squeak into the lineup for seven games in the 2011 postseason, compared to Fehr's five. Incidentally, Fehr and Hendricks have each played 19 playoff games for the Hershey Bears, and each scored eight goals in that span. Hendricks also added four assists, compared to Fehr's three. That doesn't really take away from Fehr's stardom in juniors, but it does make it easier to think that the Caps can recover from losing him.
In the end, you'd think the Caps could have gotten a better return for a once highly regarded prospect, who is likely to end up as a regular on the Jets second line, but that's not entirely the point. The point here is that they've done the classiest thing possible, in looking at their plans for Eric Fehr, realizing he wasn't going to be a major star in Washington soon, and letting him go home to play a larger role in front of a crowd that already loves him.
It's also a matter of planning ahead. Fehr could easily have played out two more years in Washington and then gone to Winnipeg as an unrestricted free agent, giving the Caps nothing in return. Jets GM Tim Cheveldayoff says it's a coincidence that he's added three Manitobans in two weeks, but it's both an effective and a predictable way of strengthening his franchise by picking up players who are going to bleed blue.
Just as Jeff Halpern came home to play for the Capitals again as soon as they made an offer, Fehr was likely to end up in a Jets uniform sooner or later. By addressing the situation head-on, the Caps have solved their salary cap situation and added one tough player to their system and a pick that they can easily trade for veteran help later this year. They've also helped shore up the stability of hockey in Winnipeg, which is good for the whole league.
Eric Fehr, a former first round draft pick, has overcome multiple shoulder injuries to score key goals in helping the Hershey Bears win a Calder Cup and put up 46 goals in the NHL, seven of them game winners. He's also added five goals and one assist in twenty-six playoff games--admittedly not stellar, but not too shabby for a team that struggles with playoff scoring.
As a fan, this trade kind of hurts. When you look at the reviews in the newspapers, you just kind of get the feeling that the Caps are giving up on a formerly bright prospect who has struggled with injuries. In the same summer that the Caps gave up of former first round pick and six foot seven defenseman Joe Finley, this reads like another reminder that it takes a lot to make it in the NHL and you never know who is going to contribute until they get there and make a difference.
I don't totally buy it. The Caps could easily have kept Fehr and Poti on injured reserve and stayed under the salary cap. They could have added Mike Green to IR for about the first seven games and had enough cap room to trade for Jason Arnott again at the deadline. This trade happened primarily because the Jets are making a concerted effort to stockpile native Manitobans (sp?) and Fehr, while average in the NHL due to repeated shoulder problems, was unstoppable from his childhood in Winkler, Man through his junior hockey days in Brandon, Man.
The trade works for the Capitals because they've more than replaced Fehr's clutch playoff scoring on the right wing by signing Joel Ward and Troy Brouwer, and because the prospect Winnipeg threw in, while still only proven in the ECHL, is the type of player the Caps need, especially after letting Steve Pinizzotto walk to Vancouver.
Danick Paquette is tougher than nails. While capable of scoring a few goals on each special team in juniors, Paquette is a fearless fighter. For his first bout in professional hockey, he took on Joe Finley. HockeyFights.com doesn't list a winner for that bout, but given that the 6'7" giant lost his job in the Caps system to the 6'0" two-way forward, I think we can safely give the decision to Paquette.
I think we can also safely say that Paquette will get a real chance in the AHL with Hershey this year, and a chance to play with the Caps in the future. The description of paquette on Hockey's Future calls him the "a perfect example of a player that teams love to have on their own side, but hate to play against."
Is this a fair return for Fehr, who still could turn into a regular twenty goal scorer in the NHL if he can ever stay healthy? Not really, but if Fehr stays injured every year, it's an incredible return, and the Caps currently have a lot of guys who can play right wing more consistently than Fehr. Mike Knuble and Alexander Semin often take shifts on the right side. Brouwer and Ward are comfortable on the right.
Fourth line right wing Matt Hendricks has yet to register a point in the NHL playoffs but managed to squeak into the lineup for seven games in the 2011 postseason, compared to Fehr's five. Incidentally, Fehr and Hendricks have each played 19 playoff games for the Hershey Bears, and each scored eight goals in that span. Hendricks also added four assists, compared to Fehr's three. That doesn't really take away from Fehr's stardom in juniors, but it does make it easier to think that the Caps can recover from losing him.
In the end, you'd think the Caps could have gotten a better return for a once highly regarded prospect, who is likely to end up as a regular on the Jets second line, but that's not entirely the point. The point here is that they've done the classiest thing possible, in looking at their plans for Eric Fehr, realizing he wasn't going to be a major star in Washington soon, and letting him go home to play a larger role in front of a crowd that already loves him.
It's also a matter of planning ahead. Fehr could easily have played out two more years in Washington and then gone to Winnipeg as an unrestricted free agent, giving the Caps nothing in return. Jets GM Tim Cheveldayoff says it's a coincidence that he's added three Manitobans in two weeks, but it's both an effective and a predictable way of strengthening his franchise by picking up players who are going to bleed blue.
Just as Jeff Halpern came home to play for the Capitals again as soon as they made an offer, Fehr was likely to end up in a Jets uniform sooner or later. By addressing the situation head-on, the Caps have solved their salary cap situation and added one tough player to their system and a pick that they can easily trade for veteran help later this year. They've also helped shore up the stability of hockey in Winnipeg, which is good for the whole league.
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Divisional Divisions
Some Canadian newspaper takes the above wild guess at how the NHL will redraw its divisional map next summer, now that the Atlanta Thrashers (seriously, why didn't they just call them the Crackers? It's a little less awful.) have moved slightly north of Minnesota to become the second Winnipeg Jets.
While this theory has some advantages, it doesn't totally leverage them, from a Capitals perspective. Basically, this map puts all the league's eggs in the basket of the "East Division," with every team in that division a consistent competitor and frequent contender except for Toronto, who have won enough in the past that they still get plenty of attention whatever they do.
The obnoxiously mis-named "South Division," which includes both New York teams, is basically the Southeast division again, in that it is the sole and automatic property of the Washington Capitals. With the Capitals poised to contend for the Stanley Cup for the next several years, it seems somewhat foolish not to leverage the marketing power of Ovechkin in any hockey markets besides New York and Washington.
On top of that, in the United States, "The South" refers to a part of the country that went to war with the rest of the country because it thought it was okay for people to buy, sell and abuse (or, thrash) other people. Washington was actually the capital of "The North" and New York was the biggest industrial city in "The North." So, suggesting that these two cities anchor "The South" shows that the author of this picture has never actually heard of the United States.
On the other hand, under a different name, this divisional could be great for the Caps. With the implied return to a divisional playoff format, the Caps would only have to beat the Rangers and Tampa Bay each year to make it to the third round, while all but one of the Flyers, Penguins and Red Wings would take care of each other. Ovechkin and co. could basically idle until the last eight to fourteen games of each season.
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Brouwer Signed--Two years, Some Money
According to CBS and CapGeek, Troy Brouwer signed a two year, 4.7 million dollar contract with the Capitals. According to Fox Sports, he has signed to play the same two years, but earn a total of 5.7 million.
As with politics, so with sports...
The Caps only confirm that the contract is for two years.
Cap Geek writes that it will put the Capitals $1.8 million dollars over the salary cap. Teams are allowed to exceed the cap by up to 10% during the summer, and often do. Then they end up trading away the player of their choice for the best draft pick they can get.
Back when the Caps were not very good, they gave the New Jersey Devils a third round pick for Jeff Friesen, who proceded to play a lot of boring, unimpressive hockey, while wearing Peter Bondra's old number.
Now that the Caps are good, they may have to make such a sacrifice. The trouble is that the Capitals don't have a whole lot of non-essential veterans on expensive contracts. Who would you give up on?
Really? Tom Poti? What, just because he's injured for the foreseeable future, and the Caps did the same when Brian Pothier was injured indefinitely? Huh. No kidding. It certainly sounds like a possibility. But wouldn't they be just as happy to keep Poti on injured reserve so that his contract doesn't count against the cap until the playoffs start, like they did with Mike Green after last year's concussion, and briefly with Pothier as well? Yes, that certainly seems like a possibility, too.
Of course if the Caps count, say, Roman Hamrlik as Tom Poti's injury replacement until April, then Hammer's contract will only hit the cap for the amount that it exceeds Poti's deal. Since each player is inked at $3.5 million per season, the numbers should work out fairly nicely. Chances are that someone else will be injured before Poti gets better, so there might be a way to keep both veteran defensemen in town, but if Poti suddenly undergoes a miraculous recovery and won't sit out until the playoffs, the Caps are sure to find someone to trade for the veteran leader.
So, for now there is no cap crisis in this town. However, Karl Alzner is still a restricted free agent, and the Caps only have about two million dollars to sign the former captain of Canada's junior team. Mike Green may still have lingering concussion issues from the head injuries that kept him out of half of last year's regular season. If Green sits, the Caps are free to call anybody up to Alex Ovechkin his injury replacement, erasing Green's cap hit from the books until he returns. Green is set to earn $5.5 million this year, so in half a season of working out and clearing his head, he could give the Caps $2.75 million in salary cap room.
Alzner is good, but he isn't $4.5 million a year good. $3, maybe, but not close to $4. That means that, if the Caps are prepared to start the season with a defense of Alzner, Carlson, Wideman, Hamrlik, Schultz and Erskine, they may still have one million in cap room to pick up any free agent who expresses a strong enough interest in playing in the nation's capital.
Brendan Morrison and Scott Hannan, I know this doesn't look too appealing, economically, but from a hockey perspective, you have to admit you could do a lot worse. The economics start to work out next summer...
As with politics, so with sports...
The Caps only confirm that the contract is for two years.
Cap Geek writes that it will put the Capitals $1.8 million dollars over the salary cap. Teams are allowed to exceed the cap by up to 10% during the summer, and often do. Then they end up trading away the player of their choice for the best draft pick they can get.
Back when the Caps were not very good, they gave the New Jersey Devils a third round pick for Jeff Friesen, who proceded to play a lot of boring, unimpressive hockey, while wearing Peter Bondra's old number.
Now that the Caps are good, they may have to make such a sacrifice. The trouble is that the Capitals don't have a whole lot of non-essential veterans on expensive contracts. Who would you give up on?
Really? Tom Poti? What, just because he's injured for the foreseeable future, and the Caps did the same when Brian Pothier was injured indefinitely? Huh. No kidding. It certainly sounds like a possibility. But wouldn't they be just as happy to keep Poti on injured reserve so that his contract doesn't count against the cap until the playoffs start, like they did with Mike Green after last year's concussion, and briefly with Pothier as well? Yes, that certainly seems like a possibility, too.
Of course if the Caps count, say, Roman Hamrlik as Tom Poti's injury replacement until April, then Hammer's contract will only hit the cap for the amount that it exceeds Poti's deal. Since each player is inked at $3.5 million per season, the numbers should work out fairly nicely. Chances are that someone else will be injured before Poti gets better, so there might be a way to keep both veteran defensemen in town, but if Poti suddenly undergoes a miraculous recovery and won't sit out until the playoffs, the Caps are sure to find someone to trade for the veteran leader.
So, for now there is no cap crisis in this town. However, Karl Alzner is still a restricted free agent, and the Caps only have about two million dollars to sign the former captain of Canada's junior team. Mike Green may still have lingering concussion issues from the head injuries that kept him out of half of last year's regular season. If Green sits, the Caps are free to call anybody up to Alex Ovechkin his injury replacement, erasing Green's cap hit from the books until he returns. Green is set to earn $5.5 million this year, so in half a season of working out and clearing his head, he could give the Caps $2.75 million in salary cap room.
Alzner is good, but he isn't $4.5 million a year good. $3, maybe, but not close to $4. That means that, if the Caps are prepared to start the season with a defense of Alzner, Carlson, Wideman, Hamrlik, Schultz and Erskine, they may still have one million in cap room to pick up any free agent who expresses a strong enough interest in playing in the nation's capital.
Brendan Morrison and Scott Hannan, I know this doesn't look too appealing, economically, but from a hockey perspective, you have to admit you could do a lot worse. The economics start to work out next summer...
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
The Rich Get Rich. The Good Get Better.
The hockey media have resorted to hyperbole to explain how the Caps have gotten so lucky this week in their upgrade at goalie, but it's not luck at all, and the skill involved is mostly patience. The same "luck" has worked out this week for the Boston Bruins, as they "failed" to keep their second best defenseman.
In a sport like baseball, where the New York Yankees have a taxpayers subsidized stadium, the best TV deal in the history of ever for anything, and more money to spend than the rest of the league put together, you always know where the best players will end up. It's like the rest of the league is just playing to get scouted by New York. Hockey is decidedly not baseball.
In hockey, the New York Rangers have to compete in the same market with that sort of ridiculous economic absurdity, so they have to go out periodically and sign a bunch of overpriced free agents. Thankfully, under the salary cap, this keeps the Rangers from ever winning anything, because they always overpay for their best players, and while they do own their own lucrative cable network and certainly have money for other good players, they aren't allowed to spend it, because they're already at the cap with one or two superstars and a bunch of scrubs.
Before the salary cap, the NHL gave teams the right to match any offer to the players they had drafted or traded for until they were at least thirty years old, maybe older. In hockey years, thirty isn't quite seventy, but it's certainly over the hill. The Rangers were able to buy exactly one championship, back in 1994. That's the only one they've had since 1940.
Meanwhile, teams that are forced periodically, by economic and hockey phenomena, to field bad teams and collect the resulting high draft picks, can do a much better job of getting the players they need at a low cost.
This played out very well for the Capitals this week when they traded away Simeon Varlamov, a recent 24th overall pick of theirs, who was in great danger of leaving for Europe, to get the first and second round picks of the Colorado Avalanche. The Avalanche just finished twenty-ninth in the thirty team NHL, so the Caps hope their pick will be somewhere in the top five next year. If Varlamov had left for Europe, the Capitals would have gotten nothing but an earful from their fans and loyal media.
The Colorado Avalanche will pay Varlamov $8.5 million to play the next three seasons with them. For Colorado, this amounts to a significant savings over their only other option, of pursuing an unrestricted free agent starting goalie. To begin with, there were only two such players available this year. Philadelphia traded for early negotiating rights with one of them, and wound up paying Ilya Bryzgalov $56 million to play six years with them.
That narrowed the field to one candidate good enough to make Colorado into an average team. Tomas Vokoun had already been earning $5.7 million per year to play with the Florida Panthers. He's older than most of the Avalanche, so he probably wouldn't be a long-term solution, and his likely price tag of seven or eight million dollars per season might keep the Ave from being able to keep up with the salary needs of their young core of talented forwards.
Trading for Varlamov gave the Avalanche half as good a goalie as Vokoun at a third of the price. This helps them build their team and keep it together. Varlamov has less NHL experience, but he has represented Russia at all levels of international play, and he continues to grow. In his young NHL career, Varlamov has 30 wins, 11 losses and five over-time losses. In his first start, he shut out the Canadiens in Montreal. He has won a playoff series in relief for former MVP Jose Theodore. Trading two draft picks for such a good player was a great move for Colorado, given their position and their options. Objective media in Canada are praising Colorado for taking a risk in giving up a high pick to get such a great young goalie.
On the other hand, from where the Capitals sit, they have a great team, and they don't really need a great goalie. When Tomas Vokoun found out his job in Colorado was taken, he started looking around the league. Florida replaced him with the disgraced Theodore at 1.5 million per year. Vokoun had lost what fans and media call a game of musical chairs. Most teams are in long term commitments with one or two goalies, and dont' have room to take on a talented veteran.
So Vokoun realized he had to write off this year as far as earning money and look at it as a chance to prove himself capable of winning. Since he had been upstaged by Varlamov, and since he had spent several years playing in the Southeast Division, which is basically owned by the Capitals, Vokoun had two good reasons to want to come to Washington and prove himself. He not only gets to lord it over the Panthers who didn't sign him. He also gets to play behind the same offense and defense that helped Varlamov put up his stellar numbers.
NHL.com calmly writes that the Caps have an impressive, inexpensive duo of netminders, describing the combination of Vokoun and Michal Neuvirth as one of the best in the league and certainly the least expensive. This has Yahoo.com joking that Capitals general manager George McPhee must be blackmailing the entire league.
In fact, there is nothing behind the scenes and there is nothing unfair about this acquisition. The Capitals lost for several years in the early to mid Aughts and they drafted well as a result. They have since had a lot of talented players around, and managed them with a combination of patience and careful scouting. The same approach has worked for the Boston Bruins who just won the Stanley Cup.
When Boston won, they did their best to sign all their players within the salary cap. This is usually impossible for a Cup champion, because all of a champion's players are suddenly champions themselves, and can get raises for bringing that championship experience to any team that has not won a championship in the last couple years. The Bruins have kept all of their core players except for recently acquired defenseman Tomas Kaberle.
After a week of negotiations, Kaberle followed the money out of town to Carolina, signing a contract for three years and twelve and three quarters million dollars. Then the Carolina Hurricanes suddenly found themselves worried about how much they were spending on defensemen. They had to get rid of Joe Corvo, another offensive defenseman who is similarly one dimensional but who has not recently won a Stanley Cup. Looking around the league, the Hurricanes found out that the Boston Bruins were vaguely interested, and traded Corvo to the Bruins, who will pay him 2.5 million dollars to do the same job.
While Corvo is less expensive and less respected that Kaberle, they are basically interchangeable parts. Corvo scored 40 points this season playing with a non-playoff team. Kaberle scored 47 points, finishing the season with the Stanley Cup winner. Kaberle has 84 goals in his career, not bad for a defenseman. Corvo has 79. Kaberle is 6'1" and 198 lbs. Corvo is 6'0" and 204. So far, only their mothers could tell them apart.
Kaberle does have move than twice as many NHL assists, but Kaberle has also played almost twice as many NHL games. Corvo is a couple years younger and was drafted in the fourth round, when pretty good hockey players are often available. Kaberle is a little older and was drafted in the eighth round. The eighth round was so lame that the NHL has since cancelled it. Players who aren't picked in the first seven rounds just aren't worth the time it takes to sit and wait for teams to make up their minds.
So Boston loses a guy who started out completely unremarkable and went on to score about eighty goals from the blueline. In the same day, they pick up a guy who started out pretty respectable and went on to score about eighty goals from the blueline. Carolina just managed, through free agency, to get the same defenseman they had last year at twice the price. The difference form Carolina's perspective is that Kaberle had Stanley Cup experience and can mentor their other players.
From Boston's perspective, they have at least eighteen guys who can mentor and teach about what it's like to win a Stanley Cup. With what they just saved on their new power play quarterback, they also have the money to add another player or two to learn those lessons and help them try to repeat.
Sports with salary caps are very, very different from sports without salary caps. You don't just go out and get the best player you can. You have to get the best combination of players whose talents and personalities can work together. If you mess up any part of that recipe, you pretty much have to wait until the next summer to make big changes without getting totally ripped off. And even in the summer, when you're dealing with the successful teams, as Colorado and Carolina know too well right now, the best deal you can hope for is still going to feel like getting totally ripped off.
Oh, and the New York Rangers? After finishing eighth in the East, they just signed the best available free agent of the summer, Brad Richards. He's friends with their coach, and a former mainstay on the second line of their coach's old team, the Tampa Bay Lightning. He's under 6'2 but he plays somewhat physically and he has put up 220 goals and over four hundred and fifty assists in a long NHL career that has seen him play for good and bad teams in the East and in the West. Incidentally, that also describes the man he replaces in the center spot on the Rangers top line, Vaclav Prospal. The difference? Richards has seven fewer goals, one more Stanley Cup (one), one more season with eighty or more points (two) and about sixty million dollars more on his current contract. Prospal, in spite of the similar resume, remains unsigned after an abysmal 2010-11 campaign. Because the Rangers can't afford him. And no one else apparently thinks he's worth much.
In a sport like baseball, where the New York Yankees have a taxpayers subsidized stadium, the best TV deal in the history of ever for anything, and more money to spend than the rest of the league put together, you always know where the best players will end up. It's like the rest of the league is just playing to get scouted by New York. Hockey is decidedly not baseball.
In hockey, the New York Rangers have to compete in the same market with that sort of ridiculous economic absurdity, so they have to go out periodically and sign a bunch of overpriced free agents. Thankfully, under the salary cap, this keeps the Rangers from ever winning anything, because they always overpay for their best players, and while they do own their own lucrative cable network and certainly have money for other good players, they aren't allowed to spend it, because they're already at the cap with one or two superstars and a bunch of scrubs.
Before the salary cap, the NHL gave teams the right to match any offer to the players they had drafted or traded for until they were at least thirty years old, maybe older. In hockey years, thirty isn't quite seventy, but it's certainly over the hill. The Rangers were able to buy exactly one championship, back in 1994. That's the only one they've had since 1940.
Meanwhile, teams that are forced periodically, by economic and hockey phenomena, to field bad teams and collect the resulting high draft picks, can do a much better job of getting the players they need at a low cost.
This played out very well for the Capitals this week when they traded away Simeon Varlamov, a recent 24th overall pick of theirs, who was in great danger of leaving for Europe, to get the first and second round picks of the Colorado Avalanche. The Avalanche just finished twenty-ninth in the thirty team NHL, so the Caps hope their pick will be somewhere in the top five next year. If Varlamov had left for Europe, the Capitals would have gotten nothing but an earful from their fans and loyal media.
The Colorado Avalanche will pay Varlamov $8.5 million to play the next three seasons with them. For Colorado, this amounts to a significant savings over their only other option, of pursuing an unrestricted free agent starting goalie. To begin with, there were only two such players available this year. Philadelphia traded for early negotiating rights with one of them, and wound up paying Ilya Bryzgalov $56 million to play six years with them.
That narrowed the field to one candidate good enough to make Colorado into an average team. Tomas Vokoun had already been earning $5.7 million per year to play with the Florida Panthers. He's older than most of the Avalanche, so he probably wouldn't be a long-term solution, and his likely price tag of seven or eight million dollars per season might keep the Ave from being able to keep up with the salary needs of their young core of talented forwards.
Trading for Varlamov gave the Avalanche half as good a goalie as Vokoun at a third of the price. This helps them build their team and keep it together. Varlamov has less NHL experience, but he has represented Russia at all levels of international play, and he continues to grow. In his young NHL career, Varlamov has 30 wins, 11 losses and five over-time losses. In his first start, he shut out the Canadiens in Montreal. He has won a playoff series in relief for former MVP Jose Theodore. Trading two draft picks for such a good player was a great move for Colorado, given their position and their options. Objective media in Canada are praising Colorado for taking a risk in giving up a high pick to get such a great young goalie.
On the other hand, from where the Capitals sit, they have a great team, and they don't really need a great goalie. When Tomas Vokoun found out his job in Colorado was taken, he started looking around the league. Florida replaced him with the disgraced Theodore at 1.5 million per year. Vokoun had lost what fans and media call a game of musical chairs. Most teams are in long term commitments with one or two goalies, and dont' have room to take on a talented veteran.
So Vokoun realized he had to write off this year as far as earning money and look at it as a chance to prove himself capable of winning. Since he had been upstaged by Varlamov, and since he had spent several years playing in the Southeast Division, which is basically owned by the Capitals, Vokoun had two good reasons to want to come to Washington and prove himself. He not only gets to lord it over the Panthers who didn't sign him. He also gets to play behind the same offense and defense that helped Varlamov put up his stellar numbers.
NHL.com calmly writes that the Caps have an impressive, inexpensive duo of netminders, describing the combination of Vokoun and Michal Neuvirth as one of the best in the league and certainly the least expensive. This has Yahoo.com joking that Capitals general manager George McPhee must be blackmailing the entire league.
In fact, there is nothing behind the scenes and there is nothing unfair about this acquisition. The Capitals lost for several years in the early to mid Aughts and they drafted well as a result. They have since had a lot of talented players around, and managed them with a combination of patience and careful scouting. The same approach has worked for the Boston Bruins who just won the Stanley Cup.
When Boston won, they did their best to sign all their players within the salary cap. This is usually impossible for a Cup champion, because all of a champion's players are suddenly champions themselves, and can get raises for bringing that championship experience to any team that has not won a championship in the last couple years. The Bruins have kept all of their core players except for recently acquired defenseman Tomas Kaberle.
After a week of negotiations, Kaberle followed the money out of town to Carolina, signing a contract for three years and twelve and three quarters million dollars. Then the Carolina Hurricanes suddenly found themselves worried about how much they were spending on defensemen. They had to get rid of Joe Corvo, another offensive defenseman who is similarly one dimensional but who has not recently won a Stanley Cup. Looking around the league, the Hurricanes found out that the Boston Bruins were vaguely interested, and traded Corvo to the Bruins, who will pay him 2.5 million dollars to do the same job.
While Corvo is less expensive and less respected that Kaberle, they are basically interchangeable parts. Corvo scored 40 points this season playing with a non-playoff team. Kaberle scored 47 points, finishing the season with the Stanley Cup winner. Kaberle has 84 goals in his career, not bad for a defenseman. Corvo has 79. Kaberle is 6'1" and 198 lbs. Corvo is 6'0" and 204. So far, only their mothers could tell them apart.
Kaberle does have move than twice as many NHL assists, but Kaberle has also played almost twice as many NHL games. Corvo is a couple years younger and was drafted in the fourth round, when pretty good hockey players are often available. Kaberle is a little older and was drafted in the eighth round. The eighth round was so lame that the NHL has since cancelled it. Players who aren't picked in the first seven rounds just aren't worth the time it takes to sit and wait for teams to make up their minds.
So Boston loses a guy who started out completely unremarkable and went on to score about eighty goals from the blueline. In the same day, they pick up a guy who started out pretty respectable and went on to score about eighty goals from the blueline. Carolina just managed, through free agency, to get the same defenseman they had last year at twice the price. The difference form Carolina's perspective is that Kaberle had Stanley Cup experience and can mentor their other players.
From Boston's perspective, they have at least eighteen guys who can mentor and teach about what it's like to win a Stanley Cup. With what they just saved on their new power play quarterback, they also have the money to add another player or two to learn those lessons and help them try to repeat.
Sports with salary caps are very, very different from sports without salary caps. You don't just go out and get the best player you can. You have to get the best combination of players whose talents and personalities can work together. If you mess up any part of that recipe, you pretty much have to wait until the next summer to make big changes without getting totally ripped off. And even in the summer, when you're dealing with the successful teams, as Colorado and Carolina know too well right now, the best deal you can hope for is still going to feel like getting totally ripped off.
Oh, and the New York Rangers? After finishing eighth in the East, they just signed the best available free agent of the summer, Brad Richards. He's friends with their coach, and a former mainstay on the second line of their coach's old team, the Tampa Bay Lightning. He's under 6'2 but he plays somewhat physically and he has put up 220 goals and over four hundred and fifty assists in a long NHL career that has seen him play for good and bad teams in the East and in the West. Incidentally, that also describes the man he replaces in the center spot on the Rangers top line, Vaclav Prospal. The difference? Richards has seven fewer goals, one more Stanley Cup (one), one more season with eighty or more points (two) and about sixty million dollars more on his current contract. Prospal, in spite of the similar resume, remains unsigned after an abysmal 2010-11 campaign. Because the Rangers can't afford him. And no one else apparently thinks he's worth much.
Again, No Tears For Gordon
Ted Leonsis has a great blog post today pointing out, as I did a couple days ago, that he's been very honest about the amount of change he wanted to make with this team.
He also throws in a quick dig against Boyd Gordon. "Real winners," writes the Caps and Wizards owner, "want to compete for a Cup; and aren’t afraid to play on a team that is deep with talent."
Gordon saw that Jeff Halpern, a better player and a hometown kid from Bethesda, had signed with the Caps to compete for his traditional fourth line center spot on what is arguably the deepest Caps roster in history and one of the best clubs in the league. Instead of calling the team and offering to take a pay cut to stay in this exciting hockey town like elite goaltender Tomas Vokoun did the very next day, Boyd Gordon got himself a cost of living increase over his already inflated millionaire salary by going to play in Phoenix for two years.
The Phoenix Coyotes filed for bankruptcy little while ago and went up for sale. After nobody would buy them, the NHL took over their ownership and appointed a not-very-good general manager to gradually trade all their good players away to teams that people care about and watch in indifference as their key free agents left for teams like Florida that are also terrible, but trying credibly to improve. The Coyotes almost moved to Winnipeg this summer before the Atlanta Thrashers did. Boyd Gordon showed with this contract that he is not terribly worried about winning the Stanley Cup.
Sometimes players leave a good team because they've never gotten a chance to play big minutes on a depleted team and show their skills. Then they can come back to a good team later and earn what they're worth. However, Boyd Gordon has been with the Caps since before they gave up on being a good team and decided to rebuild. When the Caps were rebuilding and their best center was Dainius Zubrus (a man who had never played center before and is now a third line wing win the middling New Jersey Devils) Gordon, a first round draft pick, shuttled back and forth between the NHL and the minors. Perhaps he went to Phoenix because, after all the good Caps teams he's been a part of, he knows there are no guarantees in hockey, but there are guaranteed contracts for players with decent resumes who don't mind if their team is built to lose.
I already wrote yesterday about how misguided Steve Whyno is to write in the Washington Times about how much Gordon gave the Capitals and express doubt over whether Halpern can do better. I've already broken down the statistics and shown how, in a comparable number of playoff games, Halpern has scored seven times as many playoff goals. Heck, Gordon has never scored more than seven goals in an eighty-two game regular season. Halpern typically doubles or triples that output. I'd like to point out again that Jeff Halpern, a man from Bethesda who grew up cheering for the Capitals and always wanted to play for this team, came in at a lower salary than Boyd Gordon, who has just shown himself to be a money-chasing, happy-go-lucky loser who can't tell the difference between a bit part on a cup contender and two years wandering in the desert.
Now, don't get me wrong. If I could get one point three million dollars a year to go work for a failed company in Phoenix, I would. But that's why I'm stuck writing about hockey, and not chasing its holy grail. We don't cheer for players because they're exactly like us. We cheer for players like Jeff Halpern who start out like us and then try every day to be better.
He also throws in a quick dig against Boyd Gordon. "Real winners," writes the Caps and Wizards owner, "want to compete for a Cup; and aren’t afraid to play on a team that is deep with talent."
Gordon saw that Jeff Halpern, a better player and a hometown kid from Bethesda, had signed with the Caps to compete for his traditional fourth line center spot on what is arguably the deepest Caps roster in history and one of the best clubs in the league. Instead of calling the team and offering to take a pay cut to stay in this exciting hockey town like elite goaltender Tomas Vokoun did the very next day, Boyd Gordon got himself a cost of living increase over his already inflated millionaire salary by going to play in Phoenix for two years.
The Phoenix Coyotes filed for bankruptcy little while ago and went up for sale. After nobody would buy them, the NHL took over their ownership and appointed a not-very-good general manager to gradually trade all their good players away to teams that people care about and watch in indifference as their key free agents left for teams like Florida that are also terrible, but trying credibly to improve. The Coyotes almost moved to Winnipeg this summer before the Atlanta Thrashers did. Boyd Gordon showed with this contract that he is not terribly worried about winning the Stanley Cup.
Sometimes players leave a good team because they've never gotten a chance to play big minutes on a depleted team and show their skills. Then they can come back to a good team later and earn what they're worth. However, Boyd Gordon has been with the Caps since before they gave up on being a good team and decided to rebuild. When the Caps were rebuilding and their best center was Dainius Zubrus (a man who had never played center before and is now a third line wing win the middling New Jersey Devils) Gordon, a first round draft pick, shuttled back and forth between the NHL and the minors. Perhaps he went to Phoenix because, after all the good Caps teams he's been a part of, he knows there are no guarantees in hockey, but there are guaranteed contracts for players with decent resumes who don't mind if their team is built to lose.
I already wrote yesterday about how misguided Steve Whyno is to write in the Washington Times about how much Gordon gave the Capitals and express doubt over whether Halpern can do better. I've already broken down the statistics and shown how, in a comparable number of playoff games, Halpern has scored seven times as many playoff goals. Heck, Gordon has never scored more than seven goals in an eighty-two game regular season. Halpern typically doubles or triples that output. I'd like to point out again that Jeff Halpern, a man from Bethesda who grew up cheering for the Capitals and always wanted to play for this team, came in at a lower salary than Boyd Gordon, who has just shown himself to be a money-chasing, happy-go-lucky loser who can't tell the difference between a bit part on a cup contender and two years wandering in the desert.
Now, don't get me wrong. If I could get one point three million dollars a year to go work for a failed company in Phoenix, I would. But that's why I'm stuck writing about hockey, and not chasing its holy grail. We don't cheer for players because they're exactly like us. We cheer for players like Jeff Halpern who start out like us and then try every day to be better.
Monday, July 4, 2011
Slight Overstatement of the Day
Fox News reports that the Capitals added defensive depth today by signing Danny Richmond to a two way contract to play with the Hershey Bears.
While technically true, I tend to think of depth as the players who are likely to end up playing ten or twelve games with a team down the stretch, and making significant contributions in that time. As some tiny site designed to help fantasy hockey players with their drafts puts it, Richmond "is likely to spend the entire season playing with AHL Hershey."
Now, it's exciting that the Bears have a talented, twenty-six year old defenseman to play with. If he does well, it would certainly be nice to see Richmond get another shot at the NHL, where he has played 49 games and registered three assists; one with Carolina and two with Chicago in 06-07 and 07-08, where he must have learned a thing or two from playing with a younger version of the 2010 Stanley Cup Champions.
Does that resume qualify Richmond to climb up the depth chart past Mike Green, Dennis Wideman, Karl Alzner, John Carlson, Jeff Schultz, John Erskine, Tom Poti, Sean Collins, Maxim Orlov or Patrick McNeil? Well, Poti or even Green could be on injured reserve all season, so we'll have to wait and see how Richmond plays in training camp.
With a couple of injuries, he may only have to be a better fit for a game or two than Collins and Orlov. Now that half the South-East division is heavily loaded up on former Chicago players, Richmond's personal knowledge of divisional opponents could make him an asset. Of course, Troy Brouwer brings the same knowledge, so maybe this is just a sign that the Caps, too, liked the Blackhawks' style.
No matter why he's here, it sure is exciting to see a team add a twenty-six year old defenseman who already has more than half a season of NHL experience, spread over three years. Most defensemen don't make it out of the minors until their mid to late twenties, because the position is so strategically complex. Richmond possesses a rare mix of youth and experience at the position. However, he didn't crack the Maple Leafs lineup last year even after they traded away Tomas Kaberle, so I'll season my optimism with a spoonful of caution.
While technically true, I tend to think of depth as the players who are likely to end up playing ten or twelve games with a team down the stretch, and making significant contributions in that time. As some tiny site designed to help fantasy hockey players with their drafts puts it, Richmond "is likely to spend the entire season playing with AHL Hershey."
Now, it's exciting that the Bears have a talented, twenty-six year old defenseman to play with. If he does well, it would certainly be nice to see Richmond get another shot at the NHL, where he has played 49 games and registered three assists; one with Carolina and two with Chicago in 06-07 and 07-08, where he must have learned a thing or two from playing with a younger version of the 2010 Stanley Cup Champions.
Does that resume qualify Richmond to climb up the depth chart past Mike Green, Dennis Wideman, Karl Alzner, John Carlson, Jeff Schultz, John Erskine, Tom Poti, Sean Collins, Maxim Orlov or Patrick McNeil? Well, Poti or even Green could be on injured reserve all season, so we'll have to wait and see how Richmond plays in training camp.
With a couple of injuries, he may only have to be a better fit for a game or two than Collins and Orlov. Now that half the South-East division is heavily loaded up on former Chicago players, Richmond's personal knowledge of divisional opponents could make him an asset. Of course, Troy Brouwer brings the same knowledge, so maybe this is just a sign that the Caps, too, liked the Blackhawks' style.
No matter why he's here, it sure is exciting to see a team add a twenty-six year old defenseman who already has more than half a season of NHL experience, spread over three years. Most defensemen don't make it out of the minors until their mid to late twenties, because the position is so strategically complex. Richmond possesses a rare mix of youth and experience at the position. However, he didn't crack the Maple Leafs lineup last year even after they traded away Tomas Kaberle, so I'll season my optimism with a spoonful of caution.
Thinning Up the Middle?
For the last five years, the Caps have usually had six centers on their roster, with Laich and Gordon playing wings so their centers could cheat on faceoffs. Now the Caps have four proven NHL centers. Shogren and Beagle provide depth, but picking up Halpern for less money than Gordon gets in Phoenix is a steal. Halpern brings the same defense, the same penalty killing, almost the same faceoffs and twice the offense, especially in clutch situations.
When Ovechkin broke into the league, he played on a line with Jeff Halpern. When Alexander Semin first showed that he could be an elite offensive force, in the dismal spring before the lockout, who was his center? Jeff Halpern.
Of course, Gordon has had a shot playing with each of the above stars. Gordon also famously centered Jaromir Jagr's line for the first game after the enigmatic, brilliantly talented disaster came to Washington. Gordon was a highly regarded first round draft pick and the hope was that playing with Jagr could help him reach his potential as a two-way threat. Instead, Gordon went back to spend a few years in the minor leagues and the Caps signed Robert Lang for twenty-five million dollars to try to get some production out of Jagr.
Halpern, on the other hand, was never drafted, and only wound up getting to play with Alexander Semin after every other option, down to Anson Carter, had been traded away. Once he became first line center by default, Halpern passed and shot his way to recognition by the NHL as offensive player of the week.
Steve Whyno at the Washington Times reports that "Gordon was known as the Caps’ best penalty killer and faceoff specialist. He made $800,000 with Washington last year. Gordon had been with the Caps for seven seasons." In the same article, this Whyno can only say of Halpern that he has "good face off skills" and that "Halpern made $600,000 last season, recording 26 points for Montreal."
Whyno gives Halpern's age and previous salary, but not Gordon's. He give's Halpern's modest point total of last year, but he doesn't say that Gordon has only eclipsed that total once, putting up 29 points in 06-07. Halpern has hit 29 points five times, including seasons of 34, 42, 44 and 46 points, all with the Capitals. Halpern has a career high of 21 goals in a season, and has scored eighteen or more goals in three seasons, all with the Capitals. Boyd Gordon has twenty-seven career NHL goals, including two seasons with seven.
Whyno gives both player's salaries of this upcoming year, but he doesn't explain how under the salary cap, signing a more talented fourth line center for five hundred thousand dollars less could allow the Caps to carry another capable player on their roster this year. Whyno didn't say how the same day, the Caps also picked up free agents Roman Hamrlik and Joel Ward to spend their extra cash. That's what he could have seen by press time. What he couldn't have foreseen is the way that spending wisely on a more proven veteran who has a greater history of success in this city with the current players here has already helped give the Caps the flexibility to sign Tomas Vokoun.
Obviously those three contracts are more expensive than just the savings of bringing home a former captain instead of overpaying to retain a mildly successful player. But getting the need for a two-way center met more effectively at a lower price helps all the other pieces fall into place.
More importantly, in a summer where the Caps are desperately trying to prepare for future playoffs, Gordon who has been with the Caps throughout their recent streak of making the playoffs has been in 34 NHL playoff games, notching one goal and four assists. Halpern, who was signed by Dallas to an eight million dollar contract as soon as things got good in Washington, and then got traded to Tampa as part of a deal for Brad Richards, has scored seven goals and six assists in 36 career playoff games. Three of Halpern's seven playoff goals have been game winners. Two came on the power play. Gordon's career playoff goal was short handed, but it was not a game winner.
Which player would you pay twice as much for?
When Ovechkin broke into the league, he played on a line with Jeff Halpern. When Alexander Semin first showed that he could be an elite offensive force, in the dismal spring before the lockout, who was his center? Jeff Halpern.
Of course, Gordon has had a shot playing with each of the above stars. Gordon also famously centered Jaromir Jagr's line for the first game after the enigmatic, brilliantly talented disaster came to Washington. Gordon was a highly regarded first round draft pick and the hope was that playing with Jagr could help him reach his potential as a two-way threat. Instead, Gordon went back to spend a few years in the minor leagues and the Caps signed Robert Lang for twenty-five million dollars to try to get some production out of Jagr.
Halpern, on the other hand, was never drafted, and only wound up getting to play with Alexander Semin after every other option, down to Anson Carter, had been traded away. Once he became first line center by default, Halpern passed and shot his way to recognition by the NHL as offensive player of the week.
Steve Whyno at the Washington Times reports that "Gordon was known as the Caps’ best penalty killer and faceoff specialist. He made $800,000 with Washington last year. Gordon had been with the Caps for seven seasons." In the same article, this Whyno can only say of Halpern that he has "good face off skills" and that "Halpern made $600,000 last season, recording 26 points for Montreal."
Whyno gives Halpern's age and previous salary, but not Gordon's. He give's Halpern's modest point total of last year, but he doesn't say that Gordon has only eclipsed that total once, putting up 29 points in 06-07. Halpern has hit 29 points five times, including seasons of 34, 42, 44 and 46 points, all with the Capitals. Halpern has a career high of 21 goals in a season, and has scored eighteen or more goals in three seasons, all with the Capitals. Boyd Gordon has twenty-seven career NHL goals, including two seasons with seven.
Whyno gives both player's salaries of this upcoming year, but he doesn't explain how under the salary cap, signing a more talented fourth line center for five hundred thousand dollars less could allow the Caps to carry another capable player on their roster this year. Whyno didn't say how the same day, the Caps also picked up free agents Roman Hamrlik and Joel Ward to spend their extra cash. That's what he could have seen by press time. What he couldn't have foreseen is the way that spending wisely on a more proven veteran who has a greater history of success in this city with the current players here has already helped give the Caps the flexibility to sign Tomas Vokoun.
Obviously those three contracts are more expensive than just the savings of bringing home a former captain instead of overpaying to retain a mildly successful player. But getting the need for a two-way center met more effectively at a lower price helps all the other pieces fall into place.
More importantly, in a summer where the Caps are desperately trying to prepare for future playoffs, Gordon who has been with the Caps throughout their recent streak of making the playoffs has been in 34 NHL playoff games, notching one goal and four assists. Halpern, who was signed by Dallas to an eight million dollar contract as soon as things got good in Washington, and then got traded to Tampa as part of a deal for Brad Richards, has scored seven goals and six assists in 36 career playoff games. Three of Halpern's seven playoff goals have been game winners. Two came on the power play. Gordon's career playoff goal was short handed, but it was not a game winner.
Which player would you pay twice as much for?
Sunday, July 3, 2011
All Former Capitals Team
In order to make changes one must let go of the past. As we celebrate the new players in Washington this week, here's a lineup of former Capitals still in the NHL. Michael Nylander might just get another tryout on Jagr's line with the Flyers, but until it happens he's ineligible as an AHLer, along with Alex Henry, Graham Mink, etc...
As a Caps fan used to seeing Boyd Gordon and Brooks Laich playing wings and ready to take faceoffs, it would be great to see one more solid center in this lineup, but it would be nearly impossible to fit one under the salary cap without Mike Green sitting out the whole season with "post-concussion syndrome," and usually you set that up with a few more stories over the summer if it's what you're planning.
But that lineup totally kills the former Caps team above, especially on the wings and on defense. Goalie might be close and center might be even after the first line, but once you start comparing Ovechkin to Fleischmann, it's pretty easy to see a winner.
That former-caps team couldn't even compete with my leftover-UFA's team of yesterday. This really shows how Ted Leonsis and George McPhee have brought in a strategy of developing and keeping their own talented players.
As much as David Poile was an incredible general manager and put the Washington Capitals on the map (not to mention helping keep them in town) he had a lower budget and had to make some tough sacrifices to stay competitive. It was hard to look around the league and see former Caps starring in different cities. You'd try to build a Former Caps team when Leonsis took over the franchise and it would stack up pretty well against the team in town, and you'd start out with Joe Sakic, Jason Allison and Andrew Brunette. You could build a team.
In 2004, when you looked around at Robert Lang, Jaromir Jagr, Peter Bondra, Michael Nylander and Gonchar back when he was good, compared to the prospects developing in DC, it was tempting to want to go backwards. This club mostly resisted that temptation, and the results are terrific.
Tomas Fleischmann Jason Arnott Jaromir Jagr
Matt Pettinger Brendan Morrison Chris Clark
Boyd Gordon Eric Belanger Dainius Zubrus
Brian Sutherby David Steckel Marco Sturm
Matt Bradley
Joe Corvo Sean Morrison
Brian Pothier Milan Jurcina
Sergei Gonchar Steve Eminger
Nick Boynton
Simeon Varlamov
Jose Theodore
Arnott, Morrison and Clark, at the right price, could still be back in depth roles this year, but each looks unlikely and the rest are off the table right now. Still, looking at them all together isn't so hard to take. They certainly don't stack up well against a current hypothetical Capitals opening day lineup of, say:
Alex Ovechkin Nicklas Backstrom Mike Knuble
Alexander Semin Brooks Laich Troy Brouwer
Joel Ward Marcus Johansson Eric Fehr
Jason Chimera Jeff Halpern Matt Hendricks
Mike Green Dennis Wideman
Karl Alzner John Carlson
Roman Hamrlik Jeff Schultz
Tomas Vokoun
Michal Neuvirth
As a Caps fan used to seeing Boyd Gordon and Brooks Laich playing wings and ready to take faceoffs, it would be great to see one more solid center in this lineup, but it would be nearly impossible to fit one under the salary cap without Mike Green sitting out the whole season with "post-concussion syndrome," and usually you set that up with a few more stories over the summer if it's what you're planning.
But that lineup totally kills the former Caps team above, especially on the wings and on defense. Goalie might be close and center might be even after the first line, but once you start comparing Ovechkin to Fleischmann, it's pretty easy to see a winner.
That former-caps team couldn't even compete with my leftover-UFA's team of yesterday. This really shows how Ted Leonsis and George McPhee have brought in a strategy of developing and keeping their own talented players.
As much as David Poile was an incredible general manager and put the Washington Capitals on the map (not to mention helping keep them in town) he had a lower budget and had to make some tough sacrifices to stay competitive. It was hard to look around the league and see former Caps starring in different cities. You'd try to build a Former Caps team when Leonsis took over the franchise and it would stack up pretty well against the team in town, and you'd start out with Joe Sakic, Jason Allison and Andrew Brunette. You could build a team.
In 2004, when you looked around at Robert Lang, Jaromir Jagr, Peter Bondra, Michael Nylander and Gonchar back when he was good, compared to the prospects developing in DC, it was tempting to want to go backwards. This club mostly resisted that temptation, and the results are terrific.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)