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.

Holy Crap. Caps Sign Vokoun.

The Washington Capitals announced yesterday that they were prepared to stand pat with the team they had entering the season, and it all sounded so reasonable and believable.

Year after year, George McPhee presents bland platitudes about the team's happiness with its current assets. Year after year he holds up a poker face so strong that the team's fans call him "The Undertaker."

Yesterday, McPhee announced that the club was ready for the year with the additions of Joel Ward, Jeff Halpern and Roman Hamrlik. And I wrote that something big was still likely to happen.

Well, one day with the new blog and already I've been really, really right about something.

The Caps just signed the best goalie available this summer. Tomas Vokoun had an almost winning record playing for a team so bad it has to spend twenty million dollars this summer just to get to the salary-floor.

The last goalie to succeed with the Florida Panthers just carried the Vancouver Canucks to the Stanley Cup Finals, where he held the Bruins to seven games.

The Capitals are lucky to pick up Vokoun, not only because he's incredibly good at blocking pucks and helping teams win, but because every journalist in hockey had prematurely awarded him to the Colorado Avalanche, who finished twenty-ninth in the league last year because they didn't have a good goalie.

A week ago, the Caps traded one of their two young, unproven goaltenders to the Avalanche for a first round draft pick that, if the Avalanche don't get any better this year, will be a second overall choice. And now suddenly the Caps also wind up with better goaltending than the Avalanche for the coming season.

This is going to be a very exciting year to be a Caps fan

Why Another Blog about the Washington Capitals?

For half a decade now, the Washington Capitals have iced great hockey teams. Every year, they've shown up with a dense crop of homegrown talent and a few outside veteran acquisitions to give the rest of the league a skate for its money. Every year they have a chance to win a Stanley Cup. Unfortunately, so do twenty-nine other teams.

In the history of the Washington Capitals, probability has turned to fact every season as the overwhelming odds of other teams winning the oldest trophy in North American professional sports eponymously overwhelm the Caps' great hopes.

At the end of the first day of free agency in the summer of 2011, The Capitals have made the same type of moves they seem to make every year. They've kept one of their own free agents nobody thought they could keep. They've moved on from several fan favorites. They've brought in above average players from average teams in the hopes that these players will blossom in the presence of top talent.

Will this be enough? Two years ago, the same type of moves were enough to capture the best record in hockey. For the last two years, they've been enough to lead the Eastern Conference. For the last four years, these quiet maintenance moves have helped the caps win the Southeast Division. Unfortunately, no amount of patience, progress or timely change has ever been enough to bring a Stanley Cup to Washington.

Alex Ovechkin will be a Capital for another decade, but his best years are right now. Half of his best chances to lead the team to a championship may already be behind him. This blog is dedicated to the hope that he can help the team triumph, and to the community we feel every year he doesn't.