On Frozen Blog

Five years into his development with the Washington Capitals defenseman Steve Eminger invites the most discomforting of questions by fans and team officials alike, among them this: just what kind of defenseman is he?
Such uncertainty and pervasive, quiet disappointment would have been unthinkable a few years back. While a rookie Eminger took to the Air Canada Centre ice one night and made 20,000 seated in one of hockey’s cathedrals forget about Mats Sundin. He was named the game’s first star, dominating all three zones and logging like 25 minutes of ice time. At one point he drew gasps from the Ontario cognoscenti, deftly pirouetting the puck out of harm’s way, a la Denis Savard but from the backline, and rushing the puck up the ice with powerful strides, QB-ing the Caps toward a scoring chance. His future seemed not only bright but chock full of two-way impact.
And this was hardly a lone instance of brilliance. Eminger represented Canada at the 2003 World Junior Championships. You know what kind of talent you have to be to dress for the Canadian blueline in that tournament? He also led his junior team, the Kitchener Rangers, to the Memorial Cup Championship in the same season, posting 29 points in 23 games after making the Caps straight out of training camp that fall.
Secured by the Caps in their foundation-building 2002 draft class, Eminger was selected 12th overall, one pick ahead of Alexander Semin. (There’s something about Eminger and the Air Canada Centre — the 2002 draft was held there.) It’s additionally disquieting to read The Hockey News’ pre-draft profile of him that summer:

Eminger has great wheels and won the puck control event at the 2002 Top Prospects Game. He has exceptional puckhandling and playmaking skills and quarterbacked the Kitchener power play this season. He showed at times he can change the tempo of a game if he wants.”

Today, there’s little tempo changing to Eminger’s game. There’s little in the way of “great wheels” displayed. In his own end he often ambles about stiff and upright instead of trusting his ample physical skills to head off threats from opposing forwards. Deft puckhandling and playmaking among Capitals’ rearguards? You think Pothier and Green and Morrisonn before Eminger.

Today, Steve Eminger the once powerful strider, Steve Eminger the once agile and adept in his own end, appears cocooned within a realm of corrosive self doubt. His is a game, it appears, of constant analysis, of paraylsis by analysis, and conspicuously missing instinct-driven burst. His is a sturdily built 6 ‘2, 215-lb.frame, and yet how seldom he seems to throw his weight around, in front of the crease or along the boards.
Once widely pegged to be a cornerstone of the Capitals’ blueline top 4, today Caps’ coaches ever seem to search for partners to help steady Steve, when two or three years ago all thought he would be the steadying partner. He’s played more than 150 games in a Caps’ sweater, and he’s tallied a grand total of 5 goals — zero on this season, and a -8 to go along with. There is increasing criticism of his hockey sense.
But here’s the hockey rub: still he’s just 23. As developing blueliners go, he’s still gestating. It’s instructive to chronicle the development timelines of some of the league’s blueliners of biggest impact. Brian Rafalski didn’t make it into a Devils’ sweater until he was 27. In Zdeno Chara’s third and fourth seasons on Long Island he was -27 in each, a nightly profile of bungling, an oversized experiment seemingly gone horribly awry. Bryan McCabe spent fully six NHL seasons underwhelming his coaches, then moved to Toronto and developed, virtually overnight, into a difference-maker. This is not to invite comparisons between Eminger and the game’s greats, but rather to remind that rearguards have marinading requirements many forwards seldom do.
There’s growing anxiety among fans about Eminger’s underachieving, and it’s criticism sharpened when juxtaposed by Mike Green’s precocious play. But Green’s looking 28 at 18 (now 30 at 20) under duress is a once-in-a-generation feat of drafting for virtually any organization.
The most immediate challenge for the Caps’ coaches appears to be to get Eminger unshackled from his restraining self doubt. That he possesses tantalizing tools is long past doubt. The team practiced outdoors in Chevy Chase yesterday, and when interviewed afterward, many players associated the exercise with the exuberance of hour-upon-hour of carefree shinny from their youth. I hope a Caps’ coach skated up to Eminger then and told him to try and treat the rest of this season just like that.
Go out and play, Steve. Because you can.