We offer up our assessment of individual Caps’ performances this past season for the express purpose of soliciting yours. Tell us what you think of each player based on what you saw.
Note the two grades for each player: one for regular season, one for post-season (e.g., “A / D” for Mike Green). “I” represents an Incomplete Grade.
| Player | Grade | Explanation |
| Forwards |
||
| Nicklas Backstrom |
B+/ A- | A faceoff-winning force, a brilliant passer, and a beast along the boards; he’s come a long way in a very short time. |
| Matt Bradley |
C/B | Little flash, tons of heart. The Caps wouldn’t have advanced out of round one without him. |
| Donald Brashear |
C / D | He does his job well, but his role with the team seems to be fading. |
| Chris Clark |
I/D | Largely a lost season, but the captain worked his tail off to get back in the lineup late. |
| Sergei Fedorov |
C/B | In the twilight of his career, his role is limited, but as he showed in game 7 of round one, he’s still a money player. Here’s hoping there’s a curtain call here in ‘09-10. |
| Eric Fehr |
C/D | There were flashes enough in the regular season to warrant another look, but his postseason was lost early . |
| Tomas Fleischmann |
B-/F | A gigantic postseason disappointment — joined too many of his skilled forward mates in being too often lost out on the perimeter. |
| Boyd Gordon |
C/B | Nice uptick in impact in the postseason — he paid the price. |
| Viktor Kozlov |
C/B+ | For the first time in his career, Kozlov came alive in the playoffs. He needs to play that style more consistently though. |
| Brooks Laich |
B+/C | The effort is always there with Brooksie, who may be staring at a captain’s ‘C’ on his sweater soon. A wee bit more production in the postseason would have aided greatly. |
| Michael Nylander |
D- / I | We loved Nyls’ first stint in Washington, but his albatross contract far outweighs his contributions now. |
| Alexander Ovechkin | A+/A+ | What didn’t he do right? Scoring leader in the regular season and was the main offensive threat in the postseason. |
| Alexander Semin |
B /C- | Played above average throughout the regular season but production and impact dropped in the playoffs — seemed to disappear during some important games of the Pittsburgh series. |
| David Steckel |
B- /A | Solid if unremarkable regular season; superb & clutch in the postseason. |
| Defensemen |
||
| John Erskine |
C /A- | Johnny clearly justified GMGM’s faith in him with a dominant stay-at-home performance in the playoffs. |
| Mike Green | A/F | Record-setting regular season followed by a playoff flop. We know and understand he was injured, but that doesn’t account entirely for his dismal showing. Merely a mediocre postseason performance from him and the Caps are still playing. |
| Milan Jurcina |
C/B+ | Wildly inconsistent during the regular season but a physical stalwart in the postseason. Could his career finally be on the durable upswing? |
| Shaone Morrisonn |
C/B | Penalty-prone for much of the regular season, much more disciplined late. An intriguing personnel issue this offseason. |
| Brian Pothier |
I/B | Potsie was the Caps’ most important beneficiary of the team standing pat at the trade deadline, and his consistency was a vital part of the playoff run. He got better the more he played. His story this season was positively inspirational. |
| Tom Poti |
B/B+ | Battled a bum groin on bad ice most of the season, but he’s a gamer. |
| Jeff Schultz |
C/D | He’s still young, but he’s running out of time to earn a permanent spot, and younger challengers in the organization are looming. |
| Goaltenders |
||
| Brent Johnson |
B / I | Reliable, possibly even starter material early on — but with a season-ending injury, and Theo’s contract, he may likely be moving on. |
| Jose Theodore |
B- /F | Not stellar early in the season and didn’t win many games “by himself.” Conspicuous failure in the playoffs when it mattered most and was pulled after first game. |
| Simeon Varlamov |
I/A- | 12 terrific playoff games, one stinker — a more than acceptable ratio to keep him in the NHL. His future is bright indeed. |
19 Comments
I think you’re too hard on Schultz. Just remember how young he is, and how quickly Emminger was run out of town for no good reason. Might he lose his spot next season? Maybe. But I think he can still be a pretty serviceable D-man.
And I think you’re being way too kind to Morrisonn for his regular season play.
You guys are out of your gourds to give Mike Green an F in the playoffs. The guy was tied for the lead for points by a defenseman playing with one arm. A C maybe but an F? Get some perspective.
Also Varlamov had two stinkers not one. Game 4 and game 7 of the Penguins series.
Agree with ROBF. Greenie wasn’t disgusting, his injury prevented him from living up to expectations. Give him a D+. And it’s not like Morrison picked up any slack.
Sha-one, sha-one what has he done? B? C- is more like it. If his partner is hurt, he is expected to step it up. He played worse in the playoffs than in the reg.
Ovechkin A+/A+? He was very good, but he wasn’t perfect. If I had a nickel for every time he did that lazy pivot at the blue line inside the opponents zone and tried a soft pass across the zone. Argghh. How many break aways did that lead to this season? You can see the defenders salivating waiting for him to make the pass. Its so telegraphed.
Totally agree on the assessment of Varlamov ROBF, BB should’ve considered pulling him in game 4 after two very suspect goals (or resting him entirely). Might’ve kept him fresh for game 5 which we really needed to win. Also might’ve kept Theo engaged/involved in the team, we will need him next season.
Also, given that Semin was the top scorer in the playoffs after Round 1 (and before his thumb injury), I think a C- is a bit harsh. I would’ve gone no lower than a C+ (A / D = C+?)
Nice “report card” though, let’s all hope the boys hit Study Hall aggressively this offseason and amass a nice lead to start the season next year. Then we can coast in January/February before ratcheting up their game in March/April for the playoffs!
Enjoy your summer Heroes of DC, we’re hoping its a MUCH shorter vacation next year!
You seem to be basing this assesment entirely off of the Pittsburgh series and off of what the media has shown. Semin carried us through the Rangers series. He had great chances in the Pitt games at some points. A lucky save or random body in front was all that stopped him from having a great season. He just needs maturity now.
Varly had a great season and I think he earned a stinker or two. Remember we practically expected that of Veteran Joe Theodore. I’m not sure if you know but he’s becoming quite the punch line. Every soft goal is now followed by a joking “Thats a Jose goal.” He still can be used to hold the fort in the regular season while Varly gets conditioned and acclimated as well as Neuvirth.
Brashear needs to go.
Green was really good in the playoffs just not at the same level as when he was healthy. You could tell his puck handling wasn’t what is used to be but he still did great. What he lost in scoring he made up for in hits. His hit in the Ranger series left a guy groggy on the ice and revitalized the team. 25 seconds later Kozlov scored. I’m afriad Kozy will be headed to Russia but there is little we can do.
Flash was total disappointment for many but not for me. In the regular season he shied away from contact and only made spectacular plays when he got a lucky break. He can be stopped with simple force and only seems to play hard when the puck is near him. We need crease presence and not another floater ready to pick a corner of the net on the rare chance the puck comes his way.
Schultz was outplayed by Sloan. Period.
Nylander was a much bigger F than everyone else combined. It’s almost like he’s afraid to shoot. I saw him get a drop pass from Ovechkin. Drop it for Semin who took a shot. And then when the rebound came to Nylander he tried to drop it again!
Eric Fehr may not have had the stats but he is great at takeaways and has great “stick skills” he is really good and following the puck and picking it off at opportune moments to totally kill an opposing teams drive.
In short we need D to clear the net to stop letting in so many muck goals. And we need forwards who will get dirty (Laich is the closest thing we have) and crash the net.
The F for Green in the playoffs is harsh given his shoulder injury as is the C- for Semin (esp. since you gave Fehr a D, so you are saying that for the entire two series Semin was only slightly better than Fehr.) Semin had a good first round against the Rangers before the injury.
Semin deserves an A for Round 1. He got five goals in contrast to Ovechkin’s three and his goal was the game winner in R1-G3 when we were down by 2 losses in that series, a win we really needed in order to stay in the playoffs. Semin also led the league in goals and points during Round 1. No Semin, no second round is what I think.
Give the guy a B even for the series against Pittsburgh. While Ovechkin did get 8 of his 11 playoff goals in that series, Semin did contribute 6 assists, and his presence on the ice worried the Pens enough that they kept their Ds on top of him which absorbed some of their energy and helped contribute to ours staying in the series till our engine fell out in Game 7.
Chris Clark was terrible. It seems that all he does is draw stupid penalties at the wrong time (a problem for our entire team).
Felt like Koslov deserved something much lower for the post-season. For awhile, it seemed like he was turning into Nylander — just skating around with the puck until he turned it over to the other team.
Brooksie deserved much higher in the post-season. He’s one of the only players who will charge the net. We need more of that and less of this shooting from outer space that our forwards get into constantly.
Total agreement on Mike Green. My brother thought that the reported flu might actually have been mono. An interesting idea, it would account for the fact that Green seemed to have forgotten how to play the game.
Schultz had a broken rib, which is why he looked so bad in game 1. I still think he has a great future as a second pair guy. He’s not flashy, and when he screws up EVERYONE notices but he plays a solid game most of the time.
Great input all! We shared the grading duties for this post, so I cannot explain each grade… but here are a few replies to comments:
TG: I don’t think I was hard on Schultz at all. “C” equates to perfectly serviceable, which was his regular season. His brief playoff performance was terrible. And with guys like Alzner and Carlson and Finley in the wings, he really is running out of time to earn a permanent spot.
As for Mike Green: well, any athlete worth his salt wants to play no matter how badly he’s hurt, or how badly the meds are messing up his focus. In the post-season he hurt the team, plain and simple. But it’s the Coach who needs to make the call and say, even to a superstar like Green, “Siddown and get well.” Bruce was terrific in most of the playoffs, but he definitely rode a clearly injured Green far, far too long.
The best thing Eminger ever did for this franchise was get traded to Philly and allow us to draft John Carlson. He played on 3 teams this season, he’s not a valuable player.
Grades for individual players overlooks the fact that the whole team needs improvement if they want to make it further next post season.
I believe that a more accurate picture would be to assess the team overall, maybe look at individual lines or D-pairings. For as we all know well, there is no “I” in team.
I’d give the team an overall grade of C+ or B- for their 82 game performance. Areas for improvement would be:
1) playing more consistently from period to period and game to game. No more second period siesta, or phoning it in every third game.
2) putting more bodies at the net and digging for the dirty goals. A dirty goal still counts on the score sheet.
3) clearing bodies from our own net to keep opponents from getting dirty goals.
4) less fancy play, more of the basics. Just because it looks nice, if it doesn’t go in the net, it doesn’t count on the score sheet.
5) Cut the giveaways to an absolute minimum.
6) Play as a team regardless of the score. Individual effort doesn’t get rewarded nearly as much as team effort. You don’t have to do it all yourself, there are at least 4 other guys out there with you. A loss is a team loss, a win is a team win.
This team has performed quite well, and has shown improvement as each season succeeds the next. This year was a great year points wise, but I would still only give a middle grade because they really didn’t play to their full potential each and every time they stepped on the ice. There were spectacular games, and there were stinkers. Yes we finished 2nd in the East, and 4th overall, but what is disappointing in hindsight is that we could have finished higher.
As for the post season, it was what it was. And if you take a good hard look at how it went, it really was reflective of the main season, compressed into 14 games.
Very interesting analysis and grades of the players. I don’t agree with all the grades. Specific points:
1) Don’t agree with C- for Semin for the entire playoffs. He was great in the Rangers series. Even in the Pens series, as subpar as he was, he contributed key assists in 2 games. And he was injured for most of the Pens series. I would probably give him B+ for regular season and B- for playoffs.
2) Think F is too harsh for Green for playoffs. He was subpar due to injury and should probably have had his minutes of playing time reduced. (Maybe the poster who thought he had mono was right. He did seem to be bothered by the “flu” a lot this spring.)
3) While Ovi is great, I think A+ is too high. I would probably say A- for the regular season and A for the post season. Even he’s not perfect.
4) While Fehr did not have a great post season, statistically speaking, his absence was keenly felt. I noticed the 4th line got barely any playing time when he was out. They got more time with him there.
So Nylander plays in as many playoff games as Schultz and Theodore, but Schultz and Theodore get grades? Was ist los?
Feds gets a C.
He was wholly mediocre in the playoffs. You don’t get to play another day just because you won Final Jeopardy.
SECTION 117: Keine ist los. Schultz and Theodore actually started in the playoffs, though both played themselves out of a spot, thus they get grades.
Nylander, due to his regular-season play, was reduced to injury-callup status, so doesn’t deserve a playoff grade — just like we didn’t grade Sloan (though if we did, B- from me: impressive how well Sloan kept pace under the pressure of NHL playoffs).
Player OFBGrade
Forwards
Nicklas Backstrom B+/A-
Backstrom has really matured fast…at times his puck possession reminds me of Forsberg. Among the most consistent of the Caps on an inconsistent team. OFB grade a bit high B+/B+
Matt Bradley C/B
Brads disappeared at times this season, but brought it in the playoffs most of the time. He brings high energy to a team that could use some pop. OFB grade is fine.
Donald Brashear C/D
Brash does what he does. I agree he is on the way out, but who steps in? Brads? Not sure that works. This team does not need to get softer. OFB grade is fine.
Chris Clark I/D
Clarkie, like Brads brings that rough edge that the Caps so desperately need to have playoff success, but during the playoffs he never looked like the leader of this team and took way too many bad penalties. I’d revise to I/F.
Sergei Fedorov C/B
Fedorov showed his age at times this season. And as a veteran guy took really bad, ill-timed penalties (how many delay of games do you guess he had?). In the playoffs he won game 7 but I think he didn’t do much else to help this team win. OFB too high, C/C-.
Eric Fehr C/D
I don’t get Fehr. He plays like he’s 5 ft 2 in. No heart and a model of the lack of mental consistency this Caps team had this season. Bring in Aucoin instead. OFB too high, D/D.
Tomas Fleischmann B-/F
This is like the Caps’ version of the Orioles’ Daniel Cabrera debacle. Like Fehr he is mentally inconsistent. Has all the tools and potential but cannot put it together. Trade him while he’s worth something. OFB too high, C/F.
Boyd Gordon C/B
Gordon is exactly what the fourth line of this team needs. More guys like him and Steckel and you have a Caps team that can win in the playoffs. Good on the PK and plays with heart. OFB a bit low B/B.
Viktor Kozlov C/B+
Koz plays a good solid game. I hope we re-sign him. His production was down from a year ago but I think he’s a good 2nd or 3rd line guy to give some scoring support and puck possession. Raised his game a bit in the playoffs too. OFB a bit low C+/B
Brooks Laich B+/C
Brooksie had a good regular season, but needs to find more consistency. It’s not for lack of trying, but sometimes he tries too hard as evidenced in the playoffs. If he raises his scoring touch just a bit he will be the player the Caps need. OFB grade is fine.
Michael Nylander D-/I
Ugh. F/F
Alexander Ovechkin A+/A+
Ok so I think OFB overstates the case. Ovie got schooled by Crosby on being a leader of a hockey team in the post season. Sometimes he tries too hard and wants to carry the team the same way he carries the puck over the blue line with 4 guys back…most of the time he loses the puck…kid’s got heart though. Skill alone does not win playoff games. The pretty hockey of the regular season is over. Ovie still needs to learn how to change his game for the playoffs and how to lead. Also, backchecking? Don’t show me the 1 or 2 videos where he makes a spectacular play…I want to see it 82 games a year, 3 periods a game and in the playoffs. He cannot spend that much time in the penalty box. OFB too high, A/A-
Alexander Semin B/C-
Semin is another guy who can take over games. He just has to want to. You can see him get frustrated and give up when he’s getting physically abused. If it wasn’t for injury, his regular season stats would have been great. And the penalties?!?!!?!? Ridiculous! He carried the Caps in round one though. OFB high/low, B-/B-.
David Steckel B-/A
I want 3 more Steckels on the Caps. He really raised his game for the playoffs and Boudreau should be thinking about the C for big Dave. OFB grade right on.
Defensemen
To all the defensemen….on a 2 or 3 on 1 YOU MUST PLAY THE PASS!!!!
John Erskine C/A-
Erskine’s another guy who showed up for the playoffs. I hope this experience has helped him turn the corner. At times he reminded me of Derian Hatcher back in the day. Needs to work on clearing the crease. OFB is fine.
Mike Green A/F
A tale of 2 seasons for Greenie. For 82 games he drew comparisons to Orr. Then for 14 games he hurt the Caps by being on the ice. Say what you will about sticks and injuries, he made terrible mental errors. Did he read too many columns about himself? Is he on drugs? The lethargy and weak passes aside, he made mistakes that you learn not to do in midget hockey. OFB to moderate, A+/F- ;P
Milan Jurcina C/B+
Like OFB said…he showed up for the playoffs in a big way. I liked how his game got sharper and he made good decisions most of the time. Cut down on the penalties and use his size to clear the crease and he should be a stalwart on the Caps blue line.
Shaone Morrisonn C/B
I’m not sold on Morrison. At times he’s solid then he has a huge mental lapse. He also has bad timing in pinching in the offensive zone and takes bad lines coming back. OFB is high, C/C+
Brian Pothier I/B
I like Pots. I hope he can contribute a full season next year. He played pretty solid hockey for the time he was in. I’d like to see a bit more defensive responsibility given we already have Greenie flying around from the back end. OFB fine.
Tom Poti B/B+
Poti is another guy I can’t make my mind up about. He’s a tiny bit more solid than Morrison, but has the same mental lapses in positioning and decision making. OFB high B-/B-
Jeff Schultz C/D
Sarge kind of played himself out of the lineup with his play all year, topped off by the Dubinsky goal. Too many good D in the minors as OFB said. I’d like to see Sloan and Alzner up next year and Schultz and Morrison gone. OFB grade is fine.
Goaltenders
Brent Johnson B / I
Had a great beginning and really made a case to be #1. Probably won’t be re-signed. OFB is fine.
Jose Theodore B- /F
I think Theo is overrated. How is a guy who was benched overrated? He finds a way. The way he played this year was like watching Lidge close a game. He was a model of inconsistency and his goals were generally bad. His record is the product of a skilled offensive team in front of him. How many 1 goal deficits turned into 2 with him? How many games did the Caps need to come back after he gave up a soft goal. He played well at times, but I’m more concerned with the type of goals he gave up. OFB high, C+/F.
Simeon Varlamov I/A-
Varlamov made his case. He may be the goalie of the future. But not next year. 2 reasons: Neuvirth played great and may challenge Varlamov. Also, his conditioning was an issue in 1.75 playoff series and you saw his mental lapses in some really bad goals. He will not be ready for a full NHL season next year. I say split him (or Neuvirth) and Theo next year evenly. Should be an interesting pre-season at the goalie position. OFB grade is fine.
Caps need a clean out D man like Pronger
Ove is too much a one man team
Varly totally stunk in game 7. no excuse for that
M. Green was the WORST in playoffs. Just terrible.
Semin lacks DESIRE
Theo is perfect for a back up now.
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