On Frozen Blog

Chomping at the bit for hockey season to start? The Caps are, too, and they’re not waiting until next month to ramp things up. The Capitals Report is back in full broadcast mode; I gave it a live listen yesterday, and it’s one hour-plus jam packed full of insight, speculation, ice mirth, and listener participation. It is also archived. 

Two themes from yesterday’s program stood out to me as worthy of a week’s worth of pondering before next Wednesday’s show: first, Nate and Stretch asked Tarik what he thought of the numbers on the blueline. And Tarik gave voice to the very thought I’ve had since it became abundantly clear last spring that at least two members of the Hershey Bears’ blueline would be serious contenders for promotion this fall: the numbers are too large.

First you run through the guys who are locks by virtue of big league tenure and contract: Brian Pothier, Tom Poti, Shaone Morissonn, John Erskine, Mike Green, and Milan Jurcina. Add to the list Jeff Schultz (who could really use a strong camp), as well as young upstarts Karl Alzner and John Carlson. I’m not even going to factor in the candidacies of Tyler Sloan or Sean Collins, although both are capable of impressing at camp. No wonder Dmitri Orlov’s been stored in Russia for the season.

On yesterday’s Caps Report Bears’ beat writer Tim Leone offered better than 50 percent odds of Carlson sticking with the club out of camp. He’s far from alone in that view. If both of the very young first-round defenders perform conspicuously strongly at camp, what do you do if you’re Caps’ management? If the Caps are serious about pursuing a Stanley Cup this season they must dress their six best blueliners, no?

Tarik answered this “pleasant dilemma” scenario as I would have: someone (or two) goes. Even contingency-ing for injuries to a degree, I can’t envision a scenario in which all are kept around. And Tarik made a salient observation about the impact that bloated blueline numbers could have in 2009-10: potentially hamstringing management from making important trade deadline deals, as with last February. Better to get excess numbers and salary off the books in the fall rather than potentially be stuck with some injured rearguards who can’t be dealt at the deadline. In net, the numbers split between parent and farm appear just about right — say Neuvirth and Holtby in Hershey, Varlamov and Theodore in D.C. But on the blueline, there can be no such smooth and well reasoned distribution of personnel, it wouldn’t appear.

The blueline numbers become potentially even more unwieldy if management approaches September with an eye on acquiring an additional veteran rearguard to bolster the physical presence back there.

“Pleasant dilemma” indeed. Last night I pondered a bit the blueline “talent” the Caps brought into town for their first post-lockout training camp in the autumn of 2005. Names who made it through the first week of camp then included J.F. Fortin, Martin Wilde, Mark Wotton, and Dwayne Zinger. Names who made it to opening night that fall included Ivan Majesky and Mathieu Biron.

On the blueline, as imperfect as it presently is, we’ve come a long way, baby.  

From yesterday’s program I also appreciated a thoughtful inquiry raised by Nate Ewell: referencing Twitter specifically among social/technological media advances so many of us are still having difficulty mastering fluency with, he wondered what was in store for local media coverage of hockey in the season ahead. Media here is no longer needed to help bolster the welfare of a rebuilding franchise struggling mightily for a place in a Redskins’-dominated hierarchy. So what’s next? It’s a fascinating question. And personally, I find it exciting to report this morning that with respect to this particular blog, we don’t quite know. 

Tarik offered encouraging words as it relates to the Caps’ stature with his paper’s editors: on 15th St. the team is being regarded as a legitimate Stanley Cup contender, and will be covered as such.

Consider, too, that there are now two sports talk radio outlets in town. (Neither of whom has distinguished itself yet in its coverage of hockey.)

(Did you know that at ESPN 980, the former WTEM, full-time staffers have email suffixes of “redskins.com”, attendant to you know who’s ownership of the station? I bowel movement you not. Not that that should be suggestive of any conflict of coverage interest, of course. Media revolutions, I think it’s fair to say, still leave some outlets thinking and acting in old ways.)

Anyway, guys are back in town skating at Kettler, local media is coverage strategizing the new season ahead, and unprecedented roster depth is an early preseason storyline. It won’t be long now before we see Chinatown ablaze in red again.