One player’s name certainly is emerging from training camp’s first week — by virtue of its omission.
That of Olaf Kolzig.
You don’t hear it mentioned among the press, by fans in the Kettler stands, certainly not by Capitals’ players or coaches. Everybody seems to have moved on from the April agony and the summer transition trauma.
HockeyWashington, so consumed by the drama of L’affair Nameplate five months ago, five months later seems to have reacted to a Kolzig-less training camp with a collective “Meh.”
I for one am a little surprised. I expected some manner of media frenzy (particularly on Day 1 of camp) pegged on “this the first day of hockey without Olie in Washington in more than a decade.” But it didn’t happen, and it isn’t going to, and it’s worth reflecting on why.
There are I think a handful of factors accounting for this striking silence for a hockey hero, but foremost among them is the fact that the Capitals in goal this September have an abundance of exciting talent. Over the past three days there were three highly competitive scrimmages that took place — with jobs on the line and highly skilled players littering all three competing rosters– and yet no team ever tallied more than 3 goals in any of them. I saw scores of breakaways and a pair of shootouts, and I saw goalies winning the overwhelming majority of those showdowns. And specifically, in the likes of Simeon Varlamov and Michal Neuvirth, I saw a tandem of talent I’d never seen before at a Caps’ camp. Observers of this Capitals’ training camp, I believe, are too preoccupied with a fresh and great storyline in net to think back to that of even the recent past. Which, in Olie Kolzig’s case, represented a fading talent.
Capitals’ fans in the final third of the 2007-08 regular season saw a significantly improved Olie Kolzig in net, and with late February’s trade with Montreal they also saw scintillating virtuosity in his rival Cristobal Huet. The regular season’s final loss was on Kolzig, in Chicago, and it was ugly. Thereafter, Head Coach Bruce Boudreau rode Huet, who started and finished the team’s final seven games — all victories, culminating in a near miraculous Southeast division crown. They may not have admitted it then, but Kolzig’s defenders had to have seen the writing on the wall.
Indeed, even when new contract talks with Cristobal Huet fell apart, re-signing Olie Kolzig was never an option. The team needed to move in a new direction.
But the old netminder himself apparently didn’t see any such signs, and this leads to my third reason for the collective, quiet acceptance of his absence. When Kolzig very publicly postured that he had still no. 1 minutes and a no. 1 contract for a contending club ahead of him, he needed, for credibility’s sake, at a minimum, one or two contending summer suitors to make a play for his services. Instead, he ended up in Tampa Bay, for Matt Bradley money. The market spoke. Capitals’ management, which endured a torrent of message board tirades over their perceived handling of Kolzig, was vindicated.
Initially, most rightly viewed Kolzig’s public swagger and competitive perseverance as the byproduct of a special athlete’s pride. And most fans I think were inclined to cut Olie the Goalie a heck of a lot of slack in light of his enormous community contributions. That too is understandable. But Kolzig never articulated any acknowledgment of the team’s turning the corner, for the markedly, durably better, at a time when the rest of Washington had quickly gone hot over hockey. Instead, he remained in a self-centered posture. That I think in turn allowed many Capitals’ fans to turn the page.
A fourth and perhaps pre-eminent reason I think exists for this quasi-forgetfulness of athlete: the thirst for lasting victory. Fair or not, Kolzig, save for one Cinderella season in ‘97-’98, was associated with an organization’s mediocrity and rebuilding. For a decade solid Olie Kolzig was the face of this hockey organization, and it was one Washingtonians could be proud of. But the team — his team — always fell short. Today Alexander Ovechkin is the face of the Washington Capitals, displaying a charisma the likes of which we’ve never seen in a hockey player in this town — maybe not among any pro athletes ever in this town. Part of the primal appeal of this current Caps’ team is its being led by the greatest hockey player on the planet, but nearly just as important is its being comprised of a young and exciting core that’s going to be around for a while.
A season ticket holder I spoke with on the Kolzig subject back in April put it best: “I love Olie Kolzig,” he told me, “but I love winning more.”
Olie’s gone but of course not forgotten. How could he be? These days, we’re just too busy going about the business of following winning. We’re overdue that — and damn it’s fun.
(3) Potential Pitfalls of Press Clippings. It was just late last November that the Washington Capitals resided in dead last territory in the NHL, their rebuild strivings generating little returns. One coaching and netminder change ushered in a division title, a sold out home rink, and a wild-about-hockey Washington, and one of the great from hell to heaven rises in Washington pro sports history. The summer delivered an abundance of awards recognitions for the feat. And the Caps’ feel-good story of last season has fostered a pervasive ‘
The Washington Capitals will face the Chicago Blackhawks in their home opener at 7 p.m. on Oct. 11 at Verizon Center, one day after opening the season at Atlanta, the NHL announced today. The league also announced the Capitals will play two games each against Western Conference opponents Columbus, Los Angeles and Nashville during the season.
The three finalists for the 2008 Calder Trophy should be on the ice for the matchup and the goaltending pairings could provide some interesting storylines as well. Chicago’s Patrick Kane edged Washington’s Nicklas Backstrom last year for rookie of the year honors, as Kane’s teammate Jonathan Toews finished third.
It seems reasonable to posit that Olie Kolzig’s play as a middle-thirtysomething netminder during the first two seasons after the lockout was distinctly solid. Not spectacular, clearly, but quite solid. He didn’t have the most formidable blueline corps in front of him, which to some extent his numbers reflected, but few in the sport would have pointed to those seasons and suggested that Olie Kolzig was no longer a no. 1 netminder in the NHL.
This is about business. The business of winning hockey games. And the cold hard reality is that in this Olie Kolzig NHL offseason the skill set he has to offer is at odds with the present composition and ambition of the only NHL hockey organization he’s ever served. Gordie Howe shouldn’t have left Detroit, ever, but this isn’t a mythical, age-resistant athlete we’re talking about. Olie Kolzig, somewhat sadly, but also somewhat predictably and certainly rather naturally, is aging away from the Capitals’ ascension.
