Something felt very very right about the Capitals retiring Dale Hunter’s number back in March 2000, and my hunch is that a similar sense of appropriateness will accompany the retiring of Mike Gartner’s no. 11 this December. The Caps announced yesterday that they would be retiring Mike Gartner’s sweater then.
Huntsy was the greatest captain in Capitals’ history (and still is), and his was a career iconic in its emblem of old time hockey. Garts is bettered as the most prolific right wing in Caps’ history only by Peter Bondra, he is already a member of the pro hockey Hall of Fame, and he was a star hockey player in red, white, and blue at a time when Washington really didn’t know how to acknowledge stars in hockey. He will receive his just star status here on December 28.
I forget who said it — it may have been Ken Dryden — that great skaters aren’t developed, they’re born. You couldn’t have watched Mike Gartner without noticing how extraordinary a skater he was. Beyond his blinding speed — and for my money, he was faster than Peter Bondra — there was an effortless but nonetheless technical brilliance to his skating, one that certainly seemed genetic. When I authored a series of critiques of the NHL’s decision last summer to jettison the traditional hockey sweater in favor of its present Amish-confining look, it was with a profound and lasting association of watching Mike Gartner’s three Caps’ colors flutter like a flag in a coastline gale as he power-glided past well-positioned defenders, for 10 years here in D.C. It’s sad for me to think that until the present fashion fad fades contemporary youths won’t have that special association.
When a hockey player skates as Mike Gartner did, in his uniform he ought to look distinctive out on the sheet from his peers.
Mike Gartner scored 708 goals in his NHL career, and nearly 400 of them here in Washington. You’re damned right he deserves what’s coming to him December 28.
Still, there are those in hockey who would dispute both Gartner’s number retiring by the Caps and his Hall of Fame selection. To them I would address this question: if on the day of Gartner’s drafting by the Caps in 1979 — on that very day — you could have accurately crystal balled no. 11’s playing 19 seasons and scoring more than 700 goals in the NHL, what would you have said about his career that day? That it was . . . alright?
Garts played seven of his 19 seasons in All Star fashion, but he along with Larry Murphy was especially associated with the Caps’ ’80s playoff failures. He played on six Caps’ clubs that ever seemed doomed come springtime. And so along with Murphy he was dealt by the Caps for Dino Ciccarelli and Bob Rouse in 1989.
It was one of the more intriguing trades in Caps’ history. With the benefit of hindsight it looks like a no-brainer loser for the Caps — two Hall of Famers dealt away in the prime of their careers for two very nice hockey players. And were David Poile awarded a do-over of that deal, the wager here is that he’d keep his two Hall of Famers. But in the maddening moments of the Caps’ ’80s playoff collapses, some shakeup was deemed necessary. In pro sports, perception is often reality, and in the heartbreak of the postseason moment circa 1989, it just seemed like Garts would light the lamp October through March just fine, then pepper Billy Smith’s pads when it counted most.
In a very real sense Gartner and Murphy were scapegoated for Caps’ team failures two decades ago. This December 28 is partly about reconciling that unfairness.
Just as important as Gartner’s sweater retiring is the accompanying sense that stability and order are arriving to the totality of the Capitals’ operations. Loose ends are getting tied up. Greats from the past who’ve gone under-mentioned or altogether forgotten are being brought back into the fold. It was magnificent to see Bengt Gustafsson in Verizon Center last season. It’s been cathartic to see Rod Langway involved again in team functions. This season Garts is at long last getting his much deserved due. That gorgeous new center-ice video screen at Verizon Center is sure to show highlights of no. 11’s magnificent career here on December 28; newer Caps’ fans in attendance then are in for a treat.
HockeyWashington has greatness in its present and rafter-raising heroism in its past. The two are converging magnificently these days.
For those who live with hockey residing in the soul, every day carries some manner of frozen celebration, even in the dead of summer, but some days are better refrigerated than others. For me there are three or four genuinely dry-ice moments in the hockey calendar that are a given every year: the morning of day one of training camp in September; the morning of the season opener about a month later; and the moment that the NHL commissioner places the team drafting first at June’s Entry Draft on the clock. With those first two events, no doubt I’m joined in celebration by thousands of puckheads across the continent. But the latter?
Fast forward to 1996. The leadup buzz with that draft surrounded a big-bodied, ungodly talented Russian power forward named Alexander Volchkov. (Our good friend JP exercises his inner DraftGeek with 
The Capitals’ communications team Saturday morning passed along some eye-opening data for Brooks Laich, who didn’t have a two-goal game in his first 214 NHL games but has three in his last nine outings. Laich has 10 goals and 12 points in the Capitals’ last 12 games, and now ranks third on the team with 19 goals. He entered this season with just 15 goals in 151 career NHL games.
Was in the then MCI Center the night of March 13, 2001 — also deadline day — when earlier in the day GMGM dealt Zednik and Bulis and a pick to Montreal for Zubrus and Linden, and the mood in last night’s rink felt larger and more significant . . . that dealmaking carried a component of risk; this was pure aggression with minimal assets heading out . . . the better comparison may be with March 1997, carried out not in a single day but over the course of a couple of weeks, when McPhee, in his first season on the job, added Brian Belllows and Esa Tikkanen . . . Enjoyed most of all throughout the late Tuesday afternoon and evening messages from friends and strangers who were busy with business throughout the day and wholly unaware of the deadline day madness that enveloped the Caps, who arrived at the news late and lavished it (in my email inbox) with happy obscenities and exclamation points . . . Mike Vogel, looking terrifically telegenic, rinkside on Comcast in the 5:00 hour to help analyze the breaking big news, me comparing his polished appearance before TV DC with his pre-sunrise, blogging-through-the-Moscow-night, comrade shagginess with me during last year’s Worlds . . . big bonus: dinner with Ron Weber in the press room on such a big day . . . look at all the media big wigs who show up when hockey creates the day’s sports buzz: George Solomon of the Post, three Times’ reporters, the one-time 
Thirty minutes before faceoff, the Isles’ blueline tonight apparently will consist of: Radek Martinek - Freddie Meyer; Marc-Andre Bergeron - Bryan Berard; and Aaron Johnson - Drew Fata (Rico relation, yes). Those very inexperienced final two may be partnered with more veteran blueliners, or Coach Ted Nolan may up to seriously limit their minutes and try and go with just two defense pairings as long as possible.
Approximately 95 percent of his 503 goals (472) were scored in a Caps’ sweater. He is remembered as fondly as he is by as many Caps’ fans as he is because in addition to scoring as frequently as he did, he did so with an endearing, infectious exuberance: there was artistry to his besting NHL goaltenders in elite fashion but also in the wide-eyed, even wider grinned, pressed-against-the-plexiglass manner which he celebrated with the home crowd.
