OFB wishes a speedy recovery to Redskins’ rookie wide receiver Devin Thomas, who was carted off the training camp field this week with a strained hamstring.
No timetable has been established for his return.
We presume that Capitals’ center Boyd Gordon is well mended from his own groin injury — he competed in the Stanley Cup playoffs this spring with a torn groin.
This is an extraordinary American summer weekend, insomuch as it delivers something rarer than an NHL goalie scoring a goal: the arrival in theaters of a great and compelling and culture-consuming domestic movie. I’m speaking of course of the new Batman movie, ‘The Dark Knight.’ It isn’t merely exceptionally well reviewed by critics, who are discussing it in terms of Oscars and “classic.” For its Uptown Theater debut Thursday night at midnight city youths arrived to stand in line some time near 2:00 that afternoon — in Washington July heat. It will be even hotter this weekend, and thousands more, already with tickets, will stand in line hours just to get the seats they want for the screening.
If you can imagine, the nationwide midnight screenings of the film Thursday grossed nearly $20 million. To put that number in terms we hockey fans can understand, that’s a Koules-Aid kind of July budget for free agency to assemble a lottery contender for next June.
Area theaters will have Batman screenings this weekend beginning at 9:00 a.m.! The notion of arriving at any area theater this weekend a few minutes before screening and securing just a single ticket is preposterous. By early yesterday afternoon Craigslist had pages of the movie’s tickets for sale priced solidly above regular box office rate.
Yesterday I found myself marveling at so novel a cultural moment, grateful for its very belated arrival but also melancholy when I considered that Hollywood needs more or less a full decade to render it. It’s true: approximately 99.7 percent of domestic cinematic fare is altogether ordinary or outright rotten. The true gotta-see-it — because of its greatness — cinema spectacle is in frequency of theater runs not dissimilar to the prevalence of Alexander Ovechkins in NHL entry drafts. Anyway, as Americans, we have a special place in our hearts for the buzz-generators on the big-screen that actually deliver the goods. So it’s a moment indeed to savor — history suggests that we won’t see it again for quite some time.
This special moment also led me to think of something special in hockey being crafted, right here in Washington. Like the great summer blockbuster, it’s exceptionally rare for hockey here. It could very well be the case that Verizon Center, beginning this October, will be akin to the great old moviehouse showing just a single feature, for months on end, with weekend tickets very much in demand.
I wouldn’t quite call the 2008-09 Capitals’ season a sequel, however. I think in its forecasted critical acclaim, in its culminating sense of a roster’s arriving very near the peak of elite contention, it will very much be a first run of its kind.
The differences from a summer ago are rather extraordinary. In July 2007 Washington hockey fans thought they had a gifted young star left wing in Alexander Ovechkin. But in his coming off a 46-goal campaign in his sophomore season, most here hoped he’d merely return to the 50-goal club in season three. Who then thought that he’d fairly obliterate competition for the Hart Trophy last season? Today he is regarded as a game-changing force, and the greatest player on the planet.
Additionally, last summer no one even in team management knew that a no. 1 stud of a defender was already in the organization, and poised to break out. But Mike Green will enter the 2008-09 season on a short list of Norris trophy candidates.
Count Brooks Laich as a key component to a glory run in 2008-09, and yet a summer ago he was in a fierce competition among a seeming glut of third and fourth-line center candidates just to make the club. Indeed, if any of the organization’s young centers was thought to have some unexpected offensive upside heading into last season, it was Boyd Gordon, who in ‘06-07 fell one point shy of 30 and flashed a penchant for fits and bursts of well-timed production. Now Laich’s regarded as one of the league’s bright young two-way pivots. And paid like it.
Last summer, who would have imagined that a hockey legend (Sergei Fedorov) would arrive here two-thirds of the way through the season and settle a green and nervous young roster and guide it to an against-all-odds Southeast division title? And then announce, mere weeks after his arrival here, that the atmosphere in Verizon Center ranked as the best he’d ever competed in, and that despite the formation of a very well funded super league in his home country of Russia, that he’d very much like a return engagement in Washington?
There are, indisputably, one or two important areas for Director Boudreau to address in final editing this summer, one of which (the acting in net) is largely out of his control. But given that all of the East’s well built teams for next season possess question marks of their own, it’s certain that the Caps will enter 2008-09 as consensus contenders in the East. They possess star quality principal actors, on-screen chemistry in abundance, and a director newly acknowledged by his peers to be among the best in the business.
Actually, insomuch as there looks to be high-achieving hockey rostered both in Washington and in Hershey this coming season, we appear slated for long run of a great double feature.
The Washington Capitals have signed Boyd Gordon to a one year deal. Tarik El-Bashir is reporting the deal is worth $725,000. That leaves Shaone Morrisonn as the final player to sign. Morrisonn has filed for arbitration and the hearing has been set for July 24th.
From the press release:
Gordon, 24, completed his fifth professional season with the Capitals in 2007-08, matching his career high with seven goals and adding nine assists in 67 games. Gordon won 55.8% of his faceoffs, good for second on the team and ninth in the NHL, and averaged 4:00 of penalty killing ice time per game, which was third among NHL forwards. His +5 rating was tied for seventh on the team. Washington was 7-0-0 when he scored a goal and 10-2-1 when he had a point.
The Caps today inked right wing Eric Fehr to a one-year deal. The modest details can be found here.
The signing leaves only Shaone Morrisonn and Boyd Gordon without contracts for 2008-09. Morrisonn has filed for arbitration.
These are salad days for salaries in the NHL. Yesterday came word that the salary cap for 2008-09 would rise to $56.7 million, with a salary floor ($40.7 million) higher than the league’s cap just back three seasons ago, in the first post-lockout regular season. Stunning. As the salary cap is directly linked to the league’s revenues, which are directly linked to its gate receipts, it’s seems clear that a few folks other than Tiger Woods and Tony Kornheiser are interested in hockey.
Meanwhile, there remain outstanding — unsigned — some necessarily expensive parts to 2008-09 for the Washington Capitals. The tally: Christobal Huet, Brooks Laich, Shaone Morrisonn, and Mike Green. Boyd Gordon and Eric Fehr need new deals, too, but I don’t imagine those will be that expensive. Right now both Matt Cooke and Sergei Fedorov look like salary cap casualties, luxuries likely unaffordable in ‘08. Since I last wrote about matters financial Capitals’ GM George McPhee has managed to sheer off about $2 million in payroll for next season by dealing Steve Eminger to Philadelphia and buying out Ben Clymer. (Ray Shero’s fruitless negotiations with Marian Hossa this month apparently have sheared off $7-8 million from the Penguins’ payroll for next season.)
However, it’s beginning to look like McPhee will need that $2 million to pay Mike Green just in the autumn portion of the calandar next season.
Ah yes, Mike Green. For the congenitally white-knuckled of Caps’ fans, his breakout season in 2007-08, combined with apparently every name New York Ranger leaving Broadway, portends his departure and the swift end of hockey’s renaissance in Washington. But count me among those who think it far from a certainty that Green’s gonna attract a bevy of offer sheets next Tuesday.
For one thing, as great as his game looks, Green’s had only one big-number season, and the price in first-round draft picks for signing him would be exorbitant (as many as five). Additionally, both the owner and the general manager are on record stating that the club will match whatever offer comes Green’s way. For another, offer sheets for restricted free agents (see Tomas Vanek) are in a very real sense one GM’s performing labor for a colleague. Lastly, Green, though a young and inexperienced great talent just as Dustin Penner was last summer, is a primary building block for a contending Caps’ club. Penner wasn’t last summer, nor is he today, one of the 50 best forwards in the NHL. Penner’s was a stupid contract conceived by a stupid GM. Brian Burke allowed stupidity to reign supreme for a moment, but his Ducks won’t soon be looking up at the Oil in the standings.
In Green the Caps know what they’ve got – an already impressive no. 1 rearguard whom they were awfully lucky to nab with a 29th pick in the ‘04 draft, one who has a great deal of progression and maturity ahead of him. Likely, too, Mike Green also knows what he’s got in D.C., and specifically in Bruce Boudreau’s system: the green light to pile up points for a really big deal around the time he’s in his prime.
Mike Green will get signed alright. But it won’t come cheap. In fact, Team Green may be pointing to Alexander Semin’s 2009-10 salary ($5 million) and understandably if myopically bargaining that Green’s of greater value to the team than Semin. In an ideal world, Team Green would acknowledge the client’s youth and inexperience and appreciable development still ahead and ask to be made the team’s highest paid defenseman . . . but not like say Anaheim’s best defenseman.
Few however imagine ideal worlds with attorneys and player agents in them.
Speaking of interesting contracts, remember that “home team discount” deal Sidney Crosby signed? It will pay him $7.5 million in 2013. The thinking here is that Sidney will be a pretty good hockey player in 2013, when he’s still not yet 30 years old. Do you know how many NHLers will be earning more than $7.5 million then? (Mike Green might well be one.) One of them will be Vinny Lecavalier, according to ESPN. Indeed, as early as 2009-10, Crosby may not even be the highest paid Penguin. The intrigue with the Penguins never ends.
Given the number and prominence of Capitals’ restricted free agents, this wasn’t supposed to be an easy summer of negotiating for GMGM. It was made tougher by the breakout seasons by Laich and Green, as well as Morrisonn’s emergence as a top-pairing performer. And while last weekend was filled with the promise of securing hockey’s future, this one is about placating the present. It’s messy but necessary business.
It’s a time to be anxious but not a time to be pessimistic.
Capitals fans gathered at the Verizon Center on Thursday night to watch the NHL Awards and meet some players. Official OFB photographer Chanuck attended and captured the event.
Likely Sergei Fedorov, in the initial hours and days after arriving in Washington late this past February, thinking ahead then to what was almost certainly his final game as a Capital on April 5, gave some thought to returning home to his native Russia and signing one last lucrative pro contract before hanging them up — or finishing the 2007-08 NHL as a rental Cap and retiring altogether. And who could have blamed him? He’s as decorated a star player as we’ve seen in the last quarter century: a six-time All-Star; a Hart Trophy winner; a Selke Trophy winner; thrice a Stanley Cup champion. What’s left to accomplish here?
Additionally, Sergei’s brother Fedor, a 2001 draft pick of Vancouver, plays in the Russian Super League with Moscow Dynamo, and older brother has spoken publicly of his wish to play with younger brother before retiring. Again, who could blame him?
And yet from his national team and NHL teammate Alexander Ovechkin we learned this week that Fedorov is keenly interested in playing more hockey as a Washington Capital. That’s right, one of the most decorated superstars in hockey of the past quarter century, having accomplished really everything an NHL player could in a career, wants one more run at glory, in the District of Columbia.
The upshot of which is this: Sergei Fedorov believes he has something still to accomplish as an NHLer, as a Cap.
My how hockey times have changed.
Traditionally, the circumstances surrounding a player like Fedorov and the Capitals this summer would have made resigning thoughts ludicrous and impractical. The Capitals, after all, already have a healed up Michael Nylander under contract and star-in-the-making Nicklas Backstrom to center their top two lines. They have, including bonuses, about $8 million in centers for their top two lines next season. Behind them they have exceptionally capable and emerging talent in Brooks Laich; one of the better young defensive forwards in the entire NHL in Boyd Gordon; and in Dave Steckel a top-notch guy on draws and, like Gordon, an exceptional penalty killer. Fedorov is 38, and in terms of raw production about half of what he was with Detroit in 2002-03.
Fedorov’s versatile and all — capable even of playing top-4-pairing defense in this league still — but you don’t resign a near-40 forward in the flickering embers of his career to multi-millions to play a bit part, right?
Right. You resign him partly because 2007-08 taught you the value of having quality depth up front. You resign him because you envision him as more than a veteran catalyst toward a Cup run.
And, you don’t place all your chips on ‘08-09, either. More on that in a moment. But resigning Fedorov, in light of the outstanding contracts already piled high before General Manager George McPhee, means more pressure against the cap and likely the inability to resign one or two contributors from last season.
Fine by me.
The sentiment among virtually the entirety of HockeyWashington early this offseason is thus: get Feds resigned.
Perhaps this consensus is predicated on this perception: the fit between player and team at this moment in time is as perfect as perfect can be in the sport. It’s more than just the veteran hero-Russian mentoring the young Russian studs Ovechkin and Semin. Actually, ethnicity has nothing to do with it. In point of fact, Fedorov’s arrival in the Caps’ room this spring seized the attention of every member in it. They told us as much game after game in March and April. This was a three-time Cup winner standing up and holding court during tough times, night after night, and he had credibility with every Capital teammate. And he made a difference.
Then, as if to put an exclamation point on his stature, he went off to Halifax and Quebec City this month with the Russian national team, centered the top line between his two young Capitals’ countrymen, and helped forge the World Championship’s most potent line. Other NHL GMs certainly took notice of Fedorov’s performance in the NHL postseason and at the Worlds, but there’s one and only one GM who should have had his socks knocked off.
Who thinks that Fedorov’s work in Washington is done after 10 weeks’ time? Who thinks that another year or two of Feds would be anything but beneficial for Alexander Semin especially and the Caps more generally?
Did I suggest a new deal reaching out toward two years as a Cap? Multi-millions potentially at 40? Yep. The retaining of this extraordinary talent ought to be pursued with the notion of his playing a lead role on a Caps’ Cup-contending team, and in all likelihood we’re talking 2009-10 rather than next season for that.
Which makes the courtship of Feds this summer the most intriguing offseason personnel challenge for the Capitals since the summer of 1990, when they lost once-in-a-generation talent Scott Stevens. Sergei Fedorov at this stage of his career still carries a bit of magic in his game, but he also brings a bit of moxie to a room full of kids. More importantly, he sure appears to have melded with them. And at this stage of his career he’s paid Capitals’ management the greatest possible compliment: he wants to stick around what management has assembled.
Lose out on Feds and the Caps have the look of a 3-to-7 seed in the East next season. Bring him into the fold and send a message to the rest of the league: you want nothing to do with our power play, we have depth you crave, and the glory future is now.
Fedorov returned to the Caps could play a role we’ve never quite seen of a player in the twilight of his career: that of utility playmaker, on the first, second, or third lines; first- and or second-unit power play QB; first-unit penalty killer; taker of key draws in the Caps’ end at the end of tight games; and mentor. He likely also would play a role that isn’t defined by placement on ice or slotting in payroll. I don’t even know if there’s a name for it in hockey.
It just sure seems to need to happen.
At a ceremony in Pittsburgh at 2 p.m. today, Alex Ovechkin will officially be awarded the Art Ross Trophy and the Maurice “Rocket” Richard Trophy. Prior to the award ceremony, Alex met with the press on a conference call.
Alex said he was happy to win these awards and feels it is important to the fans to know that their “players win something and have good players.” He also said that the recently completed World Championship was “unbelievable,” especially beating Canada in Canada.
I asked Alex if Alexander Semin’s play in the postseason and again at the Worlds shows that he’s maturing into a world-class talent and if they would be battling for these same awards next year. He responded that watching Semin for the last three years that “you’re right, he’s going to be a great player and I’ll happy if he wins awards next year.”
With the talk turning to the Worlds he was asked if he had spoken with Sergei Fedorov in trying to convince him to return to Washington to play next year. Without hesitation, Ovechkin responded, “I know for sure he wants to stay. I know for sure.”
The great Bob McDonald was singing the national anthem near 7:00 Tuesday night in a darkened Verizon Center when, standing high above the playing surface in the press box, I noticed something most peculiar: two uniformed Verizon Center maintenance workers were, to Bob’s immediate left, on their knees, trying to remain inconspicuous, a bucket stationed between them, doing something of a repair nature to the ice quite near a goal cage.
This was transpiring some 120 seconds before the puck-drop for an Eastern Conference quarterfinal Game 7 in the Stanley Cup playoffs. The maintenance workers performed their labor while the arena lights were dimmed and while most of the arena was patriotically distracted. It was abundantly clear that they didn’t want their work to be noticed.
As odd as this sight was, I didn’t make much note of it at the time. I think I was consumed by the novelty, the spectacle, of taking in my first playoff game 7 from a press box to pay it much notice.
Then I encountered Daniel Briere’s reflection to the Washington Times’ Corey Masisak yesterday afternoon. This is what Briere said:
“Another thing that favored us was the condition of the ice,” he said. “It was so bad that it was tough for guys like Semin, Backstrom and Ovechkin to get anything going, the ice was so bad. That was another thing that went our way.”
Twice in the same sentence Briere used the words “so bad” to describe Verizon Center’s ice surface Tuesday. Post-game, Briere was amid a madhouse celebration of Flyers’ teammates. What in the world was he doing flapping his yap to a Washington Times’ reporter about Verizon’s Center’s ice surface . . . unless it really was part of a storyline of the game?
A bit more backfile before I lay my bombshell of a theory on you. I was able to arrive in the Verizon Center press lounge reasonably early in the 5:00 hour Tuesday. It was a zoo in there, as you might imagine. There were a lot of friendly faces and plenty of new arrivals as well. It being a game 7, I wanted to survey the pros — the men and women who get paid to work hockey as a beat, and especially the veteran ones who’ve worked these decisive games before — to try and gain a sense of how they thought this remarkable series would conclude.
I was able to chat up 11 press members before seating myself upstairs at my assigned seat, eight affiliated with Washington media, two with Philly, one with a Canadian outlet. All eleven reporters forecasted a Caps’ victory Tuesday night. That sort of unanimity, imbalanced as the survey sample was, struck me as odd, particularly for a series as closely contested as this one. But it matched forecasts I’d seen on television since late Monday night.
With two of the scribes I pressed the matter. Why so Caps’-certain, I asked? The answers were the same, and interesting. The Caps had matured about midway through the series — learned tough lessons from the series’ first three games. Moreover, they were able to adapt in the series in a way that the one-weapon Flyers weren’t: the big-bodied Caps could go physical, whereas the bruising Flyers couldn’t hope to out-finesse the highly skilled Caps.
These reporters mentioned the word “momentum,” if at all, only at the very end of our dialogue, almost as an afterthought. The one variable of vulnerability for the Caps, a few of them suggested, was if somehow Cristobal Huet turned in a dog of a showing. Unlikely, they suggested, but possible.
The Flyers as we all know prevailed Tuesday night, defying the forecast of all 11 hockey media pros I surveyed and a host of national television commentators. I didn’t really think much about this oddity until late yesterday afternoon.
Over a beer early Wednesday evening, without a game to monitor for the first time in months, I had this thought: couldn’t it be possible that all 11 reporters presumed, subconsciously of course, that the Caps Tuesday night at home would be skating on a sheet of ice comparable in quality to Philly’s from the night before?
Makes sense. The two cities, close as they are to one another, experience basically identical weather, and both are home to multi-purpose venues experiencing virtually identical challenges in terms of attaining hockey ice integrity. And perhaps more to the point: fresh in the minds of these reporters was the nature of the goals the Caps scored in game 6 just the night before: that dazzling exchange between Brooks Laich, Alexander Semin, and Nicklas Backstrom on the first Caps’ goal, the one that led Pierre McGuire to issue a warning to the rest of the Eastern conference for its virtuosity; then, Viktor Kozlov’s near 100-ft. bullet, to the tape, of Alexander Ovechkin’s stick blade up the center of the ice, for a third-period breakaway, game-winning tally. And lastly, the insurance marker — a perfectly flat, cross-ice setup from Laich to Ovechkin for a bullet one-timer Martin Biron never saw.
Those type of plays can only be made on decent ice. Those type of plays weren’t made just one night later — though some of them were attempted. On Tuesday night the Caps, on about a half dozen attempts, tried long-range, middle-of-the-ice passes from various players to Ovechkin and Alexander Semin, seeking to replicate game 6’s success. All of them failed, most of them bouncing over or away from the recipients’ stick blade.
Also conspicuous Tuesday night, in light of the preceding night’s success in breakout passes and offensive zone entry, was the Caps’ reliance on dumping and chasing. Why so dramatic a reversal in tactics just 24 hours removed from stunning success — and before 18,000 lunatic-loud supporters?
The explanation, it seems to me, is both simple and shocking: the Caps had no home-ice advantage very late this spring; indeed, as Daniel Briere noted, they had a distinct disadvantage at home. Worse, it was a wound self-inflicted in nature. A most unnecessary one. At one time not all that long ago the Verizon Center aptly demonstrated its ability to chill out, and get the building feeling like a hockey rink should. Correspondingly, the hockey played on the sheet within was of comparatively high quality. But despite the absence of Verizon Center’s other principal tenant, the Wizards, over the weekend, event staff was unable to deliver a competent playing surface for a game 7 in the playoffs — for perhaps the most anticipated and important hockey game Washington, D.C., has hosted in a decade.
It was — is — a scandal. Continue reading ›
Monday night was anything but another ordinary weeknight regular season game at Verizon Center. A healthy sampling of the communications crew from the Hershey Bears made the trip down, their schedule at last allowing for a visit to D.C. to catch up with the newly promoted coach they so admire. The voice the Bears, John Walton, brought along Chris Poisal, who’s keeping Bears’ stats for Coach Bob Woods, and Lamont Buford, who keeps the Bears’ web site fresh and informative. Chris, incidentally, started blogging this fall ["Dupree in the Sin Bin"] and is tracking American Hockey League life with commendable breadth and detail. He’s become my pipeline to real-time progress reports on Eric Fehr’s rehab.
Coach Boudreau didn’t know about the visit from his friends ahead of time, and so the scene inside the Caps’ room after last night’s victory was warm like you might imagine — made the moreso by Quintin Laing’s game-winning heroics.
I hadn’t seen these guys since Hershey’s home opener back in late October, and given the intervening developments of note since then, last night’s reunion made for a lively dinner chat. It was fascinating listening to the perspectives on the big changes from these guys who know Coach Boudreau best. You might recall that the Bears were in Philadelphia on Friday, November 23, playing that night against the Phantoms after Bruce Boudreau made his debut as Caps’ coach that afternoon against the Flyers. These circumstances helped fuel an emotion in the Hershey organization that day that was, Walton told me, at times overwhelming.
“After the [2006 Calder] Cup, that day was the most rewarding in my entire hockey career,” he told me. “I was so spent that by the time we boarded the bus to get back [to Hershey], I was asleep before it pulled out.”
There seems to be a lot of Hershey Bears influence about the Caps these days, all of it positive. I find myself wishing it’d arrived here about 10 years ago.
Now then. There were of course notable items from last night’s game, led first and foremost by the fact that someone in Caps’ communications managed to see me seated next to a recent Miss New Jersey, who was, yes, blogging from the game. I didn’t believe at first, either (although she was distinctly attractive), but Vogel assured me it was true. Plus, early Tuesday morning, over breakfast in a Mayflower suite, she showed me her crown. Kidding about the Mayflower — what blogger could afford that lodging?
 |
||||||||
| 2007 WASHINGTON CAPITALS OPENING NIGHT ROSTER | ||||||||
| FORWARDS | ||||||||
| # | Player | Ht. | Wt. | Shoots | Born | Birthplace | 2006-07 Club(s) | League(s) |
| 19 | BACKSTROM, Nicklas | 6-0 | 183 | Left | 11/23/87 | Gavle, Sweden | Brynas | SEL |
| 10 | BRADLEY, Matt | 6-3 | 205 | Right | 6/13/78 | Stittsville, Ontario | Capitals | NHL |
| 87 | BRASHEAR, Donald | 6-2 | 235 | Left | 1/7/72 | Bedford, Indiana | Capitals | NHL |
| 17 | CLARK, Chris | 6-0 | 200 | Right | 3/8/76 | South Windsor, Connecticut | Capitals | NHL |
| 14 | FEHR, Eric # | 6-4 | 204 | Right | 9/7/85 | Winkler, Manitoba | Capitals/Hershey | NHL/AHL |
| 43 | FLEISCHMANN, Tomas | 6-1 | 188 | Left | 5/16/84 | Koprivinice, Czech Republic | Capitals/Hershey | NHL/AHL |
| 15 | GORDON, Boyd | 6-1 | 201 | Right | 10/19/83 | Unity, Saskatchewan | Capitals | NHL |
| 25 | KOZLOV, Viktor | 6-4 | 232 | Right | 2/14/75 | Togliatti, Russia | NY Islanders | NHL |
| 21 | LAICH, Brooks | 6-2 | 208 | Left | 6/23/83 | Wawota, Saskatchewan | Capitals | NHL |
| 92 | NYLANDER, Michael | 6-1 | 195 | Left | 10/3/72 | Stockholm, Sweden | NY Rangers | NHL |
| 8 | OVECHKIN, Alex | 6-2 | 216 | Right | 9/17/85 | Moscow, Russia | Capitals | NHL |
| 18 | PETTINGER, Matt | 6-1 | 210 | Left | 10/22/80 | Edmonton, Alberta | Capitals | NHL |
| 28 | SEMIN, Alexander | 6-0 | 181 | Left | 3/3/84 | Krasjonarsk, Russia | Capitals | NHL |
| 39 | STECKEL, David | 6-5 | 215 | Left | 3/15/82 | Westbend, Wisconsin | Capitals/Hershey | NHL/AHL |
| 16 | SUTHERBY, Brian | 6-3 | 205 | Left | 3/1/82 | Edmonton, Alberta | Capitals | NHL |
| DEFENSEMEN | ||||||||
| 44 | EMINGER, Steve * | 6-2 | 217 | Right | 10/31/83 | Woodbridge, Ontario | Capitals | NHL |
| 4 | ERSKINE, John | 6-4 | 216 | Left | 6/26/80 | Kingston, Ontario | Capitals/Hershey | NHL/AHL |
| 52 | GREEN, Mike | 6-1 | 200 | Right | 10/12/85 | Calgary, Alberta | Capitals/Hershey | NHL/AHL |
| 23 | JURCINA, Milan | 6-4 | 233 | Right | 6/7/83 | Liptovsky Mikulas, Slovakia | Boston/Capitals | NHL/NHL |
| 26 | MORRISONN, Shaone | 6-4 | 210 | Left | 12/23/82 | Vancouver, British Columbia | Capitals | NHL |
| 2 | POTHIER, Brian | 6-0 | 200 | Right | 4/15/77 | New Bedford, Massachusetts | Capitals | NHL |
| 3 | POTI, Tom | 6-3 | 210 | Left | 3/22/77 | Worcester, Massachusetts | NY Islanders | NHL |
| 55 | SCHULTZ, Jeff | 6-6 | 215 | Left | 2/25/86 | Calgary, Alberta | Capitals/Hershey | NHL/AHL |
| GOALTENDERS | ||||||||
| 1 | JOHNSON, Brent | 6-3 | 196 | Left | 3/12/77 | Farmington, Michigan | Capitals | NHL |
| 37 | KOLZIG, Olie | 6-3 | 225 | Left | 4/6/70 | Johannesburg, South Africa | Capitals | NHL |
| Roster as of 2 October, 2007. | ||||||||
| * Injured reserve | ||||||||
| # Non-roster injured player | ||||||||
What did the Washington Capitals accomplish with their preseason this September? A good bit, I think. First and foremost, they accomplished the most important task: they avoided serious injury — we’ve no indication that Alexander Semin’s ankle sprain is serious. The second most significant accomplishment, in my opinion, was seeing a healthy number of fresh faces perform at a high level and well integrate with the returning Caps’ core. Tomas Fleischmann, it appears, has won first line right wing duty. He’ll be centered, at least initially, by Viktor Kozlov. So two-thirds of Washington’s top line is new this season. It looks more playoff worthy than either of its previous incarnations the past two seasons.
Speaking of looking playoff worthy, the Caps break camp boasting one of the most intriguing second lines in all of hockey — assuming Alexander Semin’s ankle is merely a day-to-day ailment. Nicklas Backstrom’s poise and production from his very first exhibition game on exceeded I think even management’s rosiest forecast. Look for him to improve month by month as his freshman season progresses, and for him to be lodged on everybody’s short list of Calder candidates come spring. Like the Caps’ top line, the second, centered by Michael Nylander, is 66 percent new this autumn.
Line three will have a new look as well. Boyd Gordon will center it, and Matt Pettinger will flank him on the left. But another Hershey Bear, Dave Steckel, made real loud noise (especially in the faceoff circle) this training camp. He may best draw man in the entire organization, he plays a smart game, and he partners exceedingly well with Gordon. (Caps’ fans can only hope Gordon and Steckel replicate in Washington their two-way work from Hershey’s postseason run to Calder glory in 2006.) Captain Chris Clark appears to be a bit of the utility infielder for the first three lines — he’s likely to see duty on all three this season. At times he should skate on Gordon’s right, at others — perhaps as with this week, when a teammate up top is injured — he’ll skate in the top 6.
That Caps’ fourth line, just 30 hours before opening night rosters must be submitted to the league, may still have five bodies vying for assignment: Donald Brashear, Matt Bradley, Brian Sutherby, Brooks Laich, and Ben Clymer. In recent seasons the Caps’ roster has had the look and feel of too much muck and grit too high up front. This autumn, a lot of it has been pushed downward, and a logjam has emerged. It’s been at least five years since the Caps could credibly claim three lines capable of producing points with any reliability. They’ll be able to in 2007-08.
There’s considerably less turnover and churn on the blueline: only Tom Poti arrives from outside in the top 6. Caps’ management is looking for its blueline corps to mature and blossom organically, and this September, there were encouraging signs of marked improvement from within. Milan Jurcina returned to Washington brimming with bulging biceps; his teammates coined for him the nickname “Juice.” He doled out dozens of bruising hits last season after arriving from Boston, and 2007-08 could see him stake a legitimate claim as an impact, top-2 physical force.
When the Caps sent Mike Green back to Hershey last spring they instructed him to go offensive. He did. That burst of production from the blueline continued this preseason, when for much of it Green led the Caps in scoring. He was on nobody’s radar for power play point duty three weeks ago; now he may be part of the unit’s second pairing.
Last season Brian Pothier, out of necessity, was forced into roles and minutes he wasn’t accustomed and suited to. Look for him to flourish in a more stable — and within an overall more talented — defensive unit. But he is also capable of performing at a high level — anyone who saw him skate for Mike Sullivan and the United States at last spring’s World Championships would agree.
There were no questions about the Caps in net heading into camp. There are none departing it.
There is health. There is the league-wide sense that while the rest of the Southeast stood pat, the Caps upgraded. There is buzz. There is optimism. All is good. Now, it’s time to drop the puck.
It’s a day of rest not only for Washington Capitals’ players and coaches — well, the players at least — but for the team’s frenzied communications staff as well. Being out at Kettler as much as I have been the past 10 days, I gained a deep appreciation for the commitment of Nate Ewell, Julie Petri, Paul Rovnak, and Mike Vogel, among others. Their days during camp begin early and end late, and at this time of year they’re not only facilitating one of the heavier media flows following camp in years but also putting together the in-season communications products, such as the Media Guide. It’s forecast to be a stunning late September Sunday today, and I hope they’re all out having fun in the fun and recharging their batteries.
The pause in on-ice action is a good time to take stock of what the Caps have achieved thus far in what I believe is the most important training camp in the organization’s history. I made a point during my visits to survey the hockey-savvy heads also taking in the daily doings at Kettler, from print and broadcast reporters to fellow bloggers to fans in the stands, and herewith I’m blending their leading storylines of camp to date with my own.
It is Chris Clark’s team-first, two-way versatility that has Glen Hanlon fantasizing about a two-way, impact third line along the lines of the great Steve Konowalchuk, Jeff Halpern, Ulf Dahlen trio of a few years ago. That line, you’ll recall, was so dominant that Ron Wilson opened just about every game with it. It was also one that was a lynchpin to the Caps’ postseason participation. The coach has told the media that he’s looking for 60 goals from his third line this season, and given the defensive acumen of Clark and Boyd Gordon, and Matt Pettinger’s offensive pop, it’s natural to invoke the KDH comparison.
I’m also not wagering on Clark’s offensive production diminishing, dramatically, by virtue of his dropping down to line 3. As he noted himself on Media Day, he’s spent the past two seasons taking shifts against the likes of Zdeno Chara and top defensive pairings. Less so, it would appear, beginning this season.
The next step is to close the deal once you have the lead.
On Wednesday’s CapsReport, a listener asked Mike Vogel to forecast the Caps’ forward line combinations for 2007-’08. That’s always a fun offseason exercise. As you might expect, there were no surprises among Vogel’s top 6. But when he got to the third line MV offered up some intrigue:
Pettinger-Gordon-Steckel.
Matt Pettinger is an established talent in the big league. Boyd Gordon had what certainly appeared to be a breakout year in his professional career last season, admittedly in its infancy. But Dave Steckel? An L.A. Kings’ castoff two seasons ago, earning regular and important minutes on a playoff aspiring club?
You bet.
Steckel earned a richly deserved callup by the Caps late last season after piling up career offensive numbers for the Hershey Bears, and in a game in Atlanta on April 4, sharing a sheet of ice with the likes of Ilya Kovalchuk, Marian Hossa, and Alexander Ovechkin, Steckel stood out as the best player on the ice in all three zones. This is what I wrote about his performance for OFB the following morning:
“The Dave Steckel I watched in Atlanta last night looked identical to the one I followed up in New Hampshire and Maine last month — a force in two ends of the rink, but with one key distinction: he occasionally left the ice in his Bears’ sweater for line changes. But last night for Coach Hanlon, I’m not sure I saw him leave the ice in the third period.
“It was only one game, but in the season within a season, the one where many guys are making statements to management about jobs for the autumn, Dave Steckel last night announced rather loudly that he’s likely to make a serious run at a roster spot with the parent club come training camp.”
Approximately six weeks later, I was seated in the Giant Center press box next to Joe Reekie during the Bears’ postseason run. Once again, Steckel was a standout on the sheet below. With Vogs to my right, it was a press row chock full of Steckel boosters, but Reekie’s reflections on the Bears’ leader really caught my attention: “He should have been a [Caps'] regular last season,” Reekie told me.
Steckel had a lot of folks in D.C. rubbing their eyes wondering if they’d read what they’d actually read in more than a few game accounts last season. He scored five shorthanded goals for the Bears in the regular season, including one against Albany on April 18 while killing a 5-on-3 River Rats power play.
Another thing Vogel may have had in mind Wednesday afternoon was Steckel’s being Boyd Gordon’s linemate during the Bears’ postseason march to the Calder Cup in 2006. They were two of Hershey’s best players then, utilized liberally by Bruce Boudreau in all game situations.
Beyond a real big pro physique and two straight seasons of significant development, Steckel will bring to Caps’ training camp in two weeks’ time a reputation for being one of the best thinkers of the game when he’s out on the ice. He is also fantastic on draws. Vogel may or may not have had that in mind yesterday in his line formations; if he’s right, when Boyd Gordon gets chased out of the faceoff circle this season, he could be replaced by his equal at draws. So two-thirds of the Caps’ third line would be renowned for its strategtic thinking, defensive awareness, faceoff acumen, and trustworthiness in every zone of the ice. And be joined by the significantly talented Pettinger.
In his third full season behind the Caps’ bench Glen Hanlon is going to have as many line combination options as he’s ever had. The most impressive may follow the big guns in the top 6 and join a rich legacy of two-way tormentors that play a huge role in leading the Caps back to league-wide respectability.
How exactly does an NHLer spend his summer preparing for the rigors of the NHL’s 82 games-plus season? We know vaguely that many of them retain the services of personal trainers, that they skate a fair bit with other NHLers in informal gatherings at rinks across North America, and that few sit around indolent all summer chugging beers (hockey bloggers fill in capably in that task). Specifically, though, how do these remarkable athletes train and prepare for their lengthy immersion in the planet’s fastest, roughest, and, come playoff time, most grueling team sport? It’s a question I wanted to pose to a Capitals’ player this summer, and with the help of Capitals’ Director of Media Relations Nate Ewell this week, I was able to.
When I first learned that Boyd Gordon had arrived back in D.C. in the first week of August, I was startled. Western Canadian Caps have historically trained back home in Western Canada and arrived in town much closer to the start of September’s training camp. But far from cutting short his offseason training regimen, Gordon told me that he’d completed a demanding training schedule in Vancouver, of fully three months, in British Columbia’s mountains and at a fitness facility among the likes of Trevor Linden and Kris Beech. Now he was back in D.C. to continue his preparations for the upcoming season largely because so many of his Caps’ teammates want to start skating together well in advance of camp. Beginning next week, Gordon told me, a healthy contingent of Caps will be skating together out at Kettler Capitals five times a week, in “hour-and-a-half, maybe hour-and-forty-five [minute]” conditioning stints featuring “drills, scrimmaging . . . and then the [serious] skating.”
I got fatigued just listening to Gordon’s description of “running mountains” in Vancouver for three months and then getting serious on the ice out at Kettler this month. On Wednesday Gordon was giving Caps’ broadcaster Craig Laughlin a hand with the instruction of 25 or so summer camp Mites on the Kettler ice. I began my inquiry of him wondering when he individually transitioned from the rest and relaxation NHLers needed after completing the bruises-and-bone-battering slate of last season to the get-serious-about-next-season training regimen.
“I don’t usually take that much time off from working out,” he told me. “I had surgery on my ankle at the end of last season and took off four weeks. The ankle feels great,” he claimed.
“So about four weeks off with the surgery, but then I get stir crazy.”
Vancouver has some pretty serious mountains and hills, and apparently Gordon views their variety and severity as a training lure. He is also drawn to British Columbia’s temperate summers.
“It’s cool, you don’t have to get up early to go running and stuff. Every day’s different. You go five days a week, sometimes four depending on how early in the summer [it is].”
The fatigued-from-listening blogger interrupted to inquire about the possibility of training-free weekends. Beers with buddies . . . a furlough from the fitness frenzy. Weekends, Gordon assured me, are for recovery and a bit of a mental break.
“Every guy’s different [in specific fitness routine], but June [workouts], it’s almost exclusively off ice,” he explained. Gordon spent his June pumping his legs up the British Columbia peaks and working with equipment and weights at a Vancouver facility frequented by pro hockey players. Summer’s schedule for NHLers appears designed to deliver them to September training camp emerged from fitness routines that improve their overall strength and conditioning but also address areas of need in their physical development. But the programs also have to guard against training extremes that could burn out or injure the players. Continue reading ›
As Training Camp slowly (so slowly) approaches, we decided to take a quick look at some of the new faces, returnees, hopefuls and last-chancers that will be vying for a spot in the Caps’ forward corps. Battles at many slots are expected, and this may be one of the most competitive camp in Caps’ history.
First, we’ll examine the forwards, a group that received an infusion of talent down the middle and added a veteran scoring winger:
Nicklas Backstrom — The youngster is seemingly a lock for the big squad. A slick-passing center with hockey sense and puck-control, the most impressive thing about his game at this point may be his attention to the other end of the ice. His awareness and positioning without the puck, coupled with his creativity and vision should be a boon to either of the Caps’ elite left wingers. Foot speed is a concern, and while he won’t arrive in North America to the same fanfare that Alex Ovechkin did, the “Next Great Swede” will have all the eyes of his country upon him.