Just how important was Mike Green’s signing this week? Nearly as important as Alexander Ovechkin’s back in January.
Green isn’t just the Capitals’ no. 1 gun from the point — the slick-passing, even slicker skating, indispensable-in-the-new NHL engine from the back end. He’s their Mohawked Mojo, their Titan of ‘Tude, the galvazer of Gang Green. He is supremely skilled swagger on skates. He represents something this organization has never had: rock star star hockey player.
And that’s a very good thing.
You in the Grandpas of Capsdom might suggest that the Wild Thing, Al Iafrate, was such a figure 15 years ago. Iafrate’s game was special, but it was highly specialized in its impact — a really big (triple digit) slapshot, and some really big hits on the back end. And like Green he could skate like the wind. But he wasn’t quite the passer that Green is. He could deliver big hits for sure, and gracious he was fun to watch, but he was more enigma than star. Big Al never really offered the promise of being a 30-minuter-a-gamer who could, as Green showed in the Capitals’ first post-lockout playoff game this past April, outshine even the greatest hockey player in the world.
To those for whom Mike Green’s $5-million-plus pricetag seems too hefty, I ask this: you either agree or disagree that Mike Green, today, is a peer-in-ability-and-impact with Sergei Gonchar, the Penguins’ $5 million dollar man. Which is it? I happen to think he is, and that his upside, at both ends, is appreciably higher than Gonchar’s. And hypothetically, were Gonchar a free agent this summer, he’d command, on either the open or closed market, a salary likely higher than what Green got.
Also, what are the odds that in three or four years’ time this deal looks inflated and wasteful? Not real strong, methinks. In fact, seeing as how Green will be on the prognosticating minds of many hockey followers for Norris Trophy candidacy beginning in about three months’ time, the odds are better that as with his teammate Ovechkin, the deal looks fair and a good value before the ink is dry on it. Lastly, if you agree with George McPhee that the post-lockout NHL places a premium on reliable and creative puck-moving blueliners, how do you evaluate Green’s skillset in that regard?
Or put another way: can you imagine anyone else in the Capitals’ organization playing the role of fair substitute for Green’s game?
But there is also this consideration, which while somewhat intangible I think nonetheless played a direct and powerful impact on the Caps’ negotiations with Green: aside from his numbers, aside from his potential, aside from his present value in today’s NHL, Mike Green is a marvel of an entertaining hockey player to watch perform. He is dynamic with his instincts, his footwork, his howitzer of a point shot; he is a breed of blueliner we haven’t seen in these parts . . . perhaps ever.
He is two parts Steve Austin (but a whole lot less nerdy), one part Steve McQueen.
Recall his third-period magic in that game 1 against the Flyers this spring, when the Flyers held what shoud have been a lock-down, third period lead. Green took over that third period. And it was no fluke — we’d seen glimpses of that kind of command performance in the regular season as well, particularly after Bruce Boudreau came in. They just never had the stage that that postseason night did. It was a performance that led Flyers’ Coach John Stevens to single out Green for special coverage attention thereafter.
Now consider this: he’s certain to get better. It isn’t hyperbole, given the gusto of his game, to imagine a post-Nicklas Lidstrom NHL being Green’s to preside over when it comes to heavy hardware for the league’s reargaurds. He’ll have superb company (Phaneuf, Campbell, two or three names from the ‘08 draft as well, perhaps), but he’ll enter 2008-09 as a First-Team All Star candidate. The Sporting News this year named Green to its All Star team, where he joined Ovechkin.
Mike Green occasioned Gang Green in Verizon Center this past season. His puck rushes over the next four seasons in Washington will at times generate a mass rising in the home seats. That kind of response from and relationship with fans is a rarity in hockey — in sports in general. From management’s perspective, that’s no small part of his value.
If Washington is going to rise to some stature of a hockey town in a way it never did in the Capitals’ first 30 years of existence, Mike Green will play an outsized role as architect.
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.
Go back to last June and the launching of the revamped look of the team. Caps’ fans long hungered for a return to the team’s original red, white, and blue colors, and the team not only listened but carried out the makeover in an appealingly clean and restrained contemporary design that, judging by its red wave prevalence within Verizon Center, appears to be popular across gender and age.
It’s perhaps impossible to overstate the impact that the arrival of Bruce Boudreau has had on the Caps, and it’s true that Alexander Ovechkin’s third season in the NHL has been his best – positively Hart Trophy candidate worthy and a catalyst for the team’s playoff contention. But winning hockey can’t be a one-man show, even double-shifted, and if you really want to know why the Caps are as dangerous as they are these days, consider that their attack is double-barreled, launched from the back end by the 22-year-old Calgary native who, at the other end of the ice, slings heavy lead with his point blasts and pinched-in pulverizers.   
