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.
Category Archives: Shaone Morrisonn
We Could Use a Few Signings, Couldn’t We?
By pucksandbooks
Friday, June 27, 2008
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.
A Capital Day in the District
By OrderedChaos (Mike Rucki)
Friday, May 9, 2008
Approaching the John A. Wilson building on a sunny Tuesday morning, I reflected on the once-unlikely event about to occur. Official recognition by the Washington D.C. of its hockey team would have been unthinkable not too long ago. The way the Capitals started this season, positive recognition seemed a far-off mirage. But as the team fought back into contention, it won the hearts of Washingtonians along the way, including several on the District of Columbia City Council.
The Wilson, home of the City Council and adjacent to the more modern but blander Ronald Reagan Building, has quite a history of its own — changing ownership, money issues, resident/tenant turnover — not unlike the Capitals’ past in some respects. But the Wilson, like the Capitals, is now a well-established and stable part of Washington. The building is a fairly impressive sight to behold, both outside and in, including an elaborate stucco ceiling in the council chamber and art sprinkled throughout the hallways.
Around 10:00 a.m. Ted Leonsis entered the chamber, accompanied by Washington Capitals defensive stalwart Shaone Morrisonn. They greeted several councilmembers and other guests, including a wheelchair-bound youth and DC Fire Chief Dennis Ruben.
Apropos the District, the meeting started about 30 minutes late. With still images of Capitals players in action on the screens behind the council, the session began with some bureaucratic shuffling and a roll call (all but Marion Barry were present; his name plate is likely closer to hockey in this photo than he will ever be).
A bit after 10:30 a.m. Councilmember Jack Evans (of Ward 2, which includes the Verizon Center) introduced Leonsis and Morrisonn. Evans’ ward includes the Verizon Center, and he emphasized how the excitement of the Capitals’ run “energized our city in a way that I haven’t seen since the Redskins won the Super bowl . . . it’s been a long time.” He also 
highlighted the courageous play of Morrisonn, who had a separated shoulder and a broken jaw during the playoffs. Morrisonn still had his jaw wired this day as he continues his recovery.”
The best part of the resolution: “WHEREAS, The Washington Capitals Rocked the Red in the ‘Phone Booth’, displaying tremendous skill, spirit, and athletic achievement on the ice.” Yes, the phrase Rocked the Red (and “Phone Booth”) are now in the official record.
Leonsis took to the podium, thanked the council, and jokingly pointed out a dozen or so red-clad Unite Here affordable housing proponents as evidence of “rocking the red” in the council chambers. “A dozen years ago,” said Leonsis, “Washington didn’t have a professional sports team.” Now five professional teams play within the District’s borders—the Capitals, Wizards, Nationals, DC United, and Mystics—evidence of a renaissance in the city of Washington as a sports destination.
Morrisonn presented Evans with an autographed Capitals sweater, which Evans accepted with a smile as a brief highlights video started in the background.
So yes: It was a photo op moment. But Councilmembers Evans and Council Chair Vincent Gray were genuinely enthusiastic in their praise of the Capitals—and as any long-time Capitals supporter knows, such public and genuine appreciation is a far cry from not so long ago, and a heartening sign of hockey’s improving stature in the nation’s capital.
Click here for video from the event, or here for for the full text of the council resolution.
“Philly-Washington is going to be downright ugly”
By Gustafsson
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Yesterday, the NHL held a media conference call with several big name broadcasters, Don Cherry of CBC’s “Hockey Night in Canada�, Mike Emrick from VERSUS and NBC, Pierre McGuire from TSN and NBC and Mike Milbury from NBC and TSN. Each broadcaster started the call with a few words about a series before they took questions. Pierre McGuire spoke of the Caps/Flyers matchup.
PIERRE McGUIRE: Well, I’d like to talk a little bit about the Philadelphia Flyers and the Washington Capitals. I think this series has a chance to have the most bloodshed of all the series, and the big reason why is because of the targeting that’s going to go on. Whether you talk about going after Alex Ovechkin or even challenging a rookie like Nicklas Backstrom, I think that’s going to be real tough for Backstrom who’s never played in an NHL playoff game.
I think when you look at the Philadelphia Flyers under John Stevens, he brought back a little bit about what made the Flyers good in the 1970s and that’s intimidation. It’s not easy to do now with the way games are being called, but I expect you’re going to see players like Braydon Coburn having an impact on the series Philadelphia is going to win. I think you’re going to see Steve Downie and Scottie Upshaw potentially have an impact if Philadelphia is going to win.
But the thing that Alex Ovechkin does, like any superstar in the NHL, is he attacks the people that are trying to attack him. He will not be intimidated. He’s yet to show that in his three years in the league, so I expect it’s going to come down to a goaltending situation, and who’s going to be the better goalie. And right now neither one of those goalies has won a playoff round in their NHL history.
I think right now Huet has probably got a little bit of an advantage, but I think the MVP of this entire thing is George McPhee, the general manager of the Washington Capitals at the trade deadline. One of the reasons they are in the playoffs is he got Fedorov, he got Matt Cooke who’s been a tremendous energy player for them, and obviously Huet. What they’ve done with Bruce Boudreau is they’ve cultivated talent like Mike Green to put them in a position where they have a chance to succeed.
But when you play against Washington, the most underrated part of their game because everybody focuses on the skill of Kozlov, Fedorov and Ovechkin, they’ve got powers upon powers on defense. Shaone Morrisonn is a big body. They lean on you. They’re not intimidated. This will be a long, physical bloody series and I think the Washington Capitals will win it, but I think they’re going to win it under severe physical duress.
With the storybook season of this year’s Caps — along with the Caps and Flyers being two of the most improved teams this year — a majority of the questions focused on the Caps and Flyers. Here they are:
Q. Pierre, a lot of buzz about Ovechkin as MVP this year. Why beyond statistics do you feel he would be a candidate?
PIERRE McGUIRE: Because he can do it by himself. A lot of guys need other players around him. He can make himself great and make this team win because he is so overwhelmingly dominant because of the physical nature of his game.
The one thing that he does, and Don and Mike coached against him and obviously Mike played against him. Teemu Selanne was great but he needed Andy McDonald with him or another career type of player to do that. Alexander Ovechkin doesn’t need that. You give him a stick and a puck and he doesn’t even need gloves. He’s virtually indestructible. I would call him a cyborg.
When you look at it, he is without a doubt the MVP of the league, and whoever has a vote that doesn’t vote for him should have that vote rescinded. He’s the MVP of the league.
Q. Mike Milbury, you’ve seen a lot of players in your time. Is there anyone that Ovechkin reminds you of, or is he kind of his own man?
MIKE MILBURY: He’s taken it to another level that I haven’t seen. When you see him jumping up against the glass and the enthusiasm that he demonstrates with his teammates, whether it’s him scoring a goal or not doesn’t seem to matter to this guy. There’s no question he’s as electrifying a player as I’ve seen when you put him in that category. Crosby last year was in that similar vein, but I think Ovechkin may have knocked it up a notch. It’s hard to believe that he can, but this is as improbable a run as you’d want to expect from a team that was down and out until Boudreau comes along and turns them into just a fantasy that’s hard to believe. It’s great for Washington and they’ve waited a long time and it looks like they should be good for a lot of years to come.
DON CHERRY: I think George McPhee did a great job. I heard him on the radio, and he said, yes, well, we all knew that Boudreau was a great hockey mind. That’s why he left him in the minors for 17 years I guess it was, and he named him interim. Who’s kidding who? He was there just until he found another coach, and all of a sudden he pulled a little magic out and now he’s staying.
But make no mistake about it, when he first went there, he was just cannon fodder until he found another coach.
MIKE EMRICK: One last thing on Ovechkin, the last time I checked he was tenth in the league in hits, and he’s the scoring champion.
Knee-jerk Reactions: Caps vs. Bolts, 12.26.2007
By OrderedChaos (Mike Rucki)
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Well my initial plan of between-period updates has been thwarted by Windows Vista and its cantankerous behavior when interfacing with the Verizon Center’s wireless network. Next time I’m bringing a LAN cable … old-school is sometimes best.
Exciting game tonight, with the Caps dominating the visiting Lightning much more than the final score might suggest. As Lightning coach John Tortorella put it, when asked about the game-winning goal, “Don’t talk to me about the net being off or this and that. It could have been 8-2.” The Capitals played with heart, twice going down by a goal but roaring back with late-frame tallies that fired up the team and the crowd alike.
The Caps seemed inspired by the organization’s vote of confidence in Coach Boudreau and the removal of his “interim” tag, as all three Capitals goal-scorers tonight said in their post-game interviews. While Matt Bradley made a point to emphasize that the team never treated Boudreau as “interim”, Dave Steckel perhaps put it best: “He came in here and did a great job. He earned it.” And the coach has instilled in the team the need to reclaim home-ice advantage and make the Phone Booth a tougher place for visiting teams. Brian Pothier agrees: “Every team has to come into the Verizon Center saying, ‘This is going to be a really hard game.’ So far this year we haven’t established that, and it’s something we need to do.” Let’s hope tonight’s performance is the start of just that.
- The opening faceoff was preceded by The White Stripes’ “Icky Thump” — killer riff, and a good choice start the evening on an up note (pun intended).
- John Erskine is scratched, for what otherwise would have been his 200th NHL game. Alex Ovechkin, however, began Game #200 in a Capitals uniform at 7:08 PM tonight.
- Bigger crowd than I’d expected; I don’t know the attendance stats at this point [update: 15,035 officially], but the Phone Booth seems more populated than the average weeknight. Anecdotal evidence (i.e., me walking about the concourse between periods and seeing concession lines dramatically longer than usual) supports the assessment.
- Frustrating second-chance goal by Vincent Lecavalier at 5:43 of the first. Kozlov waved ineffectually at the puck as Lecavalier swooped in to put the rebound home; Ovechkin too had a close-up view of the goal. Of course, why those two forwards were the two Caps closest to the Lightning’s leading scorer in the faceoff circle… well, that’s a question Coach Boudreau likely asked Shaone Morrisonn and Mike Green.
- Even when Dave Steckel loses a faceoff he’s very, very good at tying up the opposing center. That skill is underrated, particularly in the defensive zone.
- Caps’ first PP of the night. Good puck movement, and a beauty of a shot by Ovechkin from the slot, then another pretty pass from Backstrom to Ovechkin a few seconds later that just missed. Unfortunately the Caps are making newbie goaltender Karri Ramo look like Georges Vezina. Later in the same PP Fleischman makes a nice move and has a great scoring chance, but Ramo makes the sprawling save on Fleischman’s not-enough-air-under-it shot.
- Defenseman Doug Janik just stood up Donald Brashear at the blue line . . . color me impressed.
- Finally a rebound goes the Caps’ way, and rewards the team’s hardest-working player of the night so far, Dave Steckel. Big, big goal to inject some life back into the building, and the team.
- I’m not a fan of the Morrisonn-Green d-pairing tonight. Neither one clears the crease well, and Morrisonn seems off his game. This dislike is borne up 30 minutes later by the Bolts’ second goal — with both Green and Morissonn caught out of position on a long outlet pass — leading to a breakaway tally by Lecavalier. Morrisonn just isn’t a solid enough anchor for Green’s freewheeling ways. Like Gonchar needed Reekie, Green needs a bruising stay-at-home partner.
- Of course, Green then follows with some stellar PP play, breaking up a shorthanded 2-on-1 and putting in a terrific shift. Fleischmann, however, continues to be snakebit, missing a gorgeous scoring chance on the same PP. He always plays hard, but five goals in 33 games isn’t top-six play.
- Crossbar! Ergh… the Caps are skating circles around Tampa but can’t put them away. Ovechkin’s PP one-timer hits Ramo’s loose goal stick; then Mike Green fails to keep the puck in the zone while Ramo is stuck with a regular stick. Then Fleishmann fails on another keep-in attempt.
- Thankfully, this dismal sequence if followed by another terrific shift from Steckel’s line, saving a near-goal with a mad rugby scrum just outside the crease. Is it too soon to suggest a name for them? Hmm… two of the three wear prime numbers, but Bradley’s #10 kills “The Prime Line” as an option… feel free to post suggestions as comments, as I’m drawing a blank. Regardless, tonight Steckel’s line was the team’s best shut-down group since Kono-Halpern-Dahlen.
- Like loaves of bread thrown to the Coliseum crowds (c.f. Gladiator), so goes the Chipotle Burrito Dash.
- Second period, 16:33 — Here’s hoping for another late goal to reinvigorate the team… it’s disheartening to see the Caps outplay the competition yet remain on the short side of the balance sheet.
- 17:42 – Wish granted! Pretty shot by Pothier on a sweet feed from Ovechkin.
- Ovechkin takes a penalty to prevent a Martin St. Louis breakaway… a bit of a ticky-tack call, but that was one of those rare “smart” penalties to take, even if it was necessitated by Ovehckin’s blueline turnover. Heads-up play by Tom Poti to burn the last few seconds of the ensuing penalty with some smooth puck possession down low.
- Nylander looks sleepy, and a sloppy neutral zone play led to an extended Tampa offensive-zone possession that, fortunately didn’t lead to a goal. Other than a few pretty spin-a-rama moves, Nylander is having an off night. Putting him and Backstrom together along the left side on the PP seems to make it easier on the opposing goalie, since they’re both pass-first players.
- Semin hits the post after a gorgeous end-to-end rush by Mike Green. I literally just grabbed my head and shouted, unable to maintain press box demeanor for a second there.
- With four and a half minutes remaining, big hit by Milan Jurcina behind the Caps net leads directly to a terrific scoring chance at the other end… but despite carrying much of the play in the third, the Caps have so far been unable to take the lead.
- Horrible non-call by the officials at 16:50 of the third, with Steckel getting knocked down though he wasn’t near the puck. 17 seconds later, Matt Bradley scores on a bizarre pop-up play off a Steckel shot that trickles in just before the net goes off its moorings. Now it’s under review… Crowd’s riled (as they should be) chanting “Goal! Goal! Goal!” Why it’s taking the referees so long I don’t know… perhaps they’re taking lessons from NFL officials.
- After a painful delay, GOAL! The lesson: Don’t mess with Dave Steckel. Three-point night for Steckel, and first star of the game. Then to close out the game, terrific forechecking by Laich-Pettinger-Semin to keep Ramo in the net, then by Steckel and company. Unselfish finish by Ovechkin too, who with about 7 seconds remaining softly banked the puck into the neutral zone rather than trying for the empty netter and risking an icing call.
Coach Boudreau and several of the players spoke strongly about belief after the game tonight–belief that continued hard work would pay off; belief that being down a goal despite outplaying an opponent was something they could, and would, overcome; belief that no opponent or obstacle is insurmountable. The team unity and confidence are inspiring; Head Coach Boudreau has indeed earned his new title.
Knee-jerks & Notes: Caps-Devils, 12/10
By pucksandbooks
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
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?
- What was with all that room on the ice for the Caps’ skilled forwards to skate the puck? New Jersey was missing one half of its shutdown tandem of John Madden and Jay Pandolfo, and that seemed to make a huge difference. But it also appears to be true that Brent Sutter wants his team to skate with its opposition — to trade chances. If true, what a welcome change from ten-plus years of trap hockey. New Jersey visits to D.C. ranked as my least favorite among opponents, for their I-wish-I-had-a-Michener-novel-during-play-quality, but last night’s game was well played and fun to watch.
- Remember the gratuitously poor line changes that occasionally victimized the Glen Hanlon-led Caps, and less commonly, the too many men on the ice penalties? Where are they now? I keep hearing the word “system” referenced by media at games, inferring that some reasonably radical formations are being deployed by Bruce Boudreau; the more relevant difference with the Caps of the past two weeks is the heightened discipline with which it’s skating.
- Everyone in the press mentioned the dominance of last night’s second period. The Devils had a strong start to open the game, and a real strong opening five minutes in the third. But the rest of the game belonged to the Caps. This was an injury-depleted Caps’ club — and key injuries at that. And yet it throttled a white-hot Devils’ club. We were told throughout October and most of November that a fair evaluation of Glen Hanlon couldn’t take place because of injuries. Really?
- New Jersey’s David Clarkson made a point of targeting Alexander Ovechkin with some pointed physicality early on, and AO never seemed to forget it for the remainder of the game. Even deep in the third AO was aware of Clarkson on the ice — and sending a weight-tossing Christmas card his way.
- It didn’t seem much colder in Verizon Center, but pucks seemed to stay flatter on the surface, and I noticed especially the amount of snow on the ice at the conclusion of period one.
- Olie Kolzig appeared to be fighting the puck a bit last night.
- Shaone Morrisonn and Mike Green are fast taking on a shutdown aura to their pairing.
- Speaking of Green, if you’re wondering why Boudreau is making liberal use of him on the Caps’ power play, watch his footwork and agility in his lateral cycling of the puck on the point. Bryan Muir there he ain’t.
- There are nights when Alexander Ovechkin sees the ice magically, regularly directing passes crisply and creatively to wide-open teammates in ways only the world’s elite can. His high-low, cross-ice laser to a startled Viktor Kozlov in the second period was just such an instance, and there were a half dozen similar setups from him Monday night.
- The injury-ravaged Caps caught a break in not seeing Marty Brodeur in net last night. Kevin Weekes didn’t play poorly at all, but he played the puck brutally.
- More and more mobility is arriving for Alexander Semin. The Caps are an entirely different hockey club with a healthy Semin skating in the lineup. I’ve made a point before of claiming him to be the most skilled hockey player ever to wear a Caps’ sweater. Last night Eric McErlain told me, “The puck is on a Yo-Yo string with [Semin], and he’s the only one on the ice who knows what’s going to happen with it.”
Opening Night Roster
By The OFB Team
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
 |
||||||||
| 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 |
| Â | ||||||||
| Roster as of 2 October, 2007. | ||||||||
| * Injured reserve | ||||||||
| # Non-roster injured player | ||||||||
| Â | ||||||||
The Shooting in the Dark Industry
By pucksandbooks
Friday, August 24, 2007
I greatly appreciate my bloggermate Orderedchaos’ initial survey of preseason prediction silliness. Outside of Entertainment Tonight, there can be little in this world as vacuous and vapid as “experts” engaged in summertime “prognosticating” about the performance of sports teams.
I’m a college football enthusiast, and there are at least a half dozen published preseason magazines on newsstands this month, all offering specific rankings for all 117 D-I college football teams. Each team has 85 scholarship players, with approximately 20 graduating and 20 newly arriving each season. Many returning players markedly remake their bodies over the offseason with increasingly sophisticated and effective physique-altering training regimens. They also mature. There are, additionally, widespread personnel changes among the ranks of teams’ assistant coaches every offseason.
All of these publications have their preseason forecasts put to bed long before players report for physicals for fall camp. In short, the variables of change in college football are staggeringly enormous from season to season, and yet few of them are reflected in these “forecasts.” Still, the editors of these magazines would have you believe that from their New York offices they can accurately, magically divine the fates of nearly 10,000 football players scattered across the country, most of whom they’ve never seen play.
It is with the same skeptical, dismissive eye that we ought to weigh NHL forecasts offered up in summer. These endeavors are franchises of fraud. That Sports Illustrated could label the ‘05-’06 Carolina Hurricanes a lottery loser and then watch them go on to hoist Lord Stanley seven months later should forever preclude the magazine from forecasting again. There’s getting it wrong and then there’s blindfolded dart-throwing. In the case of the ‘05-’06 NHL season, dart throwing would have aided SI.
Now to be fair, the league had been shut down the preceding season by the lockout. But even in the instances of uninterrupted competition, across sports, these forecasts are exercises in little more than slickly marketed, superficial guesswork. And they are unified in their being reliably wrong. They exist because they exploit the sports fans’ enduring and insatiable thirst to know what will lie ahead for their heroes. And they are partly fueled by the troubling intersection of modern sports and high-stakes gambling (on- and off line). The fantastic popularity of fantasy sports participation has also mushroomed the popularity of the forecasting industry.
As mindless diversion for beach chair reading, they do no real harm. But they take on a larger-than-life credibility as their rankings and rationales are echoed about message boards and blogs and picked up and regurgitated by the electronic editions of mainstream media outlets. Hockey in particular ranks among the most difficult of sports to forecast; it is why there’s so little action on it in Vegas. How do you wager on or forecast a goalie standing on his head? On some nights, you know, Kerry Fraser doesn’t bring his best evaluative acumen to the sheet.
The Capitals, a few early prognosticators have weighed in upon, will make only modest improvement in the standings this season over the previous two. They will miss the postseason again, we are told.
Such assessments can only be premised on this variable: the team’s free agents signings were nice or decent but not on the order of rink shattering. But no one can know how Nicklas Backstrom will adjust to hockey in North America on the smaller sheet and over 80-plus games in his rookie season. The difference between his notching say 47 points versus 67 points almost certainly determines the team’s playoff viability, but who is confidently able to tell us which tally will prove true?
Who among the soothsayers knows how much if at all the team is improved in the shootout? Will Kolzig hold up and perform at an elite level for at least say 65 games? And certainly the team’s young blueline must have been judged in a development vacuum, within which none of Steve Eminger, Milan Jurcina, Shaone Morrisonn, and Mike Green could appreciably improve over a year ago . . . else, joined by the improvements up front, the team would have to seriously flirt with the postseason, if not outright qualify.
Hockey, too, has its future shrouded in a marvelous mystery of the unknown impact delivered from abroad. Raise your hand if last summer you saw 40 goals in Alexander Semin’s 2006-07 arsenal. You probably had Petr Prucha down for 30 in his rookie season on Broadway, too. It is North American media offering up these rigid preseason assessments, none with any notion of what impact virtually every team will enjoy from its new imports.
Hockey prose is fine for inclusion in any Labor Day beach reading list, just know that if it’s marketed as new season forecast, it’s fiction.
Summer State of the Team - The Defensemen
By OFB
Monday, August 6, 2007
“Offense sells tickets, but defense wins games� is how the old adage goes, and in our on-going offseason look at the organization, we examine a blueline corps with a new face, an old face returning, and a bunch of fresh faces looking to make some noise.
Competition for the 7 projected defensive spots should be fierce, and even a few bad practices or scrimmages may be the difference between suiting up for an NHL club or returning to Juniors or Europe.
Karl Alzner – Washington’s first-round pick in June’s 2007 NHL Entry Draft, Alzner plays a surprisingly mature game, with high panic threshold and excellent on-ice awareness. Not a big banger, nor prone to unleash a slap shot from the point too often, Alzner plays a reliable, steady game that will eventually eat up big minutes in the NHL. For now, it seems, he’s slated to return to the WHL’s Calgary Hitmen, though there is speculation that he may get a taste of NHL duty at the start of the season before being returned to his junior club.
Washington Capitals Depth Chart, Summer 2007
By The OFB Team
Friday, July 20, 2007
Herewith, our attempt to devise a depth chart for the Caps to coincide with the recent completion of the team’s annual Rookie Development Camp. It’s important to note that with it we are not forecasting specific line combos but rather attempting to slot players by position according to their professional production and most recent performances in evaluative settings. It’s also important to note that a number of forwards in the Caps’ system play more than one position up front. The Russian elites and Matt Pettinger appear locks on the left side for well into the next decade, whereas the right side seems to carry many more question marks.
We’ve envisioned this as a file hopefully sparking spirited reaction and respectful challenge. We welcome your proposed modifications.
Caps’ Season Overview: “A Work in Progress”
By The OFB Team
Monday, April 9, 2007
From our vantage, the Washington Capitals have not yet assembled the key roster pieces that ownership and management need to supplement the rebuilding blocks laid during the first two post-lockout seasons — and which can deliver the Caps to springtime viability. Even prior to the trade of Dainius Zubrus, the team lacked a true first-line, playmaking pivot. This offseason, it needs to bring in skilled centers for the first two lines. One position presumably will be filled by 2006 draft gem Nicklas Backstrom of Sweden. Almost certainly the other will have to come from free agency or a trade this summer.
Despite Captain Chris Clark’s 30 goals, there are question marks on right wing. Is Eric Fehr’s back injury chronic? Is there durable chemistry between Alexander Semin and Tomas Fleischmann, and if so, can Semin settle in on the wing to Flash’s right?
Without question Alexander Ovechkin is the face and future of this organization, but his sophomore season brought struggles and frustrations few of us would have imagined last June, when we watched him best Sidney Crosby for the Calder Trophy. Eric McErlain last week well chronicled AO’s season of comparative discontent. He is one of the five most gifted hockey players on the planet today, but his defensive game, underscored by his -19 rating, has a long way to go. An important reminder: he is still a very young hockey player, and developing consistent defensive play takes time.
On the blueline, optimism is to be found with the maturation of Shaone Morrisonn, the precocious promise of Mike Green, the discipline and savvy instincts of Jeff Schultz, and most especially the two-way, bruising play of Milan Jurcina. George McPhee’s highway robbery of Jurcina from the Bs appears to rank among the best trade work of his 10-year tenure in town. But missing from the rearguard corps is a genuine #1 stud: a smooth puck-moving, minutes-eating threat from the point. There’s some shopping to do.
This past campaign was a tale of three seasons: that which ended on Dec. 16, with the team 5 games above .500; the next 25 games, when injury and illness and a brutally congested and difficult schedule sent the squad into a standings free fall; and the trade deadline purging of key veterans as the team settled into the Southeast’s basement. Again.
On the surface, 2006-07’s 70 points suggest a hockey club in standings stagnation. We don’t see it like that. Owner Ted Leonsis this past weekend claimed his team had taken “two steps forward and one back” this season. He also claimed in the season’s final week that the time for “rebuilding” was finished and intimated that “reloading” was more this offseason’s operative word. That seems about right to us.
But this past weekend Ted also made an important point about the imperative of fans trusting in a team’s organic growth. Alexander Semin and his spectacular season, he noted, weren’t achieved via free agency splurging but rather from the astute labor of the team’s scouts as well as Semin’s years of development. That indeed is a blueprint to follow.
The Caps this season shaved off about 20 goals from the 300-plus they surrendered in 2005-06, but next season, they’ll need to lop off at least another 30 to rise to postseason contention. Olie Kolzig, newly turned 37, appears to have at least a couple more high-quality seasons in him (his general manager near the end of this season claimed he could remain an elite netminder through his 40th birthday), and it is our expectation that beginning next season, markedly less of a nightly workload will be thrust upon him: both volume and quality of shots faced need to be reduced.
A repeat disappointment: the Capitals finished near the bottom of the league again in power play efficiency, and in the “new NHL” that is a supreme no-no — special teams are more critical than ever. The team was consistently unable to generate one-timers, and its frustrating pass-pass-pass approach was often painful to watch. Low power play shot production and the lack of anyone camped in the opposing netminder’s crease to provide screens and bang in rebounds (a la Konowalchuk back in the day) made for too much extra-man misery.
Another indication of the team’s anemic power play: only Boston allowed more shorthanded goals than the Capitals. For approximately every five goals the Caps scored with the man advantage, they allowed one the other way. For comparison, Florida (13th overall in power play success) scored more than ten extra-man goals for every shorty allowed.
The lack of an experienced power play quarterback certainly looms over both the team’s poor power play production and its ineffective defensive coverage. With the addition of an experienced defenseman, another year of growth among the Caps’ young d-men, and the continued presence of the Alexes on the top-line power play, one expects to see a marked improvement in the fine alchemy of converting PPs to goals next season. Hopefully Coach Hanlon can convince the players to shoot first and ask questions later.
But the bottom has truly fallen out when it comes to overtime hockey. The Caps lost their last 15 overtime games of the season. It has a fanbase all but averting its eyes during shootouts. It’s not enough to attribute the unwavering extra-session failures merely to inexperience or bad luck. The shootout showings in particular are nothing short of harrowing.
The team is simply surrendering too many pivotal points in extra play. Management’s summer work, it seems to us, must acknowledge and address this. But how? Coach Hanlon has tried allotting the concluding minutes of practices to the shootout, and he tried in the second half of the season to inject new names as his shooters. Nothing has helped. Would a shootout ’specialist’ be included in the team’s offseason wish list?
A fixture of future shootouts will be Alexander Semin. Way back last autumn we thought we saw something special taking place with Semin and this team, and we were right. There were a lot of Semin doubters within the fanbase and media back then, and while his season was marred at times by wretched penalties, his game-breaking talent has few if any rivals in the history of this organization.
Another startling emergence was that of Boyd Gordon. He earned Glen Hanlon’s trust as the team’s most reliable and accountable forward. By January Sidney Crosby was calling him the toughest forward for him to play against. By March he was taking seemingly every important defensive zone draw. A virtual afterthought of the 2002 first round Caps’ draft class, today he joins Semin as another jewel from it.
There were, however, numerous and in some instances surprising struggles. We thought 2005-06 was a breakout year for Brian Sutherby. But we saw little of that two-zone effectiveness this season. Brooks Laich struggled in the season’s first half, after so strong a showing last season, but his game we thought improved appreciably from late January on. Both Matt Bradley and Ben Clymer received multi-year deals this past offseason, but they suffered nagging injuries for most of this season and never seemed able to get in their typical feisty grooves.
Our prediction is that there will be unprecedented competition for roster spots at Kettler Capitals Iceplex this coming autumn, and some prominent names today under contract may be in for a rude awakening then — if not sooner.
For better or for worse, the Caps these days regularly suffer from comparisons with the Pittsburgh Penguins. It’s unavoidable. The league’s marquee stars of the next decade arrived last year in these two cities, both teams have spent most of this decade disappointing their supporters, and they are both endeavoring to arrive at annual and durable Cup contender status with years of patient rebuilding through good drafting. Oh, and they have a bit of a rivalry thing going.
But Pittsburgh’s 47-point improvement this season over last is abberant historically, and it’s replicability is virtually impossible. Seldom does any NHL team enjoy the arrival of game-breaking talents delivered to the roster the same summer, before both knew their 20th birthdays, as the Pens did with both Evgeni Malkin and Jordan Staal this season. And whereas Pittsburgh has benefited from spending most of this decade drafting from the league’s lottery perch, the Caps have but two such selections. A third arrives this June. A year from now would deliver a far fairer barometer of the relative standing of the two clubs.
What looms ahead is the most important offseason for the club in at least 20 years. For the third straight season the Caps finished fifth in the Southeast division. Mandatory improvement next season must be charted less in an arbitrary or specific point total and more in how many division foes the Caps finish ahead of.
We see little value in ascribing a “grade” to a team clearly transitioning from the roster-gutting, rebuild-from-the-ground-up course embarked upon by management in the spring of 2004. Instead, we’d call this season the culmination of a rough continuum begun three springs back by General Manager McPhee. The largess of losing during this period has been painful, but necessary. Now, however, it is both fair and appropriate to hold the architects accountable for robust improvement with the very first game of 2007-08.
The team will have a new look in 2007-08 — new colors and, we’re pretty sure, new logos — but will the roster be overhauled in a volume and substance sufficient to dislodge it from its Eastern conference bottom feeding of recent years? It’s our belief that chronicling that task is going to make for one fun summer.
Knee-jerks: @ Buffalo, 3/21/07
By OFB
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
And back to reality for the Caps, with a visit to the high-flying Buffalo Sabres bringing the Caps back down to Earth. The Caps were very game in the first, but Buffalo’s talent rose to the top in the second, putting the game away.
- Shaone Morrisonn had a good pinch later in the game, and played some solid defense, but the high-sticking double-minor he took in the first put the Caps in a spot.
- The Caps’ power play looked, well, confused. The passing wasn’t really up to snuff, and Alex Ovechkin continued his season-long trouble of holding onto the puck, causing trouble in trying to gain the offensive zone.
- Speaking of things we’d like to see on the power play, Brian Pothier’s bomb from near the blueline was impressive. I’m not sure why he’s hesitant to use it on the man-up (or Milan Jurcina, for that matter), but it couldn’t hurt, at this point.
- The only real highlight for Caps fans is Brashear’s clear win over Andrew Peters.
- Brooks Laich continues to be offensively assertive, though it’s not paying off. He’s taking the puck to the cage and showing some good stick-handling. At some point he needs to pot a few, but hes going in the right direction.
- Milan Jurcina against pasted a few opponents, but his hooking penalty couldn’t have come at a worse time — the Caps get on the board, they may have a bit of momentum, then *boom*, time to go a man-down.
- Boyd Gordon has to find a way to keep his stick throughout his penalty-killing shifts. Seems like he’s broken or lost his twig a lot recently.
- The team has settled down, overall, in front of Kolzig, but you’d really like to see him make the stop on the second Buffalo goal.
- Drew Stafford looked pretty darn good. His move on Eminger was a thing of beauty.
Buffalo continues it’s march to the post-season, and the Caps get Carolina tonight, and get a chance to wipe the bad taste out of their mouth by trying to play the role of spoiler. While I don’t expect the ice to be as tilted as it was for the Sabres contest, it’s still an up-hill task.
Trade-Trauma Tuesday: Wrapup and Perspective
By pucksandbooks
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Just my humble opinion, but from 2002 through 2006 there is an exceptionally impressive body of scouting and drafting work accomplished by George McPhee and his team of scouts. Having said that, my sense is that they seldom look back on the 2001 Entry Draft — much anticipated, highly lauded for its overal quality and depth — with much fondness. In their defense, the Caps were without a first-round pick that year. Their first selection came 58th overall, which they used to select Nathan Paetsch. In the third round, they tabbed Owen Fussey with the 90th pick. In the fourth round, Jeff Lucky at no. 125. None are with the organization today.
I’ve long been of the opinion that a healthy, playoff-viable NHL club cannot strike out with its selections at any draft; the compensation required for it is too implausible in succeeding drafts. Even with 2002’s success (Semin, Gordon, Eminger, Max II, and through trades Fleischmann and Klepis), there’s a price to be paid for 2001’s failure, and to some extent I think we’re seeing that this season. A lot of the league strengthened itself with that terrific ‘01 class, and the Caps did not.
Jiri Novotny’s acquisition from Buffalo yesterday can be viewed within the prism of belatedly addressing the Caps’ ‘01 shortcomings. An ‘01 draftee, 22nd overall by the Sabres, Novotny now joins new teammate Shaone Morrisonn (Bruins, no. 19 overall) from that class. The Caps at long last have somewhat filled the gaping hole left by summer ’01’s poor drafting.
Speaking of entry drafts, the fax ink from yesterday’s deal with Buffalo wasn’t dry before visitors to the Caps’ message boards could download seemingly dozens of pages of protest from the glass-is-not-only-half-empty, it’s-got-a-chipped-edge-to-meet-your-mouth crowd. At OFB, we’ve long referred to them as the Doom and Gloom set. Their chief point of outrage, it seemed, was a collective sense that the ‘07 Entry Draft was “weak,� and so the Buffalo first rounder, late as it was certain be, wasn’t anything to be happy over. Interesting. 2002, I remember vividly, was alleged to be among the worst pool of talent ever. Even 1996’s draft, which genuinely can be labeled atrocious, eventually delivered Dainius Zubrus to D.C. My point is, every NHL draft possesses talented young hockey players; the job of McPhee and his scouts is to find it.
I’ve another bone to pick with the message board GMs: for years we’ve had to endure their claims that when it comes to Dainius Zubrus, he was a hopelessly misplaced, “non-finishing” top-line center. Let’s all agree that he’s not a no. 1 pivot on a playoff club. But doesn’t it stand to reason that were he more the checking line kind of guy, he most assuredly wouldn’t fetch a no. 1 pick . . . let alone two? And yet, when that’s what Buffalo returned yesterday, these same naysayers wrung their hands over the “poor” return. Hypocrites.
Yesterday was a frenzy of attempted fact gathering by fans and media related to player movement, all of it more or less pursued on line. TSN and the NHL Network were broadcasting breathless accounts of the transactions all day long. One GM recently told Sports Illustrated that deadline day “ought to be a holiday in Canada.� Locally, we in the Capitals’ community are indebted to the committed labor of Tarik El-Bashir, who was lodged all morning, afternoon, and evening at Verizon Center, regularly updating his blog with trade intelligence, and Mike Vogel, who for a period of time yesterday afternoon was brought into the Caps’ hockey operations’ inner circle. The efforts of both men made for a marvelously compelling afternoon. If you weren’t convinced before about the revolution taking place in hockey news coverage — most particularly this season — yesterday ought to have ushered in a fresh reconsideration for you.
Hockey ‘n Heels Round-up
By Mrs.Gustafsson
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
The Washington Capitals hosted the inaugural “Hockey ‘n Heelsâ€? event on Monday February 26, 2007. The event was intended to bring more female fans to the game by showcasing skills, rules and behind the scenes looks at the players. Over 250 women signed up and the event was a complete sell out.
When Gustaffson first encouraged me to attend, I was a little “iffy� on the whole thing. The idea of traipsing around the Verizon Center with a bunch of women for three hours did not sound like my idea of a good time. I had mental images of hundreds of women making mad dashes to the players that attended, similar to the scenes that you see on television for the big wedding gown sales. But Gustaffson is intent on making me a diehard hockey fan, so away I went.
I will be the first to admit that I had a great time and the event was very well planned. Everyone was split into smaller groups and rotated through the five different activities, so the chaos was kept to a minimum. There was a wide range of women there as well, from hockey moms to puck bunnies and everyone in between. Yes, there were plenty of ladies in attendance hoping to snag some quality time with the young, single players. However, there were just as many women asking thoughtful hockey related questions. Plus, we all got to shoot pucks on the ice with Jamie Heward, Shaone Morrisson and Coach Dean Evason. After initial reluctance to get out there (I did have on 2 inch heels) I can happily say I not only stayed on my feet, but also made contact with the puck and got it into the goal! So what if the goal was only ten feet away? Continue reading ›
