Washington Capitals: 2012-2013 By the Tens -- The Builders

“The space within becomes the reality of the building.”

-- Frank Lloyd Wright

Building the Washington Capitals roster for the 2012-2013 season did not start with the acquisition of Zach Hamill from Boston for Chris Bourque on May 26, 2012, but it was the first transaction of the 2012 off-season.  Eighty-four transactions later (sources: Capitals media guide and other sources), the Caps 2012-2013 season was over.

Some of those transactions were administrative, such as intra-organization transactions of the sort where a player is sent to or called up from the Hershey Bears.  There were 30 of those reported in the 2012-2013 season.  There were those transactions attached to injury management, placing or removing players from injured reserve.  Those represent another eight reported transactions.  Then there were the sort that comes down from the league – suspensions.  There were two such reported transactions of that type. 

That leaves 44 transactions of the sort folks might think of with respect to roster management – trades, contract signings (free agents, roster players, signing draft picks), waiver transactions.  On top of that were ten players selected in the 2012 NHL entry draft.  One would think those picks were more or less “futures,” and to a great extent they are.  But the 2012 entry draft as practiced by the Caps did have its own effects on the 2012-2013 season.  But we will get to that.  Let’s look at each of the groups of transactions.

Free Agents

Here is the list of free agents signed by the Caps in the period beginning with the end of the 2011-2012 season and the end of the 2012-2013 season (click the picture for a larger image):

Five of the players among those 10 signings played for the Caps in the 2012-2013 season.  They had an aggregate cap cost of $2,773,653 (source: capgeek.com).  One would have to say that on balance the Caps received value for those signings.  Those five players played in 145 games and had an aggregate scoring line of 19-27-46, plus-32.  For purposes of comparison, on an 82-game basis that is an 11-15-26, plus-18 scoring line for a “player” with a $1.569 million cap hit.  The positive spin on that fact would be that Daniel Alfredsson finished his season with the Ottawa Senators with a scoring line of 10-16-26, plus-1, and had a cap hit of $4.875 million. 

The negative spin on this would be that none of the five players could be thought of as an impact player – a driver.  Crabb and Wolski were disappointments (or “low risk,” if you prefer to think of them that way, given their cap hits).  Hillen spent much of the season on injured reserve and was a third pair defenseman when in the lineup.  Fehr shuttled among lines but was primarily a third or a fourth liner (nine Caps forwards averaged more even-strength ice time per game).  Oleksy was among the best stories of the season, coming out of nowhere to get steady ice time and to make contributions, but there are no assurances that he is going to be getting a sweater on a nightly basis going forward.

It is worth noting here that two players the Caps signed to unrestricted free agent deals in the last two seasons – Roman Hamrlik in 2011 and Joey Crabb in 2012 (combined cap hit: $4.450 million in 2012-2013) were waived during this past season.  Hamrlik was claimed by the New York Rangers, while Crabb passed through waivers and was re-assigned to the Hershey Bears.  He will not return for 2013-2014.

On balance, one might conclude that the Caps played well in the shallow end of the pool.  This is not a team that goes out in the deep water for a high-impact free agent.  The salary cap limits the Caps’ ability to do that, what with their heavy commitments of cap room to roster players such as Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, and Mike Green (31.8 percent of the 2012-2013 cap).  But even if it did not, it is not as if the Caps have derived great value from recent, more high-priced unrestricted free agent signings.  Joel Ward is a nice complementary player, but at $3.0 million a year?  The Caps got a decent season out of Roman Hamrlik in 2011-2012, but got almost nothing from him for a $3.5 million annualized cap hit in 2013 before he was waived.  The Caps appeared to go for low-risk role players through free agency.  It was modest ambition, but in that context it worked out perhaps better than one might have expected.

Trades

Here is the list of trades recorded by the Caps over the past 12-plus months, spanning their elimination from the 2012 playoffs and the end of their 2013 season (click the picture for a larger image):

And here are the incoming/outgoing results:

There are two trades of note here, one early and one late.  Last June the Caps sent Cody Eakin and a 2012 second-round draft pick to Dallas for Mike Ribeiro.  In terms of the here-and-now, it was a deal that favored the Caps.  Both players finished by playing in all 48 games of the abbreviated season.  However, Ribeiro had more goals (13 to 7), more assists (36 to 17), more points (49 to 24), had a superior power play scoring line (6-21-27 to 3-0-3), and played in almost three more minutes per game (17:50 to 15:05).  The Caps made the playoffs, in large part due to the contributions of Ribeiro, while the Stars did not.

Ah, but here is the thing.  The operative phrase in the preceding paragraph is “the here-and-now.”  There are no assurances that the Capitals will re-sign Mike Ribeiro, who is an unrestricted free agent.  Meanwhile the Stars have Cody Eakin – a 22-year old prospect – for another season at a friendly cap hit ($637,778) and will still be only a restricted free agent when that deal expires next season.  There is also the second-round pick (Mike Winther) the Stars received that the Caps could not use to restock their prospect pool.  On balance, the trade addressed a long-standing hole in the Caps roster, a reliable second-line center.  But it came with a price – uncertainty.  If Ribeiro does not re-sign, the Caps have nothing to show for moving a prospect and a pick.  It was the right thing to do at the time, to be sure, but given how the Caps finished the season, there was not a lot of payoff.

The late trade of consequence was one that had Caps fans scratching their heads.  Washington moved the top-ranked European skater in the 2012 draft to Nashville for a solid, if unspectacular winger and a prospect.  It was Filip Forsberg heading to the Predators for Martin Erat and Michael Latta.  It was not quite a “win now” sort of trade (Erat has two more years on his current contract at a $4.5 million cap hit in each season), but the Caps gave up what was thought last June to be a large piece of its future.  One cannot foresee injury, but that is what happened to Erat in Game 4 of the Caps’ first-round loss to the Rangers in the 2013 playoffs.  In 13 games (regular season and playoffs) for Washington, Erat was 1-2-3, plus-1.  Forsberg was 0-1-1, minus-5 in five games with Nashville, so in a sense, both sides of this trade represent “futures.”

On balance, these two trades of consequence were two sides of the same coin.  Ribeiro was obtained last summer to fill a hole – second line center – this year.  Erat was obtained this spring to address a need – a scoring line winger who can fill a variety of roles (not the least of which was making up for the absence of the injured and versatile Brooks Laich) – this year.  Well, this year the Caps were one and done in the playoffs for the sixth time in nine post-seasons for which they qualified since they went to the Stanley Cup finals in 1998 and for the third time in six seasons.  If the object of such trades is to make the team better so that it can realize more success in the biggest games on the largest stage, then at least for this year, these were not successful trades.

Contract Extensions

The Caps re-signed ten players (eight of them on the parent roster) to contract extensions since last September.  The eight parent roster players signed to extensions will encumber $16.721 million in cap room in 2013-2014 (26.0 percent).  The term for these players is not burdensome – only John Carlson’s new deal is for more than three years, only Troy Brouwer’s the other one more than two years.  But these re-signings do shine a light on what the Caps think of the roster they’ve built (click on the picture for a larger image):
 

With both goaltenders – Braden Holtby and Michal Neuvirth – and six skaters on the parent roster being re-upped, the Caps seem rather pleased with their roster, especially since none of the eight players are part of what is arguably the “core” of Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, Mike Green, and Brooks Laich.  This is not only the corps of foot soldiers with whom the Caps chose to go into battle in the 2012-2013 season, but it is that group with which the Caps want to go to battle for the next couple of years, at least.

There were notable absences among the re-signed players.  The contracts of Alexander Semin, Mike Knuble, Jeff Halpern, and Dennis Wideman were not renewed (Wideman was traded to Calgary, but that was a rights deal based on the presumption the Caps would not renew his contract).  It seemed to be a case of equal parts age (Knuble, Halpern) and affordability (Wideman and Semin signed deals with their new teams with a combined $12.250 million cap hit).  The Wideman and Semin situations were complicated by persistent flaws in their games – Semin’s consistency and Wideman’s shortcomings in the defensive end. 

We are not of a mind that the loss of either Wideman or Semin (or Knuble or Halpern, for that matter) had significant negative impacts on the team, especially since the Caps essentially swapped a scoring winger (Semin) for a second line center (Ribeiro) with a lower 2012-2013 cap hit.

That is not to say that there were not head-scratchers among the re-signings.  The first that comes to mind is the two-year/$3.925 million signing of John Erskine.  It is the fourth time that Erskine has been re-signed as an unrestricted free agent eligible player.  The cap hits on each of the four two-year deals have been of increasing value: $537,500, $1,250,000, $1,500,000, and $1,962,500 in his most recent re-signing (source: capgeek.com).  Defense is a difficult position to fill in depth, and Erskine fills essentially that role with the Caps as a 5-6 defenseman (despite his getting significant second pair minutes with the club in 2012-2013).  The question here is whether that sort of deal is one appropriate to a physical, third pair defenseman who will be almost 35 when it expires.  Looking at his comparables in cap hit and age (source: capgeek.com), they might include Cory Sarich, Greg Zanon, Matt Carkner, Jay Harrison, and Carlo Colaiacovo (age range: 30-34, cap hit: $1.5 - $2.5 million).  Does Erskine fit in that neighborhood?

The other re-signings that might seem odd are the goalies.  Braden Holtby was re-signed to a two-year deal in February that carries a $1.85 million cap hit.  Then, in April, Washington re-signed Michal Neuvirth (at the time their backup goaltender) to a two-year deal with a $2.5 million cap hit, a deal that will more than double Neuvirth’s annual compensation under the deal that just expired.  The fact is that 15 goalies will have larger cap hits than this tandem will have for the Caps in 2013-2014, and 13 of them have five or more years remaining on their respective deals.  But it does look a bit odd to have the team’s backup making 35 percent more than the team’s number one goalie.

Draft

Last June the Caps selected ten players in the 2012 NHL entry draft.  Two of those players – Filip Forsberg and Tom Wilson – were first round picks taken 11^th and 16^th overall, respectively.  Forsberg was the number one ranked European prospect in the draft and was ranked as high as third overall by tsn.ca.  That he slipped to 11^th seemed to catch the Caps by surprise.  But when he did, he took his place with 2010 draft pick Evgeni Kuznetsov (ironically, another highly thought of amateur who fell into the Caps lap later in the first round of the 2010 draft) as what was hoped to be the next generation of skilled forwards who would take their place alongside Alex Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom.

Forsberg will not fulfill that vision.  Less than a year after his selection, at the April trading deadline, he was traded to Nashville for forward Martin Erat and prospect Michael Latta.  That future vision telescoped closer to the present with the acquisition of a 31-year old veteran who could contribute now in exchange for a player who might not be a significant contributor for another 2-3 years.

Tom Wilson was different in another respect.  He was taken 16^th overall, perhaps a few spots higher than his ranking might have suggested (the same tsn.ca draft ranking that had Forsberg third overall had Wilson 18^th overall, and Central Scouting had Wilson as the 15^th ranked North American skater).  But he brought qualities the Caps have lacked in recent years, notably a quality for making life difficult for opposing players with his physical, hard-nosed style.

That makes the top-end yield for the Caps from the 2012 draft a 31-year old veteran top-six winger and a potential second or third line two-way winger who might make the team 2-3 years from now (although he did get a taste of playoff experience in the first round loss to the Rangers).

And that brings us to the mid and late rounds of the draft.  The Caps had no second round pick in 2012, leaving them with a third, two fourths, a fifth, a sixth, and three seventh round picks.  These have not been fertile grounds for the Caps to pick contributing players, as this table shows with players selected by the Caps who dressed for the club and the number of games they played in a Washington uniform (click on the picture for a larger image):

Drafts are messengers of hope, but one has to wonder with this record in draft picks after the second round if hope of contributions from these picks is well-placed.  The 2012 draft is likely to come down to the contributions Martin Erat (as compensation for Filip Forsberg) and Tom Wilson make. 

In the end...

George McPhee is general manager, but he is merely the apex of a hockey operations organization of talent evaluators, capologists, and other personnel whose job it is to put the best team possible on the ice and to have the vision and talent to manage in the present and provide for the future.  In that sense, it is harder to evaluate hockey operations within the tidy boundaries of a single NHL season.  The team is the product of actions taken years before this, and some actions taken this season will not be worthy of a verdict for years to come. 

However, by the same token, those seasons can be looked at as a body of work and compared to this one to see if the team has improved, if it has grown, if it has become or has the reasonable expectation of being a championship contender.  The fact is, since their surprising march to a playoff berth in 2008, there is a certain sameness to this club over the last five seasons ending with this one.  It has been a collection of fine regular season performances and disappointing post-season efforts.  The Caps have averaged 105 standings points over the past five regular seasons, but they have not advanced past the second round of the post-season. 

Just as bad, there is the look of a team flailing about in search of an identity.  Over those five seasons the Caps have been the Greatest Show on Ice, then they pulled back into a trapping team, then they were the passive coin-flip result sort of team, then something of a hybrid.  Perhaps the selection of Adam Oates as head coach was what this club needed to get over the hump and make a deep playoff run.  They were a much better team late than they were early.  And even with yet another first round exit (their third in six seasons), Oates provided one more measure of hope for Caps fans.

But frankly, this movie is not a classic, it’s just old.  The Caps tinker around the edges of their core players, they do not often make consequential trade or sign difference-making free agents.  This year was much of the same, right down to the results.  The trades for Mike Ribeiro and Martin Erat qualify as blockbusters if compared to the recent history of the club, but not quite that sort of impactful sort of trade when looked at in a more league-wide context.  Free agent signings were of the discount variety.  They worked out better than one might have expected, but let no one think there was an impact player obtained by those means for the 2012-2013 season.  The dividends from the draft – not to be realized for some years to come – do not inspire hope given the history of success among mid and low round draft picks for this team.

There is just too much sameness about this season from a personnel management point of view, almost as if the aim is the same each year, to make the playoffs.  Unfortunately, that seems not a bar to clear but the ceiling for this team and its philosophy.

Grade: C

Washington Capitals: 2012-2013 By the Tens -- The Coach

Adam Oates

“Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn.”

-- C. S. Lewis

You have three years of coaching experience as an assistant with two organizations.  You have yet to stand behind a bench with your own team.  But, you are given credit for a fair amount of success achieved by a Stanley Cup finalist, and there is one team that thinks that resume is enough to sign you to your first head coaching position… anywhere.

You take the reins in June, just before the draft and only a few weeks before your club holds its development camp with prospects.  But, beyond that a lockout looms.  In September, when you should be convening players and assistant coaches for training camp and the chance to install your hockey game-plan, the league makes good on its threat and locks players out for what would be a four-month hiatus.

In what might have been an inspired thought, you are sent to the minor league affiliate to act as “co-coach.”  Two drivers, two chefs, two surgeons, two anything running the show is not often a good idea.  If a win-loss record is a measure of that idea, then co-coaches was an idea that did not work as well as hoped.  By the time the Washington Capitals announced in late November that Adam Oates would be relinquishing his share of the head coaching duties at Hershey, the Bears were 6-9-1.

Oates would return to Washington to assume his duties as head coach of the Capitals.  The problem with that is that he did not yet have a team to coach, he did not have the luxury of a training camp (and might not get one, depending on how the labor talks between the league and players association worked out), could not install his system or philosophy with a club that would be seeing yet another changes in system and philosophy.  Even if the 2012-2013 season was resumed it certainly would be of an abbreviated and compressed nature, leaving fewer opportunities for off-day practice to install his concepts on the fly.  Add to that the fact that he was inheriting a team with a number of players with top-end talent that could cobble together fine regular seasons, but was one that made early exits a regular feature of its recent history.

If there was a coach who was being dealt a worse hand in his introduction to the NHL head coaching fraternity, the name of that coach escapes our memory.

It would have been nice for the Caps to come roaring out of the gate on January 19^th, when the 2013 season finally got under way, but things did not work out that way.  The Caps struggled early, going 2-8-1 in their first 11 games.  But what might have looked like a struggle to some folks (us included), might have been the “getting to know you” part of the season.  This wasn’t the sort of “getting to know you” from The King and I, though.  It was more of the sort one saw in “Hoosiers,” when Norman Dale gets to know his charges and starts to impose his will on them, even when they push back.

That came early on.  Oates deploys players in their natural positions.  Right-handed shooters play on the right side, lefties on the left.  That might make sense until one realizes that Alex Ovechkin – he of the 339 goals in just 553 games (an average of 50.3 goals per 82 games) – was a right-handed shooter who played his entire career on the left side.  Oates intended to deploy Ovechkin on the right side, and when this did not go as well as hoped, Oates sent him back to the left side…with Joey Crabb and Jay Beagle.   Skating with a pair of grinders was quite a difference from the Nicklas Backstrom/Mike Knuble sort of linemates he had when he was tearing it up on the left side in past years.

That “experiment” of playing with “north-south guys” lasted about as long as it took to figure out that Oates was going to do things the way he thought they should be done.  In other words, until a February 1^st game against Philadelphia in which Ovechkin  was installed on a line with Mike Ribeiro and Wojtek Wolski.  Ovechkin did not have a point in that contest, but he rattled off a five-game points streak thereafter, and he announced his presence with authority with a hat-trick/four-point night in a 5-1 win over the New Jersey Devils on February 23^rd.  Starting with that night Ovechkin (who would later be reunited with Nicklas Backstrom on the top line) scored 27 goals in his last 32 games, a 69-goal pace over 82 games.

It was a finishing kick in the regular season that ended with Ovechkin winning the Hart Memorial Trophy as the league’s most valuable player for a third time.  And in doing so, Ovechkin heaped praise on Oates for his role in that award.   But it was not the only success story for Oates. 

When the Caps finished first in the league in power play conversions in 2009-2010, they had the ingredients to make their power play a dominant one for years to come.  However, in the next two seasons they finished 16^th and 18^th with the man advantage, not the sort of finishes one would have expected with Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, and Mike Green on the power play.  Oates installed a 1-3-1 scheme that made puck movement and clear shots the dominant features of the power play.  Whether it was one timers from Ovechkin on the weak side, shots from the middle of the diamond from a Troy Brouwer or a Joel Ward, or Mike Green finding space between defenders for a well-placed shot, the scheme took full advantage of the playmaking skills of Backstrom and Mike Ribeiro to rise to the top of the league rankings once more.  Ovechkin led the league in power play goals overall.  Ribeiro led the league in power play assists, with Backstrom finishing tied for seventh.  Mike Green finished ninth in overall power play points among defensemen despite playing in only 35 games.

Oates also got more out of some players than they had shown to date in their careers.  Troy Brouwer might have been this season’s “David Clarkson.”  Under Oates’ tutelage in New Jersey, Clarkson leaped from goal totals averaging about a dozen a year over his first four years to being a 30-goal scorer in 2011-2012.  Brouwer, whose career high was 22 goals in 78 games in 2009-2010, scored 19 in 47 games in 2013, a 33-goal pace over 82 games.  Much of that was how Brouwer was deployed on the power play, manning the middle of the diamond in the 1-3-1, where he tied a career high of seven goals in just 48 games.

There were others whose production improved under Oates.  For example, Mike Ribeiro recorded 13 goals in 48 games, an 82-game scoring pace that was his best since 2009-2010.  Mike Green, coming off a series of injury-plagued seasons, scored 12 goals in 35 games, a 28-goal pace over 82 games.  Eric Fehr, who seemed to be headed toward an early NHL career exit due to injuries, had his career resuscitated under Oates with nine goals in 41 games, an 18-goal pace for a player getting mostly third and fourth line minutes.  Joel Ward’s eight goals in 37 games matched his career best 82-game goal scoring pace (17).

In the end…

It was not all puppies and accordions for Oates and the Caps.  The team was not able to shake its persistent tendency to exit the playoffs early, again doing so after taking a 2-0 lead in games.  But one cannot help but wonder if the Caps finally got things right with this hire.  With as much churning as was the case in coaching and philosophy over the past three years, it would have been understandable that the Caps would be slow coming out of the gate with having to take in another set of rules and principles under another coach.  The surprising thing this season might be the quickness with which the Caps eventually grasped at least the rudiments of what Oates wants to do.  It could have been (and we thought early on) that this would be a shakedown season of sorts, that it might take the bulk of the season – one without that full training camp and compressed schedule with fewer off days on which practices could be held – to make those principles of Oates hockey second nature.

There are times Adam Oates seems less “hockey coach” and more the “data-centered manager” who casts a critical eye on decisions made and how he can improve his and the team’s performance.   It is a brave new world of coaching philosophy that one hopes will change the Caps’ fortunes from that of a franchise of persistent underachievement to one of sustained excellence.  Oates has certainly taken a sure and solid first step.

Grade: A

Photo: Toni L. Sandys/The Washington Post

Washington Capitals: 2012-2013 By the Tens -- Burnt Ends

In some places in the world, “burnt ends” are a delicacy, the smoky edges of brisket that barbecue aficionados take care to prepare and love to eat.

This is not one of those parts of the world (although they are delicious).  No, burnt ends here in Peerless World are merely those ingredients in the summary of players whose seasons, for whatever reason, are merely “burnt,” and they come at the “end” of this journey that is the player portion of the recap of the 2013 season for the Washington Capitals.

Martin Erat

A lot of Caps fans will not even tell you that this was a good idea gone bad.  When Filip Forsberg was taken with the 11^th overall pick in the 2012 NHL Entry Draft, he was thought of – by the club – as being a prospect worth watching, one that the Caps did not even think would be available at the 11-spot in the first round. 

Fast forward to early-April, and Forsberg had become an expendable commodity.  For whom?  Martin Erat.  A player who toiled for 723 regular season and 46 post-season games with the Nashville Predators, Erat compiled a solid, if unspectacular resume. His career per-82 game scoring line of 18-36-54 was certainly that of a scoring line winger, and one that might have room for more production, given the rather conservative philosophy employed by the Nashville Predators over his tenure there.  One could fathom the rationale for such a trade, moving value for value, trading an uncertain future prospect for a known commodity who could contribute now.  But an 11^th overall pick for a good, if not elite, winger and a minor league forward (Michael Latta)?

As far as Erat’s 2013 season with the Caps is concerned, it did not work out as hoped.  Erat is more than a scorer, but his three points in nine regular season games (1-2-3, plus-1) was disappointing, skating almost exclusively on the second line with Mike Ribeiro and Troy Brouwer.  Part of the problem was recording only nine shots on goal in nine games.  It is a small data set, but only Joey Crabb and Aaron Volpatti recorded fewer shots on goal per game.

He was taken for what amounted to a shakedown cruise on special teams, averaging a little more than a minute per game on both the power play and penalty killing units.  Not much of consequence happened in those special teams assignments, Erat being on ice for one power play goal against in nine games, no goals on the Caps’ power play.

If Erat was a “win now” acquisition, that meant he needed to be heard from in the post-season.  He was not, at least on the offensive side of the puck, where he finished without a point in four games.  However, he did play responsibly in his own end.  The New York Rangers scored no goals against the Caps when he was on the ice, and he had only two recorded giveaways in those four games.

However, the key phrase in that last paragraph is “four games.”  Erat suffered a freakish injury – later revealed to be a dislocated elbow – in the first period of Game 4 against the Rangers when he got tangled up with New York’s Derek Stepan and the Caps’ Alex Ovechkin.  Who knows what might have happened had there been a healthy Erat for the remainder of that game, one the Caps lost 4-3 after being tied, 2-2, after two periods?  Or what might have happened in Game 6, when the Caps could not score against Henrik Lundqvist in a 1-0 Ranger win?

That said, Erat comes to the Caps at a discount.  He will be a $4.5 million cap hit in each of the next two seasons, but he will cost the club only $6.0 million in total salary.  It remains to be seen if there is value in that deal, or it is merely penny-wise and pound foolish – a discount paid for with what was thought to be a large chunk of the team’s future.

Philipp Grubauer

Hey, this NHL goalie thing can’t be too hard, can it?  Come into a game in relief, stop all 14 shots you see in 25 minutes of action.  OK, so it was a lost cause, a 4-1 loss to the Philadelphia Flyers.  Still, that is a team with some weapons – Claude Giroux, Jakub Voracek, Wayne Simmonds. 

Oh, those three had no third period shots in that game?  Well then, let’s see what you do with a full game’s worth of work against a team that is going to make the playoffs.  Five goals in 59 minutes.  Yeah, it would have been nice if the guys in front could have done something about those 45 shots you had to face in that game against the New York Islanders, but think of it as baptism under fire. 

You did have a pretty nice rookie year in Hershey, though… 15-9-2, 2.25, .919, and two shutouts.  The playoffs, not as much (2-3, 3.79, .901).  Still, not a bad rookie year, kid.

Roman Hamrlik

Down the stretch of the 2011-2012 season and into the playoffs, Roman Hamrlik was a solid defenseman for the Caps, at times arguably their best.  In his last 41 regular season games in 2011-2012 he was 1-11-12, plus-21.  In the playoffs he was 1-3-4, plus-8, and was on ice for only five even strength goals against in 14 games.

Then The Great Lockout of 2012-2013 happened.  First, there were the comments in November in which he said he was “disgusted” with the lockout and wanted the union to put the matter of the league’s proposal to end it to a vote.  That did not sit well with many of his colleagues, but hey, it was the third lockout Hamrlik experienced in his career.  Folks get edgy.

Then Hamrlik got his wish…the season started.  Well, beware what you wish for.  He dressed for the Caps’ first three games of the season, recording an assist and a minus-1 while averaging over 15 minutes a game.  He dressed only once more for the Caps, though, getting 16 minutes of playing time in a 5-2 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins on February 7^th.  Four weeks later, he was waived and claimed by the New York Rangers.  Final line with the Caps: four games, 0-1-1, minus-1.  Not that it got any better with the Rangers:  0-0-0, minus-3 in 12 games, and he dressed for only two post-season games, recording an assist.  After 20 seasons, he would appear to be done.

Brooks Laich

Over a five-year stretch that ended with the 2011-2012 season, Brooks Laich missed a total of four games out of 461 possible games played, regular season and playoffs. 

Then The Great Lockout of 2012-2013 happened.  Laich, like many of his brother players, decided to head off to Europe to play hockey while the league and the union debated the next labor agreement.  Perhaps with no small sense of irony, he hooked up in September with the Kloten Flyers of the Swiss National A League.  That might have been a little too much irony.  Although the whole matter is cloaked in mystery, it seems, Laich suffered some sort of injury during the lockout, probably when he was playing for Kloten, likely in an 8-0 Flyers win over Lugano in November (the word “senseless” comes to mind). 

He returned to North America a few days later, but when the NHL season started in January, Laich could not answer the call.  He would miss two months of the season before making his first appearance on March 19^th against Pittsburgh.  He managed to gut it out for nine games before going on the shelf for the rest of the regular season.  During that hiatus he did or did not have sports hernia surgery.

Laich might have been ready to go in the second round of the post-season, but the Capitals did not make it that far, losing in seven games to the New York Rangers in the first round.  It was a lost season for the veteran completing his ninth year in the NHL.  Nine games, 1-3-4, plus-2, and more penalty minutes (six) than points (four).  A lost season indeed.

Cameron Schilling

It was not as if Cameron Schilling was a complete stranger to Verizon Center ice.  After all, he did play on that ice surface in 2009 when his Miami Redhawks advanced to the NCAA title game, losing in overtime to Boston University.  On March 12^th, Schilling – called up from the Hershey Bears two days earlier – made his NHL debut for the Caps against the Carolina Hurricanes.  For the Caps it was a brutal night, a 4-0 whitewashing at the hands of the Hurricanes.  But for Schilling – in his only appearance for the Caps in the 2013 season – it was 11:58 of time well spent on an ice sheet he hopes he will see a lot more of in 2013-2014 and the years ahead.

Aaron Volpatti

We’re betting Vancouver Canuck fans thought that Roberto Luongo would be heading out of town before Aaron Volpatti would.  If they thought that, they were wrong, for Luongo is still a Canuck, and Volpatti was claimed by the Caps on waivers in late February.  It was hardly a risky move for the Caps, Volpatti being a negligible cap hit.  And, he presumably would add a dimension that the Caps seemed to lack.  Need a hint?  In parts of three NHL seasons covering 54 games with Vancouver, he scored a total of three goals.  On the other hand, he had 11 fights.

And so it came to pass that in his first game with the Caps, Volpatti took on Winnipeg’s Anthony Peluso, a relative newcomer to the NHL (he was playing in only his fifth NHL game), but a player with a long fighting resume in the AHL (27 fights in his previous two seasons).  Volpatti, who gave away three inches and 20 pounds, was handled rather decisively by Peluso.  But it was a Pyrrhic victory for Peluso, for not only did his Jets get shutout, 3-0, but Peluso broke his hand in the process.  It was his last game of the season. 

It also was Volpatti’s last fight of the season.  But it was not his last game.  Caps fans might be hard-pressed to remember, but he did dress for 16 more games, going 0-1-1, minus-2 in those contests.

There are Caps fans who look upon Volpatti as a potential replacement for Matt Hendricks.  Sure, he comes with a lower price tag ($575,000 cap hit for the next two seasons), no small consideration for this team.  But he is not all that much younger (28) than Hendricks (32), and if one problem the Caps have is getting very little out of their fourth line at the offensive end of the rink, Volpatti does not appear to address that issue.

And there you have it, 2013’s version of “burnt ends.”  Unlike the barbecue variety, we hope there are fewer of them next season and much more savory tales to tell.

Washington Capitals: 2012-2013 By the Tens -- Goalies: Michal Neuvirth

Michal Neuvirth

"I took the two most expensive aspirins in history."

-- Wally Pipp, after being replaced by Lou Gehrig in the lineup due to a headache.

In the span of three seasons from 2008-2009 through 2010-2011, Michal Neuvirth won two Calder Cup championships with the Hershey Bears in the AHL and became the number one goaltender for the Washington Capitals, supplanting Semyon Varlamov in that role.

In 2013 Michal Neuvirth played in 13 games.

The arc of Neuvirth’s development might have suggested that by now he would be firmly entrenched as the Caps number one netminder, a technician who could be a steadying, consistent performer in net over the long haul and who seemed to rise to the occasion in big games.

However, in 2011-2012 the Caps saw an opportunity to add a solid veteran presence in goal on a cheap contract and signed Tomas Vokoun.  Then Vokoun got hurt, and it seemed Neuvirth would get his shot to reclaim the number one job.  But then Neuvirth suffered a knee (correction: hip flexor, as noted by a reader) injury in a late-season game against the Florida Panthers, clearing the way for Braden Holtby to take over as the number one goalie.  Holtby sparkled in the playoffs, and Neuvirth has been chained to the number two job ever since.

Even this season, when Neuvirth had a chance to create a goalie controversy after Holtby stumbled out of the gate, he could not grab the job for his own, going 1-4-1, 3.04, .889 in appearing in seven of nine games from January 24^th through February 7^th.  Illness and Holtby’s improving play as the season wore on conspired to staple Neuvirth to the bench and limit him to only six appearances over the Caps’ last 37 games.

Neuvirth was better late in games than early.  His save percentage in the first period of games (.904) and that in the second period of games (.897) was mediocre.  However, his save percentage in the third period (.937) was excellent.  It was even better later in the season.  In his last eight appearances his save percentage in the third period of games was .963 (he did not last into the third period of one of those games, a 5-2 loss to Pittsburgh on February 7^th in which he allowed two goals on 11 shots in less than 33 minutes).

His problem, though, was getting behind the eight ball early.  In nine of 12 first periods in which he played (he came on in relief in the second period of one other appearance) he allowed goals, despite what was not a heavy shot load (9.5 shots per period).

Odd Neuvirth Statistic… “Seven.”  As in the “seventh day.”  Neuvirth was 2-0-0, 2.02, .923 on Sunday, 0-5-1, 2.69, .907 on the other days of the week.

Game to Remember… April 25^th vs. Ottawa.  It is perhaps odd that a game to remember would have ended in a loss.  But it was Neuvirth who kept the Caps in the game.  Through two periods at Verizon Center, Neuvirth allowed only a tip-in goal by Jakob Silfverberg on the 16 shots he faced.  The Caps tied the game in the third on a goal by Alex Ovechkin, but it was all the Caps could muster.  Meanwhile, at the other end, Neuvirth stopped all 23 shots – yes, 23 shots – he faced in the period to get the Caps to overtime.  It was all Neuvirth could do, though.  With Mike Ribeiro taking a roughing penalty at the end of regulation that carried over into the extra session, Ottawa took advantage of the 4-on-3 power play.  Sergei Gonchar ended it at the 47 second mark with a slap shot through a screen and past Neuvirth.  All in all, Neuvirth made 39 saves on 41 shots, both highs for him for the season.

Game to Forget… January 24^th vs. Montreal.  Michal Neuvirth had good success against Montreal in his career, going 4-1-0, 1.82, .939 with one shutout against the Canadiens.  He did not add another successful chapter to this part of his resume in his first appearance of the season.  He was fine in the first period, stopping all nine shots he faced.  The second period, though, was something of a meltdown.  It was not entirely his fault, the Caps wearing a path to the penalty box, but neither was he the best penalty killer, as goalies often have to be.  Montreal scored three goals – two of them on the power play – in a span of 5:52, then added another with just 1:39 left in the middle frame to take a 4-0 lead to end the competitive portion of the evening in a 4-1 Caps loss.

Post Season... Neuvirth saw no ice time in the opening round series loss to the New York Rangers, his second straight post season of having seen no action after doing post-season duty in every season dating back to his 2003-2004 season with HC Sparta Praha U17 in Czech Republic at age 15.

In the end…

When Semyon Varlamov was traded to Colorado in July 2011, the path seemed clear at last for Michal Neuvirth to assume the responsibilities of number one goaltender for the Caps on a permanent basis.  He served a successful apprenticeship, and while his NHL numbers were not spectacular, he was still young and had upside yet to be tapped.  Or so the thinking might have been.  But then the Caps saw a bargain for an established number one goalie – Tomas Vokoun – and pounced, relegating Neuvirth to backup status.  He has not yet emerged from that shadow, one that is now cast by Braden Holtby. That one is a longer shadow.  Holtby has been solid in both regular and post-seasons, carrying himself and performing like a number one goalie who will not be relinquishing that spot soon.  Neuvirth might not get another chance to serve as a number one goaltender unless he is moved to another organization.  However, in late April he signed a two-year, $5.0 million deal with the Caps, a contract that has a $650,000 larger cap hit than the new two-year deal that Holtby signed in February. 

If there is one thing history teaches, though, it is that today’s goaltending depth is tomorrow’s desperate need.  Caps fans might remember that in 1994-1995 the Caps dressed Jim Carey, Byron Dafoe, and Olaf Kolzig in goal, all drafted by the Caps.  Two seasons later, Dafoe was gone, Carey melted down, and Kolzig (perhaps third on that depth chart in 1994-1995) was the number one goalie.  That is, in a sense, the way Holtby progressed, Semyon Varlamov leaving followed by Holtby's passing of Neuvirth on the depth chart.  Neuvirth is not just insurance in that respect.  He might yet be the number one goalie for this team, even if it hardly looks that way at the moment.

Grade: C

Photo: Greg Fiume/Getty Images North America

 

Washington Capitals: 2012-2013 By the Tens -- Goalies: Braden Holtby

Braden Holtby

“…you have an all-out prize fight, you wait until the fight is over, one guy is left standing. And that's how you know who won.”
 -- Al Capone in "The Untouchables"

In the 2008 NHL Entry Draft, nine goalies were selected ahead of Braden Holtby, who was picked 93^rd overall by the Washington Capitals.  At the time, there were no fewer than five goalies were ahead of Holtby on the Capitals’ depth chart – Jose Theodore, Brent Johnson, Semyon Varlamov, Michal Neuvirth, and Daren Machesney.

Five years later, Theodore, Johnson, Varlamov, and Machesney have moved on, and Holtby is at the top of the heap, having come out on top in his mano-a-mano competition with Michal Neuvirth over the past two seasons.  In 2013 Holtby was the number one goalie from start to finish for the first time in his third season with the big club.  Not that it came with a sense of certainty attached to it.  In parts of the previous two seasons Holtby appeared in only 21 regular season games.  Despite some sparkling numbers – 14-4-3, 2.02, .929, with three shutouts in those 21 appearances – it took his post-season performance in 2012 (1.95 GAA/.935 save percentage in 14 games) to lift him into the lead in the goalie competition going into 2013.

The Great Lockout of 2012-2013 left Holtby plying his trade in Hershey with the AHL Bears, where he had an iffy 12-12-1 record, but with a 2.14 goals against average and a .932 save percentage.  Both the GAA and save percentage would have ranked him fourth in the AHL had he qualified in the end-of-season rankings.

When the NHL season got underway in January, the jump to stiffer competition did not agree with Holtby.  He appeared in the Caps’ first two games but allowed ten goals on 73 shots (.863 save percentage).  It earned him a seat for five games and put his position as number one goalie in jeopardy.  Michal Neuvrith had struggles of his own, not reaching the .900 level in save percentage in any of those five games.  Holtby returned in Game 8 of the season but continued to struggle into his second ten-game segment of the season.

However, starting with a 38-save effort in a 2-1 loss to the New York Rangers on February 17^th, Holtby’s season began to turn around.  His ten-game splits improved significantly over his first ten-game split.  Over his last four splits he did not record a save percentage lower than .916, and he dropped his goals against average from 4.52 in his first ten-game split to 2.58 by season’s end.   In those last four splits Holtby was 22-9-1, 2.34, .927 with four shutouts.  Holtby was clearly the number one goalie in Washington.

Odd Holtby Statistic… Braden Holtby was 1-4-1, 4.37, .864 against teams from Pennsylvania, the Penguins and Flyers.  He was 22-8-0, 2.28, .929 with four shutouts against everyone else.

Game to Remember… March 21/22 at Winnipeg.  When the Caps headed to Winnipeg for a back-to-back set of games in Manitoba – a scheduling quirk as a result of the lockout – they had just come off one of their best games of the season but had nothing to show for it.  They fought the Pittsburgh Penguins to a draw over 50 minutes, holding the mighty Penguins to a single goal.  Then, just after a Caps power play expired, Matt Niskanen took a feed from Matt Cooke and wristed a puck that just cleared a sliding Karl Alzner and eluded Braden Holtby’s glove for the game-winner in 2-1 loss.  The Caps were still buried in the standings, 14^th in the East and nine points behind the Winnipeg Jets, who they would visit for this back-to-back.

Getting swept in Winnipeg probably would have ended the competitive portion of the season for the Caps, since they would have been 13 points behind the Jets with 27 games to play.  But that was not what happened.  The Caps swept the Jets, due in large part to Holtby holding the home team to one goal on 51 shots over the two games, the lone Jets goal coming in the third period after the Caps had built a 5-1 lead in Game 2 of the set.  His shutout in Game 1 of the set was his second straight over the Jets in 2013.

Game to Forget… February 3^rd vs. Pittsburgh.  If the March 19^th game against the Penguins was one of the best the Caps played to that point in the 2013 season, it was due in part to the game against the Penguins on February 3^rd being among the worst.  Holtby was particulary tormented by Chris Kunitz.  First it was a tip in off a point shot less than four minutes into the game.  Then it was a snap shot from the top of the left wing circle to give the Penguins a 4-2 lead.  Six minutes later, with the Pens on a power play and Karl Alzner without a stick – making it effectively a 5-on-3 – it was one-timer from the bottom of the left wing circle.  Finally, it was a one-timer from the slot that beat Holtby on the last shot he faced on the day for Kunitz’ fourth goal of the game.  Holtby allowed six goals on 26 shots in the 6-3 loss.

Post Season… It would have been hard for Braden Holtby to improve on his numbers from the 2012 playoffs (1.95, .935).  Only five times in 14 games in 2012 did he allow more than two goals.  He was not far off, though, in 2013 (2.22, .922).  Here is the thing, though.  Until Game 7 he was better than last season, a 1.77 goals against average and a .938 save percentage.  Then there was Game 7.  It was a classic case of a team – the Caps – dominating the game early, but unable to capitalize on Holtby’s opposite number, Henrik Lundqvist.  When the momentum changed, the Rangers capitalized – often.  New York scored five goals over a span of 33:20 from 13:19 of the first period (on a goal from an unlikely source: Arron Asham) to 6:39 of the third (again from an unlikely source: Mats Zuccarello).  Holtby and the Caps picked the wrong time to suffer a team-wide collapse.

In the end…

Let’s compare a couple of goaltenders and their first three regular season in the league:

Goalie A: 57 games, 37-16-4, 2.39, .923, 7 shutouts

Goalie B: 59 games, 30-13-12, 2.39, .917, 4 shutouts

Not much separating them, is there?  Now, let’s look at the same two goalies in the post season over those three years:

Goalie A: 21 games, 10-11, 2.04, .931, 1 shutout

Goalie B: 19 games, 10-9, 2.49, .915, 2 shutouts

Goalie A has better numbers overall (not that the win-loss record reflects it) and is more consistent (Goalie B has those two shutouts in 19 games, but almost a half-goal higher GAA).  Who are they?

Goalie A is Braden Holtby, Goalie B is Semyon Varlamov in his first three seasons in the league, all with Washington.  Varlamov was sent to Colorado after that third season, in no small part due to stories that if he was not the Caps’ number one goalie, he would consider going to Europe to play.  Holtby, on the other hand, is something of the “last man standing,” having climbed up the depth chart until he stands now as the Caps’ number one goalie.  At the moment, there is no question who won.

Grade: B

Photo: Bruce Bennett/Getty Images North America

The Cup vs. The Finals, Stanley vs. Larry... Does Format Matter? (Oh, and a prognosto)

The Stanley Cup Playoffs get underway tonight, and it is a good time to do a little comparison between the NHL and NBA in terms of their finals formats.

In 1985 the National Basketball Association changed its finals format to a 2-3-2 arrangement of the seven games -- Games 1 and 2, and Games 6 and 7 played on the higher-seeded team’s home court.  The National Hockey League had a similar format in 1985 but moved to a 2-2-1-1-1 format the following year and each year thereafter.

In those 27 years since 1986 that the leagues have been employing different formats in their respective finals (26 seasons in the case of the NHL owing to The Great Lockout of 2004-2005), they have paved somewhat different roads in crowning champions.

At first blush, there seems to be no difference between the leagues in terms of the season’s ultimate game.  In the NBA the Larry O’Brien Trophy was awarded to the league champion in the vanquished team’s arena 12 times in 27 seasons.  In the NHL the Stanley Cup was presented to the captain of the league champion 13 times in the opponent’s rink.  Away teams have done quite well in clinching titles.

Look deeper, though.  In the case of the NBA 11 series in 27 years went only four or five games, those in which the higher-seeded team was the “away” team.  In eight of those 11 instances the higher-seeded team won.  Meanwhile, in the NHL there were also 11 series in 26 seasons that went four or five games.  But there is a difference here.  In the NHL, Game 4 is played on the lower-seeded team’s ice, Game 5 on the higher-seeded team’s ice. 

Did it make a difference?  In six four-game sweeps over the past 26 seasons – that fourth game played on the lower-seeded team’s ice – the home teams and the away teams split those six decisions, three apiece.  In five-game series – games played on the higher-seeded team’s ice – the home teams won three times, the away teams twice.  In short series, at least in these 11 instances, it hardly seems to have mattered much what seed or on whose ice the Cup-clinching games were played.

In long series seeding starts to matter more.  Over the last 27 seasons the NBA has played 16 series that have gone to at least a Game 6, meaning that those series always end on the higher-seeded team’s floor.  In those 16 instances, 12 times the higher-seeded team (the home team) won.  And here is where the format seems to come into play, if only a bit.  The championship was won in the NBA finals 12 times in Game 6 – again, the home team’s floor – and in eight of those instances it was won by the home team. 

But then go to the Game 7 results.  Only four times in 27 seasons has an NBA final gone to seven games.  In each of those instances covering a span of 23 seasons (from 1988 to 2010) the home team won Game 7.  Finals series do not generally reach a Game 7 because home teams clinch in Game 6.

On the other hand, the NHL has had 15 long series (lasting six or seven games) over the past 26 seasons.  Seven of them were clinched in Game 6 – on the opponent’s ice.  This is where seeding takes over.  The higher-seeded team won six times in seven on the opponent’s ice. 

The difference carries over into Game 7 as well.  Eight times in the last 26 seasons (six times in the last 11) the Stanley Cup finals have gone to a Game 7.  Six times the home team – the higher seeded team – won the Cup, although it is worth noting that the two instances in which the visiting lower-seeded team won the Cup came in the last two Games 7, in 2009 (Pittsburgh, in Detroit) and in 2011 (Boston, in Vancouver).

The differences between the NBA and NHL in format seem to be that the 2-3-2 format that grants NBA teams the extra late home game in a long series acts as an accelerant to the effects of being a higher (and presumably better in most years) seed.  Higher-seeded teams are more likely to end their series in Game 6, if not sooner.  In the NHL, seeding matters, but format seems to serve to extend series in the form of more Games 7.

In historical context, here is what you might look for in the Boston-Chicago series.  First, no team has been swept since Detroit swept Washington in four games in 1998.  In the 13 Stanley Cup finals since, the Cup has been won by the higher-seeded team ten times.  And it did not matter where that Cup-clinching game is played.  Twice the higher-seeded team clinched at home Game 5 (2002 by Detroit, 2007 by Anaheim), four times on the road in Game 6, and four times on home ice in Game 7.

This trend is mitigated somewhat by the history since the league’s lost 2005 playoffs.  In seven tournaments since then, the lower-seeded team has won the Cup three times, all of them coming in the last four playoffs, twice in Game 7.  But is that the start of a new trend, or an anomaly?  We just hope the NHL doesn’t follow in the NBA’s footsteps with the 2-3-2 format.

We’ll take Chicago in six.