The Peerless' Preview -- Part V

This is the last of the installments of the Caps preview, so let's take a look at five more of the red-white-and-blue...

"Do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe?"

-- Hamlet (III, ii)

Last year, Mike Green played 70 games as a green (naturally), 21-year old novice who got next to no penalty killing time and at times could be pushed around. He showed signs of having offensive skills from the blue line, but his spots were picked, and he looked at times like the kid he was.

Well, no more. Green has added some weight, not to mention experience gained in a deep playoff run in Hershey last spring, and he looks different – sturdier on his skates, grittier in the corners, and carrying himself with the confidence as if he’d aged three years instead of one.

Good thing, too. Much is expected of him, both this year and in the years to come. One would think it likely that his responsibilities will be expanded this year, even with Tom Poti taking up a lot of the slack on the offensive end of the blue line. But if he’s going to contribute more on offense, It has to be scoring at least one goal after October 25^th….he didn’t last year. And, he was -11 in 16 games after the all-star break.

This year, he shouldn’t be nearly as easy to play against.

"Thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges"

-- Taming of the Shrew (V, i)

Last year, Boston traded Milan Jurcina to Washington on February 1^st for an eighth-round draft. As if the writing on the wall that “we don’t want you here” wasn’t clear enough, Jurcina’s $500,000 salary didn’t even clear much cap room for the Bruins, which was part of the exercise in moving players.

Boy, that worked, didn’t it? In 40 games in Boston, Jurcina was 2-1-3, -5, while stuck with only 10:42 in ice time a night. In Washington, he was 2-7-9, +5, in 30 games, getting more than 23 minutes a night on the ice. And, Jurcina’s cap hit on his new contract ($881,250) pales in comparison to the big defenseman the Bruins are stuck with have for the next four years – Zdeno Chara – who will encumber $7.5 million a year.

Jurcina is a big rig, and when he plasters a skater along the boards, it conjures the image of a bug on a windshield. And, he’s got a heavy shot that he can get to the net (42 shots in 30 games). He could open on the top pairing for a club that has a decent chance at the playoffs. It’s a far cry from being stuck on the bench in Boston with the belief that he wasn’t mobile enough for the NHL. Time brings its revenges.

"These words are razors to my wounded heart"

-- Titus Andronicus

Brian Pothier signed a four-year, $10 million contract as a free agent. The problem after that was living up to it as the Capitals’ big free agent signing last year. That was a stiff challenge, and one that wasn’t suited to Pothier’s game. Of course, Caps fans wanted him to hit, score, check, run the power play, cure the sick, and heal the lame. Maybe divine a winning Powerball number or two on the way. Not a reasonable job description.

He did what he could, playing perhaps 6-8 minutes a game more than would have been an appropriate amount (24 minutes a game, more than seven minutes more than he logged the previous year). If he plays 16-18 minutes on, say, the second pair, he is likely to be fresher and more effective than he was with more minutes and more responsibilities.

And, he’s likely to hear less about his perceived shortcomings from fans.

"The better part of valour is discretion"

-- Henry IV, Part I (V, iv)

Two defenseman…one stand 6’6”, weighs 213 pounds. The other is 6’6, 215 pounds. The first one is Chris Pronger, the second one is not. It’s Jeff Schultz. And that seems to be the problem for some fans. Schultz is a big guy, and big guys are supposed to hit…a lot. Schultz doesn’t. Maybe he should be more physical than he has displayed so far, but it’s not as if his style hasn’t worked for him. He has solid numbers from junior, through the AHL, and into his brief (38 game) stint with the Caps last year. Plus-minus can be done to death, but he is +60 in 344 games in the regular season in three leagues, including +3 for the Caps last year. Better things seem to happen when he’s on the ice. Maybe it’s coincidence; we’re betting it’s not.

Schultz seemed to have the ability in the games he played for Washington last year to have a knack for slowing the game down and keeping things simple. Not a bad trait in one as young as Schultz. He’s going to be most effective, we think, by being one of those guys who plays an anonymous game. If you don’t notice him, he’s probably doing a fine job. Well, as much as you don’t notice a guy who’s 6’6”.

"Wisely and slow; they stumble who run fast"

-- Romeo and Juliet (II, iii)

There was the possibility this year that there would be a rookie on the right side of the top line. But it seemed more likely that the right wing would be Eric Fehr, not Tomas Fleischmann. However, Fehr sustained an injury last March. It might have been his back, it might have been his hip, it might have been the fifth metacarpal bone (pinky). Disclosure of injuries in the NHL is treated as a state secret.

It is particularly unfortunate for Fehr, because it would have been interesting to see how he – a guy with a knack for finding the back of the net – would have meshed with Michael Nylander, Viktor Kozlov, or Nicklas Backstrom. Here is a youngster who scored 193 goals in 389 games in junior and the AHL. That’s pretty much a 40-goal scorer. While projecting that kind of output to the NHL is never a certainty, what made (and still makes) Fehr so intriguing is his progression. In junior, he went 11-26-50-59 in goal scoring over four years. In the AHL he scored 25 goals in 70 games, then 22 in only 40 games.

He hasn’t yet made that kind of a mark with the Caps (two goals in 25 games over two seasons), but in his cup-o’-coffee with the club showed a willingness to do other things – forecheck, work hard in his own end, that could make him a more complete forward than just a goal scoring savant.

For now, we wait. There is no rushing these things, especially for a youngster with his potential. The club will take this slow, and hopefully wisely.