On defense, there is something of a mystery unfolding. Assuming the club keeps seven defensemen. The roster might be set. That would mean that prospect Karl Alzner, fresh out of Canadian junior, has made the club. But it would not seem likely that he would be in a position to command regular playing time, that he would be the seventh defenseman on this roster. Whether that is a good idea for his development is a matter for the Caps’ brain trust to ponder.
But let’s suppose that the 14 forwards and seven defensemen are as follows…
Centers: Backstrom, Fedorov, Nylander, Steckel, B. Gordon
Wingers: Ovechkin, Kozlov, Semin, Laich, Clark, Fleischmann, Bradley, Brashear, Fehr
Defensemen: Poti, Schultz, Green, Morrisonn, Erskine, Jurcina, Alzner
Goaltenders: Theodore, Johnson
With that roster, the Caps are still over the salary cap by what looks like about $942,000. That problem could be solved by sending Alzner to Hershey and carrying six defensemen (something of a luxury with Hershey only a couple of hours up the road), with Sergei Fedorov serving as what amounts to an “emergency” defenseman. Or perhaps a forward could be moved to free up a spot for the relatively cheap ($625,000 cap hit) Bourque. But that would mean moving a player who has a cap hit of a million or more in excess of Bourque’s cap hit, and that narrows the candidates severely.
There is a game tomorrow, but when that is over, there is still work to be done before opening night…
3 comments:
Maybe I'm the only one, but I would rather have Bourque on the squad than Semin or Fleischmann.
Chris, maybe not the only one with that opinion, but I doubt your views are widely shared.
That said, I do understand where you are coming from.
Nice photo of Don Fishman there.
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