Washington Capitals: What If This Day In Caps History Didn't Happen Like This Day In Caps History -- July 11th

The cousins thought it would be a fine idea to embark on an occasional summer series asking the questions, “what if today didn’t happen the way it happened back then?”  In other words, what might have happened had a transaction on this or that date not taken place?  Of course, the cousins having an idea pretty much ends there.  They always seem to be otherwise occupied when it comes to actually putting the idea to paper.  Be that as it may, it’s not a bad way to while away the summer.  We’ll get started on this with perhaps one of the most famous dates in Capitals history, July 11^th.

No, it’s not going to be a retrospective on the Capitals career of defenseman Marc Chorney, who was signed by the Caps on this date in 1984.  Chorney never played for the Caps (unlike his son, Taylor, who does), spending his last season in pro hockey skating with the Binghamton Whalers in the AHL.  It would be 17 years before the Caps pulled the trigger on another deal on this date, and it was the blockbustiest of blockbusters.

Less than three months removed from losing a first round playoff series to the Pittsburgh Penguins in six games, the Caps executed a deal that brought one of the Penguins’ key elements – Jaromir Jagr – to Washington along with defenseman Frantisek Kucera in exchange for prospects Kris Beech, Ross Lupaschuk, Michal Sivek and future considerations (another term for “cash”).

Jagr’s arrival in Washington was met with great joy and anticipation, but his departure less than three seasons later was met with mutters of “good riddance.”  We won’t go back over that difficult history, but rather wonder what might have happened if the summer of 2001 had not been as eventful.  The rest of that summer saw a few low-wattage deals – the acquisition of the Ferraro twins Peter (free agent) and Chris (in trade from New Jersey), and claiming Glen Metropolit off waivers from Tampa Bay.

The lack of action on the roster could not cover up a disturbing fact.  The Caps had not won a playoff series since winning the Eastern Conference final against the Buffalo Sabres in 1998 to go to the Stanley Cup final, missing the playoffs entirely in 1998-1999 and then losing first-round matchups to the Penguins in each of the next two seasons.  And, they were getting old.  Ten of the 19 players to take the ice in the home opener of the 2001-2002 season against the New Jersey Devils were past the age of 30; three of them – Adam Oates, Joe Reekie, and Sylvain Cote – were at or past the age of 35.

The Caps did have some youth in the lineup, though.  Kris Beech won a spot on the roster after playing four games with the big club the previous season.  Beech slotted in the third line center spot behind Oates and Trevor Linden.  At the age of 20, only Brian Sutherby was younger in that lineup to open the 2001-2002 season.

For the Caps, experience was not helping, nor was youth, such as it was, providing a spark.  The team dropped its first half dozen games of the season, the last five of them on the road, to dig themselves an early hole.  By the time October ended, a month in which the Caps played nine of 12 games on the road, they were 2-9-1-0 (ties still being a result that season).  The woes were not limited to their on-ice performance, either.  Linden, who spent nine and a half seasons in Vancouver before being traded to the New York Islanders (followed by a stint in Montreal before coming to Washington), never seemed to find his game with the Caps, managing only four goals and three assists in 28 games before he was traded in November back to the Canucks with a second-round draft pick for a first and a third round draft pick.  The Caps were 2-13-1-0 when the trade was made.

It hardly got better. The Caps struggled to score as teams loaded up on defending top goal-scorer Peter Bondra, whose goal scoring plummeted after the Caps traded center Adam Oates to the Philadelphia Flyers late in the season for goaltender Maxime Ouellet and three draft picks.  He finished with 32 goals, but no other Capital forward finished with as many as 20.  The team finished the year with just 27 wins and 66 points, finishing 27^th in the league standings and getting a leg up on its rebuild with the fourth overall draft pick in the June entry draft.

The fourth overall draft pick could have been predicted given the club’s recent history.  In each of the previous four drafts, the first four under general manager George McPhee, the club’s first selection came from the Western Hockey League in Canadian junior (Jomar Cruz in 1998, Beech in 1999, Sutherby in 2000, and Nathan Paetsch in 2001).  With the first three picks going to Columbus (Rick Nash), Atlanta (Kari Lehtonen), and Florida (Jay Bouwmeester), the Caps had their pick from a variety of positions.  Joni Pitkanen and Ryan Whitney were available among defensemen.  Pierre-Marc Bouchard and Eric Nystrom were available among forwards.  The Caps, instead, once more went to the WHL well, taking Scottie Upshall from Kamloops in the WHL with the fourth overall pick (in reality, he went sixth to Nashville in that draft).

Having the fourth-overall draft pick in this draft instead of their own 12^th overall pick they actually did have in that draft (Steve Eminger was selected), the Caps did not pull the trigger on the deal with the Dallas Stars on June 12^th that netted them the 13^th overall pick for a first (from Philadelphia in the Oates deal) and second round pick in this draft and a sixth rounder in 2003).  In other words, they did not pick Alexander Semin.  They kept their 26^th overall pick and took Jarret Stoll (who was actually taken 36^th overall by Edmonton).  In between, with the 17^th overall pick (from Vancouver in the Linden trade), Washington selected Boyd Gordon (as they actually did in 2002).

The 2001-2002 season was a walk in the park compared to the 2002-2003 season, one in which the Caps got older and slid further in the standings.  They had a worse start than in the previous season, going winless in their first ten games, eight of those games played on the road.  They held their sell-off a year earlier than they did in real time, trading Peter Bondra to Anaheim (with a third round pick for the Mighty Ducks’ first rounder in 2003), Calle Johansson to Detroit (for a second round pick in the 2003 draft), and Michael Nylander to Ottawa (for a second round pick in the 2003 draft).

Having loaded up on second round draft picks in the 2003 entry draft the Caps, pushed to the third overall pick in the first round when Columbus won the draft lottery, selected Nikolai Zherdev, the top-ranked European skater in the Central Scouting amateur rankings (Columbus selected Nathan Horton with the first overall pick, while Carolina took Eric Staal with the next pick).  With the 28^th overall pick obtained from Anaheim in the Bondra trade, the Caps took Corey Perry of the London Knights.

The Caps would finish out of the running for a playoff spot in the 2003-2004 season, although having bottomed out the season before, they would not win the 2004 draft lottery that would have enabled them to draft Alex Ovechkin first overall.  They would, however, have another top-ten pick, this time taking Alexandre Picard out of Lewiston in the QMJHL.

There would be no 2004-2005 season, the NHL going dark for the entire season due to a lockout.  It would make for an interesting 2005 draft, what with there being no standings-based lottery to hold and the fact that the prize amateur of this generation – Sidney Crosby – awaited.   The NHL devised a lottery that gave, in theory, all 30 teams a chance at the number one overall pick.  Each of the 30 teams would be granted three balls in the lottery barrel.  For each playoff appearance in 2002, 2003, and 2004, a team would lose a ball to a maximum of two.  The Caps, having missed the postseason in each of those seasons, did not lose a ball.  Then teams with the first overall pick in any of the previous four drafts – 2001, 2002, 2003, or 2004 – would lose a ball to a maximum of two.  The Caps did not have a first-overall pick in any of those drafts.  The Caps would go into that draft as one of five teams with three balls in the barrel – Buffalo, Columbus, Pittsburgh, and the New York Rangers being the others.

The Capitals, not having made the trade for Jaromir Jagr in 2001, fell on hard times quickly, more quickly than they did having made that trade.  In doing so, it accelerated their decision to implement a rebuild, although it would happen a bit more gradually than it would in real time.  In this scenario, the Caps do not get Alex Ovechkin or Mike Green, among others, and in their place get Scottie Upshall, Jarret Stoll, Boyd Gordon, Corey Perry, Nikolai Zherdev, and Alexandre Picard.  Given the uneven levels of performance over the careers of those players, it would be hard to see a way where the Caps would be able to replicate the success they had in the post-2004-2005 lockout. 

Unless one of those three balls in the lottery barrel was picked in 2005.

Photo: Mitchell Layton/Getty Images

Washington Capitals: If Players Were Presidents -- Jaromir Jagr

By April 1865 the Civil War in the United States was approaching the end.  Decimated and exhausted, the Army of Northern Virginia under General Robert E. Lee surrendered to the Army of the Potomac under General Ulysses S. Grant on April 9^th.  After more than four years of war, it was time for reconstruction.  But not until there was one more thunderclap in the course of the war.  Five days after Lee’s surrender, President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated at Ford’s Theater in Washington.  The vacancy in the office of the chief executive would be filled by Andrew Johnson, who barely a month earlier was Military Governor of Tennessee and had just taken the oath of office as Vice President.  He now found himself in the position of serving as the Nation’s 17^th President.

Johnson was suddenly in a difficult position.  A Southerner (born in North Carolina) and a Democrat (Lincoln was a Republican), he did not seem a natural fit to succeed Lincoln under the unique circumstances confronting him.  He came to Washington as something of an outsider and from the start was treated as such by a hostile Congress.  It made for a difficult presidency that would culminate in Johnson’s impeachment in 1868.  Although he was acquitted by a narrow margin his presidency was effectively over.  Although he ran for renomination as a Democratic candidate for President in 1868, he was roundly defeated, and his last days in office were bitter, his successor Ulysses S. Grant refusing to ride to the Capitol with Johnson for the inauguration ceremony and Johnson refusing to attend at all.

Although he came to Washington under other circumstances, there was a player who came to the Capitals as something of an outsider, if not from the “other side,” whose performance never quite measured up to his promise or the demands of his position, who ultimately inspired scorn and ill feelings in Capitals Nation, and who would be ushered out of town when the relationship between the player and the club, including its fan base deteriorated beyond repair.  If Andrew Johnson has a parallel among players who have worn the Capitals jersey, that player is Jaromir Jagr.

Andrew Johnson was a man of considerable political talent.  He began his political pursuits as a political organizer in Tennessee, eventually winning election as a town alderman in Greenville, Tennessee.  In the midst of debate over a new state constitution, Johnson’s prominent role led to his being elected mayor. From there his rise was steady, moving on to the Tennessee House of Representatives.  Later he parlayed his position as a presidential elector in the election of 1840 into winning a seat in the Tennessee Senate.  From there it was up to the next rung of the political ladder, winning election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1842.  Johnson served in that position for ten years before being persuaded to run for Governor of Tennessee.  He won office in 1852, but the position holding little power (he could not veto legislation, for example), he ran for U.S. Senate in 1856 and, as a perceived champion of farmers, common workers, and states’ rights – essentially a “Jacksonian Democrat,” a reference to fellow Tennessean Andrew Jackson – he won election. 

It was all prelude to the election of 1860, one in which Johnson eyed the ultimate prize, the Presidency, as a candidate who could unite warring factions of the Democratic Party split over the slavery question.  The fissures in the party were too wide for Johnson to bridge.  Much too wide.  At a nominating convention that featured nine candidates winning delegates, the party took 57 ballots to finally settle on Stephen Douglas.  Stalled there, he would be named Military Governor of Tennessee by Abraham Lincoln in 1862, and it would be a useful office to put him in position to get Lincoln’s eye as a possible running mate in 1864.  As a southerner “War Democrat,” Johsnon had appeal to Lincoln, and in one of the oddities in American political history, Lincoln and Johnson became running mates in 1864, not as “Republican” and “”Democrat,” but as running mates on the ticket of the “National Union Party,” comprised of factions of the Republican Party.

The Lincoln-Johnson ticket won election, and a month after taking office, Johnson found himself elevated by fate to the Presidency.  With the Civil War winding down after the surrender by the Confederacy, Johnson found himself presiding over reconstruction in the absence of Congress, which was not in session.  Governing by “proclamation” proved difficult, especially when Congress returned to session at the end of 1865.  A group of “Radical Republicans” were bent on changing the direction Johnson pursued.  It resulted in efforts to refuse to seat any Senator or Representative from states of the Old Confederacy, a series of bills that Johnson vetoed (subsequently overridden by Congress), passage of a significant civil rights bill, establishing military rule in the South, and passing the Tenure of Office Act, a technical bill that sought to restrict the President’s authority to remove certain executive officers without approval of the Senate.  Johnson vetoed the bill, but Congress overrode the veto. 

That bill would serve as the basis for a move against Johnson in 1868.  What brought it on was Johnson suspending Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, one of the “Radical Republicans,” pending the next Senate session.  When the Senate reconvened,  it rejected the suspension, but Johnson moved to appoint a replacement for Stanton nonetheless.  Johnson’s action was intended to serve as a test case to be presented to the Supreme Court, but the House of Representatives moved to impeach Johnson, the first impeachment of a sitting President.  Eleven articles of impeachment were reported, and the Senate acquitted Johnson by a single vote on three of those articles.

The impeachment took its toll, on both Johnson and the Republican Party.  No Republican senator voting against impeachment ever served in elective office again.  The whole episode inspired a movement to abolish the Presidency itself, that Johnson’s impeachment proved that the office had become too powerful.  As for Johnson, his relationship with Congress was beyond repair.  He sent a government reform proposal to Congress to limit presidential terms and provide for direct election of the President and senators, but it was never taken up by Congress.  Congress sent a bill to the President requiring prompt reporting of ratification of the 14^th Amendment to the Constitution granting citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States.  Johnson vetoed the bill.  By the time Johnson left office in 1869, government had become dysfunctional, damaged by conflicts of personality and policy, making for a difficult reconstruction period in the post-Civil War era.

By the time Jaromir Jagr came to the Capitals in July 2001, he was a notorious figure in Capitals history as a member of the Pittsburgh Penguins.  It was a reputation largely earned as a Cap killer in the post season.  In his career as a Penguin, no player scored points in more games (33).   In 42 postseason games against the Caps, Jagr was 20-32-52, plus-20.  Four of his 20 goals were game-winners; he had six power play goals and two shorthanded goals.  He might have played in the shadow of teammate Mario Lemieux for much of his career in Pittsburgh, but against the Caps he was the player who as often as not placed the dagger in Caps’ postseason hopes.

Things were not all unicorns and accordions in Pittsburgh, though, at the end of the 2000-2001 season.  The Penguins were in an aging arena, the financial situation was dire, and Jagr was entering the last year of his contract with the promise of a very large payday coming in free agency.  The team was concerned about Jagr for other reasons.  He had already requested a trade twice, he was reported to have odd off-ice habits, and he finished the season with a shoulder injury.  He was described as “sullen,” and the teams clearly seemed to want to grant his request for a trade and turn the page.

The New York Rangers were widely thought of as being the leading, if not the only candidate to serve as a trading partner with Pittsburgh for Jagr’s services.  However, on July 11, 2001, the Penguins pulled the trigger on the trade, but not to the Rangers.  Pittsburgh sent Jagr and defenseman Frantisek Kucera to the Caps for three prospects – forwards Kris Beech and Michal Sivek, and defenseman Ross Lupaschuk – and future considerations (cash).  The Rangers tried to put the best spin on not getting the prize,  but failing to make the deal was a shock.

Jagr arrived in Washington to great hoopla.  When he recorded a goal and an assist in a 6-1 win over the New Jersey Devils in his debut with the Caps on Opening Night 2001, and when the club announced on October 18^th that it signed Jagr to a contract extension, it looked as if the club might finally achieve the success that long eluded it. Things started to sour quickly, though.  Jagr missed seven of the Caps’ first 17 games with leg injuries, and despite the fact that he was 5-3-8 in the ten games he did play over the Caps’ 17 games to open the season, the Caps were just 6-9-2 (4-4-2 in games in which Jagr played).

It really never got much better for the Caps or Jagr in the 2001-2002 season.  Jagr was producing at about a point-per-game pace, but it was not what was expected of the five-time Ross Trophy winner (most points).  Meanwhile, the Caps struggled to get to the .500 mark.  On March 16^th they were 27-31-10-1 and sitting in 11^th place in the Eastern Conference, four points behind the Montreal Canadiens for the last playoff spot in the East.  The Caps closed with a rush from that point, going 9-2-1-1, and Jagr went 4-11-15, plus-5, but it was not enough for the Caps to reach the postseason.  They finished two points behind the Canadiens for the last playoff spot in the East.

The failure to reach the postseason cost head coach Ron Wilson his job, and the job of leading the Caps was given to Bruch Cassidy, a first-time NHL head coach.  The change in head coach did not inspire Jagr to improve on his previous year’s numbers.  They were certainly adequate for most NHL players – 36-41-77 in 75 games – but he fell in the scoring rankings from a tie for fifth in the 2001-2002 season to a tie for 19^th in 2002-2003.  And, when his scoring dried up after the first two games of the Caps’ opening round playoff series against the Tampa Bay Lightning (games the Caps would win) on their way to a six-game loss to the Bolts, it became evident that Jagr was not the key to unlock the safe where postseason success was kept.

When the Caps started the 2003-2004 season 3-11-1 in their first 15 games, any lingering doubt that the team as constructed would be successful was gone.  Jagr was 4-6-10, minus-3 in those first 15 games, and the problems were rippling through the organization.  Trade rumors about Jagr were in full bloom. 

Things only got worse for the Caps.  Cassidy was relieved as head coach in mid-December with the Caps holding an 8-18-1-1 record.  Things did not get better under new head coach Glen Hanlon.  His club did not win consecutive games until early January, but by that time any realistic hope the Caps would reach the postseason were gone.  On January 23^rd, with the Caps carrying a 14-27-5-2 record and sitting 14^th in the 15-team Eastern Conference, the team traded Jagrto the New York Rangers for forward Anson Carter.

Andrew Johnson’s career in politics did not end with his term as President in 1869.  He ran unsuccessfully for both U.S. Senate and for a U.S. House seats, but ran for the Senate once more in 1875.  He served only five months, though, when he suffered a stroke and passed away on July 31, 1875.  Despite what he viewed as vindication his election to the Senate provided, it would do little for his place in history.  He is generally considered among the Nation’s worst presidents. 

As for Jagr, his career hardly ended with his trade to the Rangers.  Since leaving the Caps he has appeared in 633 regular season NHL games and another 155 games in the KHL.  His 588 points scored since leaving Washington by itself ranks in the top-40 among active scorers in the NHL.  In Washington, though, his stay is largely regarded as equal parts disappointing and atrocious.  His name does not inspire fond memories among Capitals fans.

Of Andrew Johnson it is written that “when…he gained the highest power, he proved incapable of using it in an effective and beneficial manner.”  The same might be said of Jaromir Jagr who, as the highest paid player in the game at the time, could not perform in “an effective and beneficial manner.”  In that respect there is much in common between these two individuals.

The Long and Winding Road of Jaromir Jagr

Oh, what miles he has traveled.  Even William Shatner is going, "whoa..."  Jaromir Jagr has been there, done that, over and over in the NHL wearing the jersey of seven different teams in his 24 year professional hockey career, with a detour to Russia along the way.  Now he will head to his eighth NHL team, the Florida Panthers, after the New Jersey Devils traded him for a pair of draft picks yesterday.

It is hard to believe that it was almost 14 years ago that Jagr dropped in on Washington for almost three of those 24 seasons (between Pittsburgh and New York, in case you have forgotten).

And who knows, with Jagr set to become an unrestricted free agent at the end of this season and showing no signs of hanging up his skates, perhaps there is a new city to add to his impressive resume.  There are, after all, 22 franchises for which he has yet to play in the NHL (some, mostly Caps fans, would argue that there are 23 on that list, that he did not really play for Washington, at least not seriously).  He might even become the captain, one day, of an expansion franchise in Las Vegas, which would be an interesting capstone to his career.

Until that day, however, if and when he moves on once more, we must be content to ponder with awe and humility the map he has traveled in his legendary career.

Safe travels and fair winds, Jaromir.  Long may your baggage arrive safely at your destination.

(click on picture for larger image)