"They told me to get a residence here, so I did that. That's a good sign for now, but I've just got to get better and better as the days go."
So that leaves, for the defense:
Steve Eminger
John Erskine
Mike Green
Milan Jurcina
Shaone Morrisonn
Brian Pothier
Tom Poti
...and Schultz
I count eight defensemen in there. The Caps could go with that to start the year. Which begs the question, will the Caps carry 13 forwards? At the moment, the forwards include:
Nicklas Backstrom
Matt Bradley
Donald Brashear
Chris Clark
Ben Clymer
Tomas Fleischmann
Boyd Gordon
Jakub Klepis
Viktor Kozlov
Brooks Laich
Michael Nylander
Alexander Ovechkin
Matt Pettinger
Alexander Semin
David Steckel
Brian Sutherby
That's 16. Jakub Klepis would appear not to have a spot at this point, and Eric Fehr (not on the list above) is likely to start the year on injured reserve, leaving two potential victims of hockey's equivalent of The Turk. If you're looking for hints, perhaps this quote from Glen Hanlon, reported in this morning's Post entry by Tarik El-Bashir, provides it...
"It really hurts when you see people leave the organization who have given their heart and soul to this group."
The next 30 hours or so (23-man rosters must be set by 3:00 pm, Tuesday) will be pretty hard on guys like David Steckel, Brooks Laich, Matt Bradley, Ben Clymer, and Brian Sutherby.
I also think the possibility is there that Semin starts the season on injured reserve- hints in the paper that he "won't be ready by Opening Day".... and that would make sense, as the Caps have 4 of their first 5 games on the road, with the last two of those back to back on the 12th and 13th, and then a 5 day layoff until Game 6 on the 18th.
ReplyDeleteThree more weeks of a roster spot would give McPhee a chance to clarify a murky situation.
That is a good point...looks like a page from the Redskins personnel playbook.
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