The new week starts with Fearless taking a look at a new
element, this one being number 22 in the periodic table…
Titanium
So there he was.William Gregor, taking a break from tending his flock as a clergyman in
Cornwall, took advantage of a nice day in 1791 to indulge his hobby of
geology.He was walking along a stream
in a nearby parish and came upon a deposit of black sand.And (you can’t really make this up), he had a
magnet and thought, “what the heck?” and tested the sand with it.Lo and behold, the sand was attracted by the
magnet.He took some back to his
church/geology lab and produced from it two different oxides.One was iron oxide, which he knew about.The other was a white metallic oxide with
which he was not familiar.That was as far
as Gregor would get though.
Meanwhile, over in Austria, Franz-Joseph Müller von
Reichenstein, was discovering the same thing at about the same time.He did not know what he had, either.It was up to a Prussian chemist -- Martin
Heinrich Klaproth – to discover four years later just what the other two
missed.What he had was a new element
that he named.And he was not about to
mess around.He named it for the Greek
gods that were descendants of the earth and sky, immortals of unimaginable
strength and endurance.He named it
“Titanium” for the Titans.
Titanium is well-named.It is universal, being present in meteorites, the sun, and in lunar
rocks, in addition to its presence on earth.It is a low density metal, but one of high strength.It is extremely resistant to corrosion.It is resistant to acids, chlorine gas and
chloride solutions. It is resistant to high temperatures.
It does not have a natural role in human physiology, but its
qualities make titanium uniquely suited to high-performance applications in
manufacturing: propeller shafts and boat hulls (it was used in the manufacture
of submarines, for example), airframes and engines, missiles, and
spacecraft.It has medical applications,
such as in prostheses and orthopedic implants, and dental instruments and
implants.It is used in automotive
production where light-weight, high-strength materials are important.It shows up in sporting equipment (even
hockey, in face masks).It even has
promise as a critical element in long-term nuclear waste storage.
Titanium…a durable, high-strength metal used in
high-performance, critical applications that is resistant to stress,
temperature, corrosion.Sounds like a
defenseman who is durable, eats up critical minutes, performs well in stressful
situations (like tournaments or playoffs), who can be relied upon in a variety
of situations.
Titanium…the “John Carlson” of elements of the periodic
table.
Theme: “There are no second acts in American lives.”
-- F. Scott Fitzgerald
A decade is an eternity in an athlete’s career, and much can
happen – the good, the bad, the unexpected.Eric Fehr has had his share of ups and downs and unexpected turns in his
career over the last decade.At this
time ten years ago, Fehr was a newly minted first round draft choice of the
Washington Capitals, about to embark on what would be his third season with the
Brandon Wheat Kings in the Western Hockey League.It was one in which he would finish with 50
goals in 71 games.He would follow it up
with 59 goals in the 2004-2005 season with Brandon and establish himself as a
potential goal-scoring winger with the Capitals.
In the 2005-2006 season Fehr spent most of his time with the
Capitals’ affiliate in the AHL, the Hershey Bears, getting a cup o’ coffee
along the way (11 games) in Washington along the way.He made himself a hero of sorts when he
scored the game-winning, series-clinching goal in the Calder Cup semi-finals
against the Portland Pirates.Hershey
would go on to win the Calder Cup.
Then, things took a turn.A series of injuries limited Fehr to 37 games in Washington and 51 games
in Hershey over the 2006-2007 and 2007-2008 seasons.In his 37 games in Washington he could manage
only a total of three goals.He returned
in better health for the 2008-2009 season but recorded only 11 goals in 61
games in what was primarily a checking line role.
Fehr had what might have been a breakout year in 2009-2010
when he posted 21 goals in 69 games, but that would only be the high-water mark
of his career with the Caps.After
finishing the 2010-2011 season with ten goals in 52 games, he was traded to
Winnipeg for Danick Paquette and a 2012 fourth round draft choice.
That might have been the end of it, especially when Fehr
could manage only two goals in 35 games with the Jets, once again battling
injuries that stifled any momentum he could generate for his game.However, the 2012 lockout came.Fehr, like many of his NHL counterparts, took
to playing in Europe.Fehr signed on
with HPK in Finland.It served to
rejuvenate his game and his career.Thirteen goals in 21 games was enough to persuade the Caps to offer Fehr
a contract as a free agent, a deal the player signed in January 2013 on the eve
of the new, late-starting NHL season.
Fehr recorded a respectable nine goals in 41 games, despite
little power play time (0:49/game) and primarily third line time at even
strength.What highlighted his year were
two game-winning goals, both in overtime, and both against the Boston Bruins.The first of them was nominated as a “play of
the year” by TSN Canada…
Fearless’ Take…
For the first time in what seems like a long time, Eric Fehr
has a place he can call his own that does not resemble the dog house in which
he often seemed to inhabit under former coach Bruce Boudreau.He will almost certainly start the season on
the right side of the third line.The
Fun Fehr Fact from last season is that the Caps were 8-0-0 in games in which
Fehr recorded a goal (he had two in a 4-3 win in Tampa on Valentine’s Day).
Fehr’s evolution as a hockey player has made him, if not
exactly a Selke candidate, a respectable and responsible player in his own
end.Last season, among forwards playing
in at least 20 games, Fehr was 77th of 395 forwards in goals scored
against/on ice per 60 minutes (source: behindthenet.ca).He has been consistently in that range over
the past four seasons.
And, in the little things make a difference category (even
if they are arbitrary), Fehr had the best takeaway to giveaway ratio on the
team last season (23 takeaways, 9 giveaways).Fehr has the makeup to be a solid two-way forward for the Caps.Not, perhaps, a top-goal scorer any longer,
but a reliable 15-20 goal scorer.Not,
perhaps, a stopper on defense, but a player who will give a solid and
consistent effort in that area.
Cheerless’ Take…
Have we been here before?He has had what looked like a breakout year once before, then had 12
goals in his next 87 games.He has come
back from injury before, only to be injured again.Last year was his first season in which he
was even on a pace for a 70-game season.Those 15-20 goals might depend on his getting 75 or more games, given
the way the Caps look like they are going to use him.You want to take that bet, cuz?
The Big Question… Can Eric Fehr be a reliable source of
offensive support?
Put another way, is he past the oft-injured phase of his
career.Fehr has settled into a role for
the Caps, one that will likely find him getting 12-14 minutes a night (he
averaged 13:22 last season), primarily on evens, although he will get some
second unit work on both power play and penalty kill.If you look at last year’s performance of
those forwards who played in at least half of their team’s games and averaged
ice time up to a minute more or less than Fehr’s average, Fehr was the seventh
most productive goal-scoring forward among 70 players.He has the capacity to provide some punch
from the third line.The lingering question
will be whether he is on the ice often enough to do so.
In the end…
Eric Fehr has taken a long road since he was taken 18th
overall in the 2003 draft.It has not
been butterflies and unicorns.However,
his persistence was rewarded with a two-year contract extension that will pay
him $1.5 million a year for the next two seasons.Looking at capgeek.com information on
contracts, if you look at Fehr’s salary cap comparables who: a) are 25 or
older, and b) have deals starting in 2013, five players emerge: Matt Beleskey, Trevor Lewis, Nate Thompson,
Drew Miller, and Ryan Jones.At a
minimum Fehr compares favorably with the others in terms of his offensive
production last season and over their respective careers.
The 2013-2014 season is the next scene in Fehr’s second act
with the Washington Capitals.So far, he
has given evidence of contradicting Fitzgerald’s observation about such things
in American lives.Then again, Fehr is
Canadian.
Here we go… Fearless is taking us a little off the
reservation with his look at element number 23 in the periodic table and the
Washington Capital to which it corresponds…
Vanadium
Vanadium is an element that has had a hard time becoming,
well, an element.An explanation is in
order.Vanadium is not one of those
metals that have found uses in places dating back millennia.It does not even exist on its own in nature,
only in compounds.
One of those compounds was discovered by Andrés Manuel del
Río, a Spanish-Mexican scientist, who subjected a substance he called “brown
lead” to processes that produced vanadium compounds.“Vanadium” was not the name he chose for the
element, though.He called it
erythronium (from a Greek word for “red”) for the red color the compound took
on with heating.
One might have thought that this was the start of the road
to “element” status for vanadium/erythromium.Alas, it was not.Other scientists
convinced del Río that what he had was not a new element, but merely
chromium (you know...the "Martin Erat" of elements).
It took another 25 years for Nils Gabriel Sefström (another
Swedish chemist…boy, these guys were good) to isolate and confirm vanadium as
an element.It was Sefström who would
give the re-discovered element its name.It has something to do with Norse mythology and the goddess of love,
beauty, and fertility (“Vanadis,” or in the original, “Freyja”).It would be the first element to start with
the letter “V,” but we just wonder if Sefström was trying to get over a bad
breakup.
Anyway, even with its new “element” status, folks were not
exactly storming Sefström’s lab to find vanadium to put to use.Even today, more than 80 percent of all
vanadium compounds are used in steel-making.Most of the remaining amount produced is used in other metallurgical
applications and in manufacturing sulfuric acid.A small amount of it shows up in ceramics,
glass coatings, and in pigments.
It has almost no biological importance, except in some
marine environments (among algae, sea squirts), in some bacteria and fungi, and
in trace amounts in some rodents and chickens.
You could say that the discussion to this point has put
vanadium in a bad light.We prefer to
think of vanadium as one of those hardy, if unsung elements.It is relatively young in its discovery, not
like iron or copper.It makes modest
contributions from its place in the periodic table, and does so in combination
with other elements.
It might be something like a young defenseman who took a
little while to make the big show, who made modest contributions and played an
unsung role when he was called up to the NHL.Then, he was sent back down to the minors.However, this year he got a little bit more
of a chance, even though you would never think he really played in 25 NHL games
last season.
Vanadium… the “Tomas Kundratek” of the periodic table of the
elements.
