“All the things one has forgotten scream for help in
dreams.”
-- Elias Canetti
The comings and goings in 2014-2015 did not occur as
frequently as the departures and arrivals last season. In fact, the roster movement of players in
and out of the organization took place in a very small window of time, 48 hours
to be exact. On February 28th, the Caps
sent defenseman Jack Hillen and a fourth-round draft pick to the Carolina
Hurricanes for defenseman Tim Gleason.
The next day, the Caps sent second- and third-round draft picks to the
Calgary Flames for forward Curtis Glencross.
Jack Hillen (35 games, 0-5-5, plus-1)
Jack Hillen might be the most star-crossed player for the
Capitals in recent memory. In his first
season with the club, he last six shifts into his first game before he was
knocked out of the contest (and for almost two months out of the lineup) with a shoulder injury.
In his second season with the club, he made it to the second game of the season
– barely. He skated three shifts against
the Calgary Flames before he broke his leg on a check from Lance Bouma. That injury cost Hillen five months of the
season. Then, in March 2014, he was concussed after colliding with teammate Alex Ovechkin and missed the last nine
games of the season.
This season it was not injuries as much as the newly
acquired depth the Caps had on the blue line that kept him out of the
lineup. He appeared in just 35 of the
Caps’ first 67 games before being sent to Carolina where he (of course) was
injured, a concussion that cost him the last 19 games of the season. It was
unfortunate for the Caps, since Hillen was not a bad depth defenseman. In 71 games with the club he was 3-12-15,
plus-6. His possession numbers did leave
something to be desired, though. He
managed a Corsi-for percentage at 5-on-5 above 50 percent in his first season
with the club (51.2), but he was well under that threshold in his last two
seasons (42.9/47.4), and his Corsi percentage (relative) was similarly
unimpressive over time (+0.6/-5.9/-4.6).
Photo: Elsa/Getty Images North America
*****
Tim Gleason (17 games, 0-2-2, plus-5)
You might have thought swapping out Jack Hillen for Tim
Gleason was a trade of a brittle, puck-moving defender for a sturdy, physical
presence on the blue line. You might
want to rethink that. Since playing in
82 games in the 2011-2012 season with the Hurricanes, Gleason appeared in 98 of
a possible 130 games the next two seasons.
This year he dressed for 55 of 60 games with Carolina before he was
traded to Washington. He appeared in 17
of 19 games for the Caps, and his numbers painted an discouraging picture. He contributed virtually no offense (two
assists in 17 regular season games), which was not unexpected. However, his underlying numbers were mediocre
despite getting third pair minutes. His
Corsi-for percentage at 5-on-5 was 50.6, but his Corsi-for (relative) was
minus-3.1. It got worse in the playoffs. He had one assist in 14 games, and the Corsi
numbers were lower: 44.9 percent/minus-6.9 (numbers from war-on-ice.com).
Sometimes trade deadline deals catch lightning in a bottle. Sometimes they drive you to the bottle. This one was closer to the latter.
Photo: Kirk Irwin/Getty Images North America
*****
Curtis Glencross (18 games, 4-3-7, minus-1)
Curtis Glencross once scored 26 goals and had 48 points in a
season. Trouble is, he did that at age
29 with the 2011-2012 Calgary Flames.
When he came to Washington for a pair of draft picks at the trading
deadline, he was 9-19-28 in 53 games with the Flames, part of a declining trend
in goals and points production from that career high year. He did get off to a fast start with his new
team, going 2-2-4, plus-2, in his first two games with the Caps. However, he was 2-1-3, minus-3, over the last
16 games of the regular season. That
would look productive against his postseason numbers of 1-0-1, minus-5, in 10
games, including the moment when he became a Cap, and Caps fans had a feeling
things would not end well in the series against the Rangers:
Photo: Richard Wolowicz/Getty Images North America
Fearless’ Take: I got
nuthin’. I can’t make this vomit-covered
Twinkie look like Michelangelo’s “David.”
Cheerless’ Take:. Ya
win some, ya lose some. Seems like the
Caps and their fans lose a whole lot more than “some” and win a lot less than
“some.”
In the end…
Let’s face it, the comings and goings did not have their
intended effect. Washington rarely goes
for the big splash at the trading deadline, and they had no activity otherwise, other than
those couple of deadline deals. In a way, it
ties the knot in the season that two deadline acquisitions should figure in on
what might have been the worst single play of the season – the Glencross
turnover in overtime that turned into a Ryan McDonagh shot that glanced off
Gleason and behind goalie Braden Holtby that gave the Rangers a 2-1 win in Game
5 and started another “3-1 lead blown” scenario for the Caps in the postseason.
This is one aspect of the season that might best be
forgotten.
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