In looking at five questions about the 2015-2016 edition of
the Washington Capitals, we turn to a sometimes overlooked part of the club…the
bottom six forwards.
A lot of attention has been paid to the additions the
Washington Capitals made to bolster the right side of their top-six forwards –
T.J. Oshie and Justin Williams. However, the Caps did lose Joel Ward and Eric
Fehr in free agency this past summer, and it raises the question of what the
bottom six forwards will look like and whether they can be a contributing force
in the season ahead.
It was an unsettled enough function that the Caps held what
amounted to a casting call during the preseason. Derek Roy, a player with almost 800 games of
regular season and playoff experience, was brought to camp on a professional
try out. Sean Collins, who played parts
(small ones) of three seasons with the Columbus Blue Jackets, was signed as a
free agent in July and given a long look in training camp. Chris Bourque was
signed to a contract in July for what would be his third tour with the
organization. Liam O’Brien, who
surprised many by making the Caps roster for Opening Night in 2014-2015, was in
camp competing for a spot. Chandler
Stephenson, a 2012 draft pick and with barely a season at Hershey, went deep
into training camp. Chris Brown, who
appeared in five games with the club last season, was making his way through
camp until a hand injury set him back for what is expected to be several weeks.
Stanislav Galiev, a 2010 third-round draft pick who appeared in his first two
NHL games late last season, was getting a shot to make the club on a permanent
basis.
This was in addition to returnees Jay Beagle, Michael Latta,
who might be expected to get third or
fourth line minutes, and Brooks Laich and Jason Chimera, who might at one time
gotten second line minutes but are likely to find homes on one of the bottom
two lines.
Then there is the matter of the depth the Caps have at
scoring line forward. There are seven
players fighting for six spots. Suffice
it to say that it would seem likely that when Nicklas Backstrom returns to the
lineup, then one of Marcus Johansson or Andre Burakovsky is going to be on the
third line.
As we write this, Roy has been released from his try
out. Of the others, O’Brien, Bourque, and
Stephenson will start the year in Hershey.
Brown is injured and will be out for some time yet. This leaves Collins and Galiev as the 13th
and 14th forwards for the moment, although with Backstrom still out for at
least the first four games, one of them appears slotted to get a sweater for Opening
Night.
Compare last season’s bottom six to what might be this
season’s group, once the Caps are healthy at forward (for purposes of discussion...no lines are ever permanent):
A third line of Brooks Laich (or Jason Chimera; they might
be interchangeable at this point), Andre Burakovsky, and Tom Wilson would be
something of a departure from a conventional checking/shut-down line pitted
against, where possible, an opponent’s top line. It would be a third scoring line,
potentially. The difficulty, at first
blush, is that Burakovsky would have spent so little time with any of these
three players at 5-on-5 last season (combined, about 112 minutes). And while Burakovsky’s Corsi-for with Laich
and Wilson were more than adequate (56.8 percent and 60.9 percent,
respectively; numbers from stats.hockeyanalysis.com), there is too little experience there to draw much in the way of
conclusions.
There is an odd upside to a line such as this, though. Both Burakovsky and Wilson are at the
beginning of their respective development curves. The best that might be said for such a line
is that it could be better late than it is early. They could start the season as the youngest
players on the roster (20 and 21 years old, respectively). There is room for improvement, room for them
to grow together. This applies perhaps
more to Wilson, who has not yet demonstrated that he can be a contributor in
the offensive end of the rink. The
improvement angle would be the optimistic view for this line.
Then there is Laich, should he get the nod to take the left
side of such a line. If there is a
player who has something to prove this season, it might be Laich. Hounded by injuries the last three seasons,
he is very much removed from the solid even strength and power play contributor
he was five or six years ago. He has as
many goals over the last three seasons combined (16) as he recorded in
2011-2012. While he remains versatile,
capable of playing any of the three forward positions, he needs to demonstrate
productivity.
For Jason Chimera, his motivation is a bit more
straightforward. He is in the second
year of a two-year deal with the Caps and is looking at unrestricted free
agency at the end of the season. A
productive campaign would add to his earning potential in what could be his
last NHL contract (he could be the oldest skater on the team this season at age
35).
Laich and Chimera being suited for either the third or
fourth line on the left side brings us to the other two positions on the fourth
line. Jay Beagle will eventually center
this line, in all likelihood, once Nicklas Backstrom returns as the top line center
and moves everyone else down a rung on the ladder. He is coming off a career year of offense
(10-10-20), is a superior faceoff performer (54.7 percent in 254 career games),
and he has a new contract to show for it (three years/$5.25 million). Those are the kinds of things that can lead
to a letdown if the player gets caught up in trying to do too much to maintain
the career best production and/or justify the contract.
On the right side of this line could be Michael Latta. There really isn’t a delicate way to say
this, but Latta is something of a liability in the offensive end. He has one goal on 30 shots in 70 games. No forward played in 70 or more games and
took 30 or fewer shots except for Latta.
He does try to contribute in other ways, mostly as an “energy” player
(the sort who annoys and agitates, and who can and will drop the gloves when
circumstances dictate).
In Beagle and Latta, the Caps have something akin to the
days when Boyd Gordon and Matt Bradley played for the club. Gordon was a very good defensive player and
was adept in the faceoff circle, Bradley was a heart-and-soul guy who led with
his chin (and other parts of his face) on a lot of nights. Beagle is perhaps a better offensive player
than Gordon, who has never had a 10-goal season (but he does have three 20-plus
point years), while Latta is not as competent as Bradley in the offensive zone
(37 goals in 427 games with the Caps).
If, however, the third line is going to be as much, if not
more of a scoring line than one might associate with a third line, then the
fourth line might be expected to pick up more of the defensive burden as
opposed to being merely an “energy” line.
This might argue more for Laich playing on this line, he being a
superior possession player and probably a better pure defender than Chimera.
This is the point where we bring up the depth forwards. To start the season it would appear as if
those spots would go to Sean Collins and Stanislav Galiev. Neither player has much in the way of NHL
experience (Collins has 19 games over three seasons, Galiev had two games last
year). And they arrive at their roster
spots from very different directions in training camp. Of Collins, head coach Barry Trotz likened him to departed winger Joel Ward and said:
“He’s not a big body. He’s not going to blow you away with blazing speed or these fantastic hands or anything, but if you watch him closely, he will make you like him as a coach, because he does a lot of those things that are hard to do all the time.”
On the other hand, Trotz was not as sanguine about Galiev’s progress and situation with the club before the team’s last two preseason games:
“There’s no question, he hasn’t stood out right now at all to me. He’s got to play better... We’re pretty well out of time. We’ll make a decision on him very shortly.”
The decision, for now, appears to keep him in Washington,
but his stay might be limited to how long Nicklas Backstrom is on the shelf.
The third and fourth lines are, and will be an issue as the
season gets underway. The Caps are
dealing with a retooled third line and an uncertain fourth line. One can see a path for each improving over
the course of the season in what might be unconventional roles. On the other hand, one can just as easily see
either (or both) being a substantial drag on the Caps’ performance. This is a question that is not going to be
answered in a week, in a month, or even by New Years. It had better have an answer by the spring,
though, of all this talk of the Caps going deep in the postseason might be just
that.
