Sunday, July 23, 2017

Washington Capitals -- Weekend Doodles...Did You Know?


Did you know…

No team created in the post Original Six era has more 50 win seasons than the Washington Capitals.  With five such seasons in team history, they trail only the Boston Bruins (nine), Montreal Canadiens (seven), and Detroit Red Wings (six).

Since the 2004-2005 lockout…
  • The Caps have the second-best scoring offense in the league at 2.99 goals per game.  Only Pittsburgh is better (3.05).
  • Washington has the best scoring offense on the road (2.86 goals per game).
  • The Caps have the league’s most efficient power play overall (20.6 percent) and the most efficient power play on home ice (21.3 percent).
  • Only one team has a worse penalty kill on the road than the Caps (79.6 percent) – Toronto (79.2 percent).
  • They have the second best shooting percentage (9.862 percent to 9.886 percent for Pittsburgh).
  • No team has scored more third period goals than the Caps (tied with Pittsburgh with 992).
  • No team has scored more overtime goals than the Caps (69).
  • Only five teams have more wins than the Caps  (515) – San Jose (547), Detroit (532), Pittsburgh (536), Anaheim (527), and the New York Rangers (522).
  • Only four teams have more standings points than the Caps (1148) – San Jose (1199), Detroit (1193), Pittsburgh (1173), and Anaheim (1168).
  • Mike Green has the highest goal total in a season among 797 defensemen to dress over this period (31 in 2008-2009).
  • Alex Ovechkin has seven of the 20 50-goal seasons recorded over this period.
  • Ovechkin has four of the 13 20-power play goal seasons over these years and is the only player to do it more than once.  He has 82 more power play goals (212) than the second-place player on the list (Thomas Vanek: 129).
  • Ovechkin is the only player in the league to have logged more than 4,000 power play minutes of ice time (4,459).
  • The Caps have five of the 28 100-point seasons over this period (Ovechkin has four of them; Nicklas Backstrom has one).  Only Pittsburgh has more (eight).
  • Only Henrik Sedin (seven) and Joe Thornton (six) have more 60-assist seasons than Backstrom (five).


See… it hasn’t been so bad.

Saturday, July 22, 2017

Washington Capitals: What If This Day In Caps History Didn't Happen Like This Day In Caps History -- July 22nd

We are back with another Washington Capitals “what if today didn’t happen the way it happened back then?”  After a brief sojourn into an episode in which a player departed the organization to great effect, we return to an instance in which a player was brought into the organization.  July 22, 1996, was Day 3 of the 1996 Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta, but several hundred miles to the north, the Capitals dipped into the free agent market.

The team was coming off a decent season, which is to say “typical.”  In the 1995-1996 season, the club finished with a 39-32-11 record, good for fourth in the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference, the seventh-seed in the playoffs that season.  They drew the second-seeded Pittsburgh Penguins in the first round and lost in six games, a series that featured a four-overtime game, which of course, the Caps lost.

In the 1995-1996 season, the Caps’ blue line contributed some offense with three defensemen – Sergei Gonchar (15-26-41), Sylvan Cote (5-33-38), and Calle Johansson (10-25-35) – posting at least 35 points.  However, there was quite a drop-off after that to Mark Tinordi (3-10-13).  In the playoffs, though, the defense was barely heard from in terms of offensive contributions.  Gonchar was 2-4-6, and Cote was 2-0-2.  That did it for defensemen with any points in the six-game series against the Pens.

Which brings us to late July the following summer.  They signed 14-year veteran Phil Housley to a three-year/$7.5 million contract.  Housley, who had several teams from which to pick as an unrestricted free agent, chose the Caps because “the other teams weren't going in the same direction as the Capitals. Right now, they have the goaltender [Vezina Trophy winner Jim Carey] and the defense that can carry a team through the low-scoring games."

One might have been led to believe at the time that Housley was the last piece of the puzzle, the player who could deliver the mail from the blue line on offense.  After all, Housley was a defenseman who had fewer than 60 points in a full NHL season (not counting the injury-shortened 19993-1994 season) only once in 13 seasons, and that was a 43-point year in the lockout-shortened 1994-1995 season.  With Gonchar, Cote, and Johansson, the Caps could ice a formidable foursome in terms of offensive threat from the blue line.

Yeah, well, that was the plan.  What was not in the plan was the Caps having only two defensemen dress for more than 65 games in the 1996-1997 season.  Housley was one of them (77 games), Ken Klee was the other (80 games).  Gonchar, Cote, Johansson and missed a combined 67 games, and while those three finished second, third, and fourth, respectively, in defenseman scoring (Housley was first with 40 points), it was not the output foreseen when the Caps assembled this defense. 

Worse, the Caps missed the postseason after a 14-year run in reaching the playoffs.  The result was due, in no small part, to the team missing a total of 361 man-games to injury.  But it also had its origins in the weak play at goaltender.   The Vezina Trophy winner that Housley alluded to in describing his decision process in choosing the Caps, Jim Carey, imploded.  After a ghastly 1996 postseason (0-1, 6.19, .744 in just 97 minutes played), Carey went 17-18-3, 2.75, .893 in 1996-1997 (not awful by the standards of the time, but not good, either), and he was traded late in the season as the team was falling out of playoff contention.   In terms of the defense, Housley was not the “last piece” of what could be a championship-caliber team, he was the “only piece” of a defense decimated by injury and a team that managed just 75 standings points, ninth-lowest for a full season in club history to that point in time.

The Caps stormed out of the gate in the 1997-1998 season, the team going 7-1-0 in their first eight games.  Housley might have done likewise, going 1-2-3, plus-4, in his first five games, but then he was sidelined for three games (all Caps wins).  It barely slowed him down, though.  In the first 29 games of the season in which he dressed, he was held without a point in consecutive games only twice and went 3-20-23 in those games.

Then, his offensive output dried up.  From December 13th in Los Angeles against the Kings through January 21st in Tampa against the Lightning, Housley went 14 games without a point. He broke the drought with a goal against the Boston Bruins on January 25th, a 4-1 Caps win, but then he went another eight games without a point.  Housley recovered to finish the regular season 2-5-7 in his last dozen games, although three of those points (all assists) came in a 6-3 win over the Florida Panthers on March 7th.  It ended up being a frustrating season for Housley, who missed 18 games in the regular season and finished with just 31 points, his lowest total for a full season to that point in his career (not including the injury-shortened 1993-1994 season in which he had 22 points in 26 games).

It hardly improved in the postseason for Housley.  With the Caps going on a roll, winning three series to reach the Stanley Cup final for the first time in franchise history, Housley was scratched for three games in the second-round series against the Ottawa Senators.  He averaged barely 12 minutes in the 18 games in which he did dress for the postseason (only Brendan Witt had a lower average among the six defensemen who appeared in at least ten games) and had four assists (no goals).

When the Detroit Red Wings defeated the Capitals, 4-1, to complete a four-game sweep of the Stanley Cup final, it brought down the curtain on Phil Housley’s career in Washington.  The Caps placed him on waivers in July, and he was claimed by the Calgary Flames.  And we finally get to the “what if” portion of the piece.  What if Housley had not been signed in the summer of 1996?  Looking at his body of work as a Capital, it is tempting, to say the least, that little would have changed.  In two years with the Caps, he did go 17-54-71 in 141 games, but over time he became largely a power play specialist. His minus-20 was tied for 182nd among 205 defensemen appearing in at least 50 games over the 1996-1997 and 1997-1998 seasons (to be fair, Brendan Witt was minus-31 over the same two seasons, but those were his second and third seasons in the league).  His one postseason with the Caps was as a support player with limited exposure who seemed to fall out of favor of head coach Ron Wilson.

One might make an argument that Housley’s contributions were of the intangible nature.  Despite being just 32 when he arrived in Washington, Housley had 932 games of NHL regular season experience.  That could only help a club with a couple of very green defensemen of whom much was expected; Sergei Gonchar was just 22, and Brendan Witt was just 21 years old.  The numbers Housley put up in his two seasons with the club were, in the context of the club for which he played, pretty good.  There were 15 defensemen who dressed for the team over those two seasons.  Among them, Housley ranked as follows:
  • Games played: 1st (141)
  • Goals: 3rd (17)
  • Assists: 1st (54)
  • Points: 1st (71)
  • Plus-Minus: 14th (minus-20)
  • Power play goals: 2nd (7)
  • Power play points: 1st (39)
  • Shots: 2nd (296)

However, of his 21 NHL seasons, Housley’s 11 goals in 1996-1997 is tied for the sixth lowest total in his career, while his six goals in 1997-1998 is tied for second lowest.  Similarly, his 40 points in 1996-1997 is the sixth lowest total of his career, while the 31 points he posted in the following season is third lowest.  Those years were even worse compared to his other NHL stops.  Housley played in at least 20 games for seven franchises in his career (plus one game for the Toronto Maple Leafs).  His goals per game with the Caps was sixth best of the seven teams for which he played.  His points per game was tied for sixth.  His shots on goal per game was worst with the Caps among the seven teams.

His postseason numbers might be considered disappointing.  In his two years with the club he appeared in just one postseason and was the only Capital defenseman of seven appearing in more than two games not to record a goal.  He had only two even strength points, one fewer than Joe Reekie, whose stock and trade was not in the offensive end of the ice.

It would be reasonable to conclude that had Housley not been signed by the Caps in 1996, the 1996-1997 season would not have been appreciably different.  The 1997-1998 season is a bit more nuanced.  There were all those injuries on the blue line that held Mark Tinordi to 47 games played, Sylvain Cote to 59 games, and Ken Klee to 51 games.  Housley missed 18 games that season himself.  Had Housley not been a Capital that season, the team might have had to put Brendan Witt, in just his third NHL season and first appearing in more than 50 games, in more responsible (and vulnerable) situations.  And, the Caps might have had to give defensemen such as Jeff Brown (nine games that season), Stewart Malgunas (eight), or Nolan Baumgartner (four) more appearances.  Or, the team might have had to swing a deal for a defenseman. 

It is a stretch to think that the Caps would have finished out of the playoffs with Housley never having been a member of the 1997-1998 team that went to the Cup final.  After all, they did finish 18 points ahead of the Carolina Hurricanes in the Eastern Conference.  But it could have upset the seedings enough to give the Caps an unfavorable matchup as early as the first round.  Consider that the Caps finished just five points ahead of the seventh-place Montreal Canadiens.  If the Caps were five or more points worse without Housley – not beyond imagination – the Caps would have drawn the Pittsburgh Penguins in the first round, a team against which the Caps were 1-1-2 that season (two overtime ties) and a team against which the Caps were already 1-4 in postseason series.

If Phil Housley had never been a Capital, it is possible – if not likely – that the Caps would still have only 1990 as a year in which they advanced past the second round of the playoffs and would still be looking for their first trip to a Stanley Cup final.

Sunday, July 16, 2017

Washington Capitals: What If This Day In Caps History Didn't Happen Like This Day In Caps History -- July 16th


There are distinct mileposts in a team’s history. For teams that have won championships, the dates when they clinched a title are foremost among them. For teams that haven’t, others have to do. In the case of the Washington Capitals, the dates that stand out in team history more often than not are those when important deals were transacted. And in almost all of those cases for the Caps, they involved a player arriving in Washington. There was September 9, 1982, when the Caps obtained Rod Langway in a trade that might be the most consequential deal in the history of the club, quite literally saving hockey in Washington. There was July 11, 2001, when the Capitals traded for arguably the best player in the league at the time in Jaromir Jagr. There was June 26, 2004, when General Manager George McPhee stood at the podium at RBC Center in Raleigh, North Carolina, and announced that with the first pick in the 2004 entry draft, the Caps selected Alex Ovechkin.

But there is a date in Capitals history important for the player who left town. That date was July 16, 1990. The St. Louis Blues had tendered an offer of a four-year, $5.1 million contract to Capitals restricted free agent defenseman Scott Stevens. Weighing the choice of matching the offer or accepting as many as five first round draft picks in return, the Capitals opted for the latter, allowing Stevens to depart. He signed his contract with the Blues on July 16, 1990.

This deal occupies its own special place in Caps history. In fact, it could be its own “wing” of the museum, if you will. The departure would make Stevens arguably the most prolific and consequential draft pick in team history for the lineage his departure sprouted


Things have progressed even more since this superb tree was developed at Japers' Rink (for example, Nathan Walker, who could land a spot on the Opening Night roster, is a part of this tree, and boy, it that a road to behold/1).

But the subject of our thought exercise is not the Stevens departure, but what would have happened had the Caps matched the Blues' offer and retained him for another four years. The immediate effects would have been felt on the ice. The question is, would they have been significant? In the 1990-1991 season the Caps had a revolving door at the blue line, owing to injuries and trades, dressing a total of 14 defensemen in the regular season, but only four of them appearing in more than 60 games – Calle Johansson, Kevin Hatcher, Mike Lalor, and Mikhail Tatarinov (parenthetically, current Chicago head coach Joel Quenneville was one of the 14, dressing for nine games with the Caps). One would think that Stevens, who dressed for 73 or more games in seven of his first eight seasons with the Caps, would have been another reliable fixture in the lineup. One would also think that Stevens, who topped 50 points in five of those eight seasons, would have given the Caps three such performers on the blue line (Johansson had 52 points, and Hatcher had 74).

But it might have been in the postseason in which Stevens’ presence could be most keenly felt. The Caps had six defensemen appear in at least ten of the team’s 11 postseason games in 1991. Hatcher, Johansson, Al Iafrate, and Calle Johansson were solid performers. Rod Langway, even at the tail end of his career, was still a solid stay at home defenseman. The other two defensemen – Mike Lalor (who came to the Caps in the Geoff Courtnall trade of which we spoke in the previous installment in this series) and Ken Sabourin were the others. It is Sabourin who deserves some attention here. Mid-way through the regular season, the Caps were lollygagging along with a 22-25-2 record when they made a trade to get nastier. It was a two-stage effort, the first picking up John Kordic and Paul Fenton from Toronto for future considerations. Then, the Caps shipped Fenton to Calgary for Sabourin. The shake-up was an effort to address the problem that, in General Manager David Poile’s words, the Caps “have not played tough enough.”

Sabourin played in 28 regular season games, and then got a sweater for 11 games in the postseason (he did not record a point in those 11 games and was minus-4). One wonders, if Stevens was still with the club, do the Caps make that deal? Stevens was the more skilled defenseman by leaps and bounds (which is no insult to Sabourin, a solid player in his own right) and did not lack for orneriness. That combination of attributes might have been the missing ingredient in the Caps’ five-game loss to Pittsburgh in the second round.

But thinking over the four years that Stevens might have spent in Washington had the team matched the Blue’s contract offer, it is interesting to compare Stevens’ durability and production with the changes that characterized the blue line over that period. A total of 26 defensemen dressed for the Caps over that period, Hatcher and Johansson the only ones to spend all four full seasons with the Caps (Al Iafrate spent two full seasons and parts of two other seasons with the club, the last part of 1990-1991 after arriving in Washington from Boston and leaving late in the 1993-1994 season for Toronto). Only Hatcher had more points in those four seasons than Stevens would record with St. Louis and New Jersey in real time (247 to 243), Stevens ranking tenth in points among 353 defensemen who dressed over those seasons.

This is not to say that the Caps would have been a Stanley Cup contender over those seasons, let alone a Stanley Cup champion. But it is hard to see how the team was made better in the short term of that four year contract, especially when one considers that the first of the five first round draft picks the Caps got in compensation did not dress for the Caps until the 1994-1995 season (Sergei Gonchar, drafted in 1992).

About those draft picks, though. On their own, the quartet of Gonchar, Trevor Halverson (1991), Brendan Witt (1993), and Mikka Elomo (1995; the Caps traded their 1994 pick with Mike Ridley to Toronto for Rob Pearson and a first round draft pick that became Nolan Baumgartner) had an uneven history with the club, neither Halverson nor Elomo (a total of 19 games between them with the Caps) getting much ink in the history book, while Gonchar (second highest goal scorer among defensemen in team history) and Witt (the second most penalized defenseman in team history) had solid careers with the club. Both Gonchar and Witt played for what would be the only Capitals team to play in a Stanley Cup final, in 1998, but they were feature players in a club that was largely an annual spring disappointment.

Even looking at the Stevens “family tree,” there are a lot of familiar names in addition to those we already mentioned – Matt Pettinger, Semyon Varlamov, Jeff Schultz, Kris Beech (in what would be his second tour with the club), and Mike Ribeiro among them. But they are well-known characters in those annual episodes of disappointment, too. Volume and quality are, in the context of the family tree, not synonymous.

In the end, there is no logical argument that springs to mind in favor of letting Scott Stevens go being a good move in a hockey sense. And despite the prolific nature of the deal, resulting in more than a dozen players dressing for the Caps over a period spanning more than two decades, there is the disappointment that has grown alongside the Stevens Family Tree over those same years. It is a truly bitter “what if” to contemplate.

1/  Follow along… After the Caps traded Filip Forsberg, who is fruit of this tree, for Martin Erat and Michael Latta, the Caps later traded Erat and John Mitchell to Phoenix for Chris Brown, Rostislav Klesla, and a fourth round draft pick. Klesla was immediately traded with Michal Neuvirth to Buffalo for Jaroslav Halak and a third round draft pick. Halak was later traded to the New York Islanders for a fourth round pick in the 2014 draft. The Caps traded that pick (which belonged originally to Chicago) and their own fourth round pick to the New York Rangers for a third round pick in the same draft that was used to select Nathan Walker. The tree lives on.

Thursday, July 13, 2017

Washington Capitals: What If This Day In Caps History Didn't Happen Like This Day In Caps History -- July 13th

Next in our “what if today didn’t happen the way it happened back then?” series, we wonder about July 13, 1990.  Doesn’t ring a bell, does it?  The Washington Capitals were coming off their deepest playoff run ever, a trip to the Prince of Wales Conference finals.  They were smoked by the Boston Bruins in that series, four games to none, but it was still quite a ride, a year in which the Caps dressed 37 skaters and five (yes, five) goaltenders in the regular season and a year in which the phrase “Druce on the Loose” would become part of the Capitals’ history.

That playoff run led, at least indirectly, to an incident that took place before July 13, 1990, one that we would have to think could not have happened for the July 13th event not to take place.  That incident occurred on the evening of May 11th and the early morning of May 12th.  In it, four Capitals allegedly engaged in sexual misconduct with a minor (a grand jury later chose not to indict any of the four players).

Of the four players allegedly involved in the incident – Dino Ciccarelli, Scott Stevens, Geoff Courtnall, and Neil Sheehy – only Ciccarelli ever played for the Capitals again (he would be traded two years later), but the player who is the subject of this “what if” is Courtnall.  He was traded on July 13, 1990 (said to be at the player's request) to the St. Louis Blues for forward Peter Zezel and defenseman Mike Lalor.  Courtnall was coming off a 35-goal season after posting 42 goals with the Caps in 1988-1989.  He would go on to record a fourth straight 30-plus goal season in 1990-1991 with the Blues and the Vancouver Canucks, to whom he was traded late in the season. 

To ask “what if Courtnall had not been traded” is really to ask the question, “what if that incident in Georgetown never took place,” thus sparing the Caps from making deals in its aftermath?  Keep in mind, none of the four players involved had reached age 30 in the 1989-1990 season.  Ciccarelli and Sheehy were 29, Courtnall was 27, and Stevens was 25.  You could say that if these four had stayed around, the Caps might have built something special off their 1990 run to the conference final.

There are two flaws in that thinking, though.  First, there was the matter of Stevens, whose contract was up at the end of the 1989-1990 season, making him a restricted free agent.  He would be tendered an offer sheet by the St. Louis Blues, and as any Caps fan knows, the team did not match the offer to retain his services.  In exchange, the Capitals received five draft picks as compensation (note that the trade alluded to in the linked article that would be announced later would be the Courtnall trade that is the subject of this look back).  There is no reason to think that this part of the timeline would have been altered had the events of the previous May not happened; Stevens would still go to St. Louis, and the Caps would still get those five draft picks.

But what if Courtnall and the others stayed?  If you subscribe to the notion that the Stevens signing made him the most effective draft pick in team history for what his departure begat (I would subscribe to that notion), keeping an offensive contributor such as Courtnall could only have helped.  But one should not get too far in front on this idea, either.  Keep in mind that the Capitals team that went to the conference finals in 1990 finished the regular season with a record of 36-38-6, third in the Patrick Division.  They did close the regular season with a bit of a rush, going 8-4-2 in their last 14 games to give themselves some momentum heading into the playoffs.  However, this was not a dominant team by any stretch of the imagination.  If ever there was a team of whom in could be said, “just get in, and anything can happen,” the 1990 Caps were that team.

In 1990-1991, even with the Caps retaining the services of Courtnall and Sheehy, in addition to Ciccarelli, the team was embarking on something of a youth movement.  The Caps dressed 13 rookies that season in real time for a total of 228 man-games.  Three – Mikhail Tatarinov (65), Peter Bondra (54), and Dmitri Khristich (40) – appeared in 40 or more games.  Even with Courtnall and Sheehy staying, it is hard to think that the rookie imprint on the season would have been a lot different, although one can entertain the idea that perhaps Bondra would not have had quite the exposure he had that season.

And this brings us to the second flaw in thinking something special might have happened.  As it was, the 1990-1991 team without Courtnall or Sheehy was not a lot different from the previous year’s version, going 37-36-7 and once more finishing third in the Patrick Division.  Would Courtnall’s offense have made a difference?  Yes, but perhaps only on the margins in the regular season.  The Caps might have made up the four points they finished behind the New York Rangers for second place in the division, but they still would have faced the Rangers in the first round of the postseason, a team they beat four games to two in real time. 

This, however, is where things get intriguing.  In the second round, the Caps did (and likely would in this scenario) face the Pittsburgh Penguins in what was the first-ever postseason meeting of these clubs.  Washington finished just seven points behind the Penguins in the regular season, although they did struggle with them (a 2-4-1 record in seven games).  Having taken Game 1 of their second round series against the Pens, 4-2 in Pittsburgh, the Caps were in a position to grab a two-game lead on the road in Game 2.  Game 2 was a back and forth affair.  Washington scored first on a Dale Hunter goal, but the Pens scored three straight to take a 3-1 lead.  The teams then exchanged goals twice, the Pens taking a 5-3 lead.  A pair of goals by Ciccarelli tied the game, and then Calle Johansson gave the Caps the lead mid-way through the third period.  With less than five minutes in regulation, Randy Gilhen tied the game for Pittsburgh, sending the contest into overtime.  There, Kevin Stevens scored eight minutes in to give the Penguins the win and salvaging a split of the two games in Pittsburgh.  The Penguins went on to win Games 3-5 (the Caps managing single goals in each of the games) to take the series on their way to their first Stanley Cup.

So, one wonders, if Courtnall had been a Capital in the 1991 postseason, and he managed to make his own goal-scoring contribution in Game 2 to help push the Caps to a win and a 2-0 lead in games heading back to Washington, does the arc of that series change in the Caps’ favor?  And even if the Caps did not go as far as the Penguins did in the postseason in 1991, does a whole unfortunate volume of Capitals history that spans decades – up to and including this past spring – of always falling at the hands of the Pittsburgh Penguins in the playoffs never get written?

That is what we wonder about when we think about Geoff Courtnall not being traded on July 13, 1990.


Tuesday, July 11, 2017

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 11th.

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 27th 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 12th 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 12th that netted them the 13th 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 26th overall pick and took Jarret Stoll (who was actually taken 36th overall by Edmonton).  In between, with the 17th 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 28th 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

Monday, July 03, 2017

To Marcus Johansson...Farewell


The off-season in the National Hockey League can be one of hope with the entry draft in June.  It can be one of suspense of a sort one has wondering what awaits on Christmas morning when the unrestricted free agency signing period begins on July 1st.  And, in the salary cap era, it can be one of sadness as players that fans watched “grow up” with the club from draft pick to a player to follow and root for leaves for another city.

The Caps bid farewell to such a player on Saturday, when Karl Alzner signed a contract with the Montreal Canadiens.  As if that wasn’t enough of a gut-punch, the Caps sent seven-year veteran and 2009 first-round draft pick Marcus Johansson to the New Jersey Devils in exchange for a second and third round draft pick in the 2018 entry draft.  The move became necessary when the Caps signed center Evgeny Kuznetsov to an eight-year contract, severely limiting the club’s ability to further fill out the roster under the league’s salary cap.

Johnansson leaves the Capitals as one of the most effective offensive players in recent history with the club while being among the most durable.  For example, he is one of two Capitals to have appeared in at least 500 games over the past seven seasons (501) while posting at least 100 goals (102).  The other is Alex Ovechkin (525 games, 289 goals).

He also managed to produce at this level by coloring within the lines, so to speak.  Johansson’s ability to avoid penalties was remarkable.  Johansson finished the 2016-2017 season as one of six active players to have scored at least 100 goals and logged fewer than 75 penalty minutes over the last seven seasons.  He is one of seven players in the league to have played in 30 games and logged fewer than 20 penalty minutes in each of the past seven seasons.  Among 70 players to have played in at least 250 games over the past seven seasons and logged 100 or fewer penalty minutes, he ranks second in fewest penalty minutes per game (0.12), behind Brian Flynn.

But just as with Karl Alzner, all that tells only a part of the story.  There were the images.

There was the prospect’s puckhandling prestidigitation in levitating a puck…

Photo: Jamie Squire - Getty Images

…there was the “keeping green” moment with Nicklas Backstrom…


…there was the accommodating Johansson, as good with a Sharpie as he was with a stick…

Photo: Nicole Weissman

…there was the “almost” first and only fight of his career against a player who deserved to get it right in the moosh…


...there was perhaps the most famous Caps-related meme in recent club history, Marcus Beauregard Johansson writing to his "Dear Abigail" from the NHL front...



…the overtime, game-winning, series-clinching goal in the playoffs…



But in the end, we remember the moments of celebration.  And as Marcus Johansson takes his leave of Washington, that’s the image we want to remember…

Toni L. Sandys/The Washington Post



Sunday, July 02, 2017

Bidding Karl Alzner Adieu


The last time the Washington Capitals played a regular season game without defenseman Karl Alzner in the lineup was April 11, 2010, the last game of the 2009-2010 regular season.  Since then, Alzner has appeared in each and every one of the Caps’ 540 regular season games.  He was the most durable player in the history of the franchise, the team record holder for consecutive games played.

“Was” the most durable player.  On Saturday, July 1st, Alzner signed a five-year/$23.2 million contract with the Montreal Canadiens.  The deal ends Alzner’s stay in Washington at 591 games played for the franchise, 20th on the club’s all-time list.  He is one of 12 top-five draft picks in club history, having been taken with the fifth-overall pick in the 2007 draft.  He is the last such pick the Caps have had.

Alzner also appeared in 64 postseason games for the Caps, 16th in club history.  It was there, though, that his unrelenting endurance betrayed him in the last two seasons with the club.  He played through injury in 2016, finally succumbing to a lower body injury that caused him to miss most of the season-ending Game 6 in the second-round loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins.  In 2017, injuries forced him to miss six of the Caps’ 13 postseason games and limited his duty when available to more or less seventh-defenseman duty when the Caps dressed seven blueliners.

Alzner's contributions in the offensive end were modest, scoring as many as five goals in a season only once (2014-2015) and topping the 20-point mark twice (21 points in 2014-2015 and in 2015-2016).  His contributions were more of the technical sort in the defensive end, where he could use positioning, angles, and adept use of his stick to thwart opponents.

Alzner was a consistent and even-keeled player on the ice, but he leaves Washington as one of the team’s more interesting and endearing personalities.  He seemed to be a ready and willing quote for the media with an ability to speak in an unfiltered way about his own and his club’s shortcomings, but not in a mean or edgy way.  He also seemed to be a quirky sort who could make a memory in the moment.  The pictures tell the story…

There was the prize for being named most valuable player in the opening game of the 2007 “Super Series” between junior players from Canada and Russia…

Photo: Paul Chiasson/AP

…Alzner’s only NHL fight, back in 2012 against Tampa Bay’s Steve Downie…



…there was the changing fashion in facial hair…



…the sense of adventure…

Photo: Capitals Outsider

…the commentary on an opponent’s behavior…



…learning that a triple-overtime loss would not be the end of his woes one spring evening, inspiring a bit of Twitter devotion...



…but his pals getting even, so to speak…


In the end, though, despite being a quiet, stay-at-home defenseman, Karl Alzner was about as cool as it gets. 

It was a good run in Washington, and he will be missed.  Good luck in Montreal, Karl…well, except, you know…when you play the Caps.