"With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts.”
-- Eleanor Roosevelt
One day, you are toiling in relative obscurity for a
renowned franchise that has fallen on hard times, the next you are thrust into
a stretch run to the postseason with the defending Stanley Cup champions. Life in the NHL at the trading deadline,
where there are buyers and sellers, even a seller with 11 Stanley Cups in
franchise history and a buyer who has but one.
However, the Detroit Red Wings were on their way to a third straight
season without a playoff berth, and that made third-year defenseman Nick Jensen
an asset that might be attractive to teams looking to bolster their blue line
for the postseason.
For the Washington Capitals, a player like Jensen, a smooth
skating defenseman who appeals more to the fan who pays attention to detail
than the casual fan who might look more at top-end numbers, might be a chance
to capture lightning in a bottle a second time after securing Michal Kempny, an
important part of the Caps’ 2018 Stanley Cup run, at the trading deadline in
February 2018. The Caps gave up young
defenseman Madison Bowey and a 2019 fifth round draft pick to secure Jensen,
but it seemed a light price to pay to add another layer of strength on the blue
line going into the postseason.
Jensen dressed for 20 games to
close out the regular season with the Caps, and his points production (five)
was equivalent to that of the pace he set in Detroit (15 points in 60 games). He managed to do it while averaging less ice
time (17:00) than he did in Detroit (20:48).
Fearless’ Take… Jensen getting
more ice time was associated with good things for the Caps in his abbreviated
stay. They were 11-2-0 in the 13 games
in which he skated at least 16 minutes, 3-3-1 when he skated less than 16
minutes. And, it wasn’t a case of having
to contribute scoring for the Caps to be successful with Jensen in the
lineup. Washington was 4-1-0 in the five
games in which he had points, 10-4-1 in the games in which he did not.
Cheerless’ Take… There is getting
ice time, and there is managing it. In
the last 20 games of the season, Jensen was the only Capital defenseman who
dressed for more than one game with an on-ice shot attempts-for percentage at
5-on-5 under 50 percent (46.69 percent).
The odd part of that was that he was second best in that group in
tied-game situations (54.89 percent, trailing only Michal Kempny (56.00 percent
in 12 games).
Odd Jensen Fact… Nick Jensen
played his college hockey at St. Cloud State.
Nick Jensen played college football at…yup, St. Cloud State (before he
transferred to Saint John’s College).
We don’t think either is related to… Nick Jensen of the University of South Dakota, although Nick Jensen (the second one) also played at South Dakota State.
Game to Remember… March 24th vs. Philadelphia
Upon arriving in Washington, Nick Jensen was dipped into the
history of rivalries. Of his first eight
games with the Caps, six were against former Patrick and current Metropolitan
Division clubs – the New York Rangers (twice), the New York Islanders, the New
Jersey Devils, the Pittsburgh Penguins, and the Philadelphia Flyers. That was the run-up to a matinee rematch
against the Flyers on March 24th a game that was important to the Caps
because they just had a seven-game winning streak snapped and wanted to avoid
consecutive losses for the first time in two months.
Washington drew first blood early in the first period on a
broken play that was quickly repaired.
From the right wing corner, Nicklas Backstrom sent a no-look backhand
pass in front to Alex Ovechkin. He tried
to send the puck across to Tom Wilson alone to the right of goalie Brian
Elliott, but a sliding Claude Giroux interrupted that effort. The puck slid out to Jensen at the top of the
zone. Backing off to try for a better
passing angle, Jensen flipped the puck at the net, and Wilson got his stick on
it to redirect it down and past Elliott’s left pad to make it 1-0, 3:52 into
the game.
The Caps doubled their lead mid-way through the second
period on a Travis Boyd goal, but the Flyers got back within one on a power
play before the second intermission.
Jakub Vrana put the game away mid-way through the third period, the Caps
getting back on a winning track, 3-1. It
was a typically “Jensen” game, if only more of it. In addition to the assist on the Wilson goal,
he had three shot attempts (one on goal, two others blocked), two hits, and
five blocked shots (his high with the Caps) in 20:45 in ice time (his high with
the Caps to that point).
Game to Forget… March
12th at Pittsburgh
Nick Jensen’s introduction to the Capitals-Penguins rivalry
was not a happy one. Things started well
enough for the Caps, who got a pair of goals from Jakub Vrana in the game’s
first 31 minutes to take a 2-0 lead.
However, two minutes after the second Vrana goal, the Caps turned the
puck over inside their own blue line, and the Penguins capitalized with Jared
McCann feeding Jake Guentzel, who took advantage of what looked like an early
exit from the defensive zone by Jensen, for the Pens’ goal. It was the first of four straight Penguin
goals, scored over a 19-minute span over the second and third periods, as the
Pens won going away, 5-3. In 14:09 of
ice time, Jensen did not have a point, did not have a shot attempt, did not
have a hit, takeaway, or blocked shot.
He did have a giveaway and was a minus-1 for the evening.
Postseason… Nick
Jensen was the only one of five Capital defensemen who played in all seven
games of the opening round loss to Carolina and did not record a point. That was not too surprising, given that his
had five points (all assists) in 20 regular season games with the Caps. The odd thing, though, was his being the only
Capital skater not to record a shot on goal in the Game 7 double overtime loss
that ended the Caps’ season, despite more than 24 minutes of ice time (he had
three shot attempts). His first career
postseason appearance might be summed up, as it might for a lot of Caps, as
being not bad, but just not quite good enough.
Looking ahead… The first order of business upon his
acquisition by the Caps was to get Nick Jensen signed to a new contract, a deal
that was consummated on the day of the trade.
Jensen inked a four-year/$10 million deal that will keep him with the
team through the 2022-2023 season.
Although he is a different sort of defenseman than Matt Niskanen (Jensen has
six goals in his three-year career; Niskanen had eight goals this season),
other than the fact that both are right-handed shots, Jensen comes at a much
lower cap hit ($2.5 million) than does Niskanen ($5.75 million). He could make Niskanen expendable to give the
Caps some signing flexibility and/or the opportunity for young defensemen to
assume bigger roles.
In the end…
Nick Jensen was traded for Madison Bowey, but the player he
essentially replaced was Christian Djoos, who was out of the lineup upon
Jensen’s arrival and did not return until Michal Kempny was lost for the
remainder of the season to injury on March 20th. Whatever the underlying reason, the Caps were
objectively more successful after Jensen’s arrival (9-2-1 in his first 12 games)
than in the period immediately before his arrival when Djoos was in the lineup
(4-3-1 in eight games after he missed 24 games). After Djoos returned to the lineup, and both
he and Jensen were in the lineup, the Caps finished 5-3-0, but that included a
meaningless loss, in terms of impact on standings, in the season finale). This is not to diminish Djoos, who remains a
promising prospect, but to suggest Jensen was an upgrade. Perhaps not of the magnitude of the upgrade
Kempny provided at a similar point in 2017-2018, but an upgrade nevertheless. For Jensen, is did not seem so much a new
game for him as it was a new setting in which it could flourish.
Grade: B
Photo: Nick Wass/Associated Press