Washington Capitals: All-Franchise Teams by the Alphabet -- Team M

“M” stands for…well, “M.”  It is that team to which we now turn in the Washington Capitals All-Alphabet Franchise Teams.

Left Wing: Kelly Miller

Regular Season (with Capitals): 13 seasons, 940 games, 162-246-408, plus-75

Playoffs (with Capitals): 13 seasons, 119 games, 20-34-54, even

No player drafted lower in the 1982 entry draft played more NHL games than Kelly Miller.  In fact, the seven players taken after Miller in the 1982 draft who appeared in the NHL played in a total of 86 games.  Miller, drafted in the ninth round (183^rd overall) by the New York Rangers, played in 1,057 NHL games, 940 of them with the Washington Capitals.

Miller came to the NHL, if not a prolific scorer, then a consistent one in his four seasons at Michigan State University.  Over a 163-game career with the Spartans, Miller was a point per game player (82-82-163).  He was a Hobey Baker finalist in 1985, an honor he shared with Adam Oates and Spartan teammate Craig Simpson, both of whom would go on to have noteworthy NHL careers of their own (former Caps assistant coach Tim Army was also in that Hobey Baker class).

Scoring was not quite the role he adopted once reaching the NHL.  In his first two seasons with the Rangers he was 13-22-35 in 74 games.  The following season (1986-1987) he was on a similar pace mid-way through the season.  Then, on New Year’s Day 1987, he was traded with Mike Ridley and Bob Crawford to the Caps for Bobby Carpenter and a second-round pick in the 1989 entry draft.

In 39 games with the Caps to finish the season Miller was 6-14-20, almost right on his scoring rate in 38 games with the Rangers.  It would kick off a remarkable string of seasons characterized by their consistency.  In the 11 full seasons that followed Miller never played in fewer than 74 games of a full season (he played in all 48 games of the abbreviated 1994-1995 season).  He missed a total of only 23 of 862 regular season games and played in every regular season game five times.

He spent those 11 seasons as a checking line forward, although five times he reached the 40-point mark and twice hit or surpassed 50 points.  He even had a flair for the dramatic.  His five overtime goals is tied for third in franchise history with none other than Peter Bondra.  His 408 points is tied for 11^th all time among Capitals forwards.

His forte, though, was preventing scores.  Five times he received votes for the Selke award as the league’s top defensive forward.  Three of those times he finished in the top-10, once finishing as a Selke finalist (1992).

In 1997-1998 Miller appeared in 76 games, the last in his 11-year run of appearing in at least 74 games in a full season.  However, his offensive production dried up.  For the first time in his career he finished a season without hitting double digits in either goals or assists (7-7-14), perhaps vaguely related to a concussion he suffered at the end of the 1996-1997 season.  He did, however, appear in ten post-season games in the Caps’ run to the Stanley Cup finals.

The next season – 1998-1999 – was Miller’s 12^th full season in Washington.  It was not a very good one, Miller being limited to 62 games on a team hobbled by injuries and finishing with just two goals and seven points.  It was Miller’s last NHL season.  He spent a year with the Grand Rapids Griffins of the IHL before ending his career for good. 

Kelly Miller is part of a storied family in college hockey, three of whom (brothers Kevin and Kip being the others) having played for the Capitals.  Kelly was the first and had a storied career of his own with the Caps, fitting squarely in line with a family of hard-nosed, checking forwards that defined the Caps in the 1980’s and 1990’s.  Kelly Miller gets the assignment on the left side of Team M.

Center: Dennis Maruk

Regular Season (with Capitals): 5 seasons, 343 games, 182-249-431, minus-46

Playoffs (with Capitals): 1 season, 4 games, 1-1-2, even

Before there was Alex Ovechkin, before there was Peter Bondra, before there were the Goal Dust Twins – Mike Gartner and Bobby Carpenter – there was Dennis Maruk.  An undersized center instantly recognizable with his period Fu Manchu moustache, Maruk was the first player in team history to score 50 goals in a season.  He was the first Capitals to score 60 goals in a season (only the sixth player in NHL history to do it when he hit for 60 in 1981-1982).

He did not get his start in D.C.  He got started when he was drafted in the second round (21^st overall) by the California Golden Seals in the 1975 amateur draft.  Even by then, he had a reputation as a goal scorer.  In three years with the London Knights of the Ontario Hockey Association, he scored 159 goals in 191 games.  He kept it going in his rookie year, finishing with 30 goals in 80 games, good enough for him to finish third in the Calder Trophy voting for top rookie.   Not even the Seals’ relocation to Cleveland slowed him down. In two years with the Barons he scored 64 goals in 156 games.  When the Barons merged with the Minnesota North Stars for the 1978-1979 season, though, he found his stay in Minnesota short.  Two games into the season he was traded to Washington for a first round pick in the 1979 entry draft. 

Maruk finished the season with 76 games played for the Caps and 31 goals, making it three seasons in his first four scoring at least 30 goals.  His second season was plagued by injury, and he finished with only ten goals in 27 games.  He more than made up for it in the 1980-1981 season.  On April 5^th he became the first Capital to score 50 goals in a season when he solved Detroit Red Wings goalie Larry Lozinski in a 7-2 Washington win at Capital Centre. 

Maruk set a higher standard the following year.  On April 3, 1982, he scored his 60^th goal of the season, his second of the game, in a 6-4 win over the Toronto Maple Leafs in Toronto.  He went on to finish the season with 136 points, a team record that stands today and, that being only the dawn of the Wayne Gretzky era, it made Maruk only the eighth player in NHL history to record that many points in a season.

It was only to be expected that his production would fall off some the following season, but he fell all the way to 31 goals.  Part of it was being moved from the middle to the wing to accommodate second-year center Bobby Carpenter. 

The 1982-1983 season was Maruk’s last in Washington.  In July 1983 he was traded back to Minnesota for a second round pick in the 1984 entry draft.  Maruk remained with the North Stars for the final six seasons of his career, scoring a total of only 80 goals over those seasons and topping 20 goal in a season just once.  In a 3-0 loss to the Capitals in February 1988, Maruk suffered a shattered kneecap trying to block a shot from Grant Ledyard.  The injury would be Maruk’s undoing.  He played in only six games in the 1988-1989 season, his last in the NHL.

Over the 1980-1981 and 1981-1982 seasons only Wayne Gretzky (147) and Mike Bossy (132) scored more goals than Dennis Maruk (110).  He was perhaps the most entertaining aspect of Capitals hockey in what were the later stages of its difficult formative period.  He was certainly the most effective part of it.  Despite his lack of size, his feistiness and prolific goal scoring ability put him in the middle on Team M.

Right Wing: Alan May

Regular Season (with Capitals): 5 seasons, 345 games, 27-42-69, minus-19

Playoffs (with Capitals): 4 seasons, 39 games, 1-2-3, even

Alan May was arguably the orneriest player in the history of the Capitals franchise.  Players took liberties with the Capitals at their peril over his five seasons with the Caps.  From 1989-1990 through 1993-1994 May compiled 1,189 penalty minutes, the most of any NHL player over that five-year span (teammate Dale Hunter was the only other player to record more than 1,000 minutes (1,001)).  His average of 3:27 in penalty minutes per game is by far the most in Capitals history (Craig Berube is second with 2:55) among those players having played as many games for the club as May (345).

It was not mere thuggery on a team that had little else to offer.  May was a night-to-night presence and contributed a solid defensive game on a team that won 200 games over his five seasons in Washington, and the 1989-1990 team (his first season with the team) advanced to the conference finals for the first time in its post-season history.

May’s career started as an undrafted free agent signed by the Boston Bruins in October 1987.  He skated only three games for the Bruins in the 1987-1988 season before he was traded to Edmonton for Moe Lemay in March 1988.  After three games with the Oilers in the 1988-1989 season, it was off to Los Angeles in March 1989, a trade with Jim Wiemer for Brian Wilks and John English.  He never played for the Kings, traded just three months later to Washington for a fifth round pick in the 1989 draft.

In Washington he found a home.  He certainly started with a bang.  Perhaps it was fitting that his first game with the Caps was against their bitter Patrick Division rival, the Philadelphia Flyers.  The Caps won, 5-3, May earning four penalty minutes in the contest.  It was representative of the hard divisional fights during that period of Capitals hockey of which May was an integral part.  May also rose to the occasion against division opponents when it came to his own offense.  Though more a checking/physical forward than an offensive one, he recorded 12 of his 27 goals for the Caps against Patrick Division opponents.

Late in the 1993-1994 season he was traded to the Dallas Stars with a seventh round pick in the 1995 entry draft for defenseman Jim Johnson.  A year later the Stars traded him to Calgary for an eighth round pick in the 1995 entry draft.  May played seven games for the Flames at the end of the 1994-1995 season in what would be his last season in the NHL. 

Alan May helped define a period of Washington Capitals hockey.  The late 1980’s and early 1990’s was a period characterized by neither asking for nor giving quarter to opponents.  Those were generally hard-nosed teams that had to struggle for their success.  In fact, the 1990 conference finalist team was one that finished below .500 in the regular season.  May’s contributions came in the defensive end of the ice for the most part and in ensuring that no team could impose their will physically on the Caps.  It was a hard way to play and make a living (his 94 fights in a Caps uniform is testimony), but it was an important part of the Caps’ success of that period.  For that, Alan May is skating on the right side of Team M.

Defense: Shaone Morrisonn

Regular Season (with Capitals): 6 seasons, 377 games, 9-53-62, plus-26

Playoffs (with Capitals): 4 seasons, 27 games, 0-2-2, minus-1

Late in the 2003-2004 season, when the Washington Capitals were selling off their veteran assets to commence their rebuild, it meant parting ways with Sergei Gonchar, one of the most prolific offensive defensemen of his era.  The Caps traded Gonchar to the Boston Bruins for a first round pick and a second round pick in the 2004 entry draft, and a 21-year old defenseman wrapping up his second season with the Bruins – Shaone Morrisonn.

Morrisonn was one of 16 defensemen to dress for that 2003-2004 club and played three games with the Caps.  Coming out of the 2004-2005 lockout, Morrisonn became a cornerstone on the blue line, leading all Capitals defensemen in games played (80).  On a team that was still struggling with too young talent and a lack of experience, Morrisonn provided some steady play.  He was not an offensive defenseman (one goal and 14 points for the season), but he played 20 minutes a night and led all defensemen in plus-minus (plus-7), the only Caps defenseman playing more than half the team’s games to finish on the plus side of the ledger.

It was the first of what would be five very consistent seasons for Morrisonn with the Caps, output wise.  He ranged from 10 to 14 points, from plus-3 to plus-8.  However, there were two things that reflected both his role and those around him.   Starting with that 2005-2006 season he played in fewer games each year: 78 in 2006-2007, then 76, 72, and 68.  Over the first three of those seasons Morrisonn averaged more than 20 minutes of ice time a night.  In the last two his ice time dropped to less than 18 minutes a game.

With Jeff Shultz coming off a plus-50 season and Karl Alzner being groomed for a spot in the lineup, Morrisonn’s spot as a “defensive” defenseman was in jeopardy after the 2009-2010 season.  Coming off a one-year deal paying him $1.975 million, the Caps seemed to be disinclined to give him much of a raise.

Late in the summer of 2010 Morrisonn signed a two-year contract with the Buffalo Sabres.  He appeared in 62 games for the Sabres in 2010-2011, but he was demoted to the Rochester Americans of the AHL in 2011-2012, where he played in 65 games.  A free agent after that season, Morrisonn headed to Europe.  He is currently playing with Medveščak Zagreb in the KHL after stops with Spartak Moscow and CSKA Moscow.

Shaone Morrisonn played a quiet sort of game that did not set off fireworks.  But his stay at home style was also characterized by a certain toughness.  In 2008 he played in all seven games for the Caps in the post-season despite suffering a broken jaw and a separated shoulder.  He was one of those players who played through the team’s rebuild without enjoying much of the payoff at the end.  But he was a solid player over his five-plus seasons with the Caps and patrols the blue line for Team M.

Defense: Larry Murphy

Regular Season (with Capitals): 6 seasons, 453 games, 85-259-344, plus-57

Playoffs (with Capitals): 5 seasons, 42 games, 9-17-26, plus-1

To the extent that Capitals fans remember defenseman Larry Murphy, it might be only for “oh yeah, the guy everyone shouted ‘whoop’for.”   That isn’t really fair to Murphy.  In his six seasons with the Capitals, only seven defensemen compiled at least 85 goals and 340 points.  Murphy (85-259-344 with the Caps over those seasons) was one of them. 

Murphy began the Capitals phase of his career after spending three seasons with the Los Angeles Kings, who made him the fourth overall pick in the 1980 entry draft.  Six games into his fourth season with the Kings he was traded to Washington for Ken Houston and Brian Engblom.  It started a four-year period in which Murphy’s offensive numbers improved each year.  From 13 goals and 46 points with the Caps over 72 games of the 1983-1984 season, Murphy improved to 23 goals and 81 points over 80 games of the 1986-1987 season.

In that 1986-1987 season Murphy was named to the second NHL all-star team with Calgary’s Al MacInnis, and he finished third in the Norris Trophy voting behind Ray Bourque and Mark Howe.

Murphy slipped some in the 1987-1988 season, going 8-53-61, but it was still good enough to finish tied for ninth with Montreal’s Chris Chelios in points among defensemen.  His most important play that year came in the post-season, though.  Every Caps fan of the period remembers that in overtime of Game 7 of the opening round series against the Philadelphia Flyers, Dale Hunter ended the series.  Folks might not remember it was Murphy who stood up the Flyers’ Murray Craven at the Capitals’ blue line, poked the puck off his stick, then fed the puck through the neutral zone to a breaking Hunter to start the final scoring sequence...

Even by that time, though, fans seemed to be souring on Murphy’s game, which was viewed as neither physical enough or “defensive” enough.  In 1988-1989 his offensive numbers dropped again, and the fans turned on Murphy, perhaps as a symbol of the frustration felt at the Caps failing to advance past the second round of the playoffs in any of his five seasons with the club.  In March of that season Murphy was traded to the Minnesota North Stars with Mike Gartner for Dino Ciccarelli and Bob Rouse.

After spending parts of three seasons with the North Stars, Murphy moved on to Pittsburgh, where he skated on two Stanley Cup winning teams with the Penguins.  After five years in Pittsburgh he went to Toronto for parts of two seasons.  From there it was on to Detroit, winning two more Stanley Cups with the Red Wings, the second of which was won on Capitals home ice in 1998.  Finally, after his 21^st season in 2000-2001, Murphy retired.  He is still fifth in all-time scoring among NHL defensemen (1,216 points) and was named to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2004.

Despite playing only parts of six seasons with the Capitals, Larry Murphy is still fifth in scoring among defensemen in club history (344 points).  On a points-per-game basis, Murphy is the best offensive defenseman in Capitals history (0.76 points per game).  Those playoff frustrations and the perceptions of inadequacy in Murphy’s game left fans wanting more from him, though.  In hindsight, Murphy deserved more respect for his game.  It is certainly more than enough to give him a spot on Team M.

Goalie: Bob Mason

Regular Season (with Capitals): 5 seasons, 76 games, 35-29-7, 3.16,  .889, 1 shutouts

Playoffs (with Capitals): 1 season, 4 games, 2-2, 1.75, .937

The lasting image Washington Capitals fans have of goaltender Bob Mason is one of him on one knee, exhausted after 128 minutes of hockey, the New York Islanders Pat LaFontaine celebrating with his teammates on winning Game 7 of the opening round of the 1987 playoffs in a fourth overtime.

There was more to Mason’s career with the Capitals than that.  He was signed as an undrafted free agent in February 1984 after two seasons with the University of Minnesota-Duluth Bulldogs and a stint with the U.S. national team, including three games in the 1984 Winter Olympics. 

Mason appeared in two games for the Caps in that 1983-1984 season and five more with the Hershey Bears in the AHL.  He bounced between the Caps and the AHL in each of his next two seasons before catching on with the Caps for good in the 1986-1987 season.  Mason led the team in appearances in 1986-1987 (45) and finished the regular season with a record of 20-18-5, 3.24, .890.

In the post season, Mason started on the bench in favor of the more experienced Pete Peeters.  After Peeters and the Capitals split the first two games of their series with the Islanders, Mason got the call in Game 3.  In its own way it would be historic.  Mason stopped all 26 shots he faced to record the first shutout in Capitals playoff history, a 2-0 win on Long Island.  The following night Mason also faced 26 Islander shots, allowing a single goal in a 4-1 Capitals win that gave them a 3-1 lead in games.

In Game 5 Peeters got the call, the Caps dropping a 4-2 decision at Capital Centre.  Head coach Bryan Murray turned to Mason to try and close out the series on Long Island in Game 6, but the Islanders prevailed by a 5-4 score in a game that might have ended worse for the Caps but for Mason stopping all 18 shots he faced in the first period.

That set up the Easter Epic, the longest game in Capitals history to that date.    It was a game full of ups and downs, but in the end it was a heartbreaking night for the Capitals.  It was also the last game Mason would play for the Capitals.  He signed with the Chicago Blackhawks as a free agent the following June.

After a year in Chicago, Mason was traded to the Quebec Nordiques for Mike Eagles (who later would be a Capital).  Another year later, Mason made his way back to Washington for future considerations.  He was one of five goalies the Caps used in the 1989-1990 season, getting 16 appearances with a record of 4-9-1, 3.50, .877.  After losing eight of his last nine decisions, he did not appear in another game after giving up four goals in a 5-3 loss to the New Jersey Devils on February 9^th.  It was his last game for the Capitals.

Mason played in one more season, appearing in six games for the Vancouver Canucks in the 1990-1991 season that would be his last in the NHL.  He spent four more years in the minors before his career ended after the 1994-1995 season.

Bob Mason is remembered for one game, one that any Capitals fan from the period remembers vividly to this day.  Lost in the disappointment is the fact that it was and remains one of the great single game performances by a goaltender in Capitals history.  There were other contributions to the club in his brief stay, though, and it makes for Bob Mason starting in goal for Team M.

Team M is a combination of grit and skill, a reflection of its era, with most of the players coming from a time when hockey was more of a rough and tumble sort of game.  They might not win every game, but they would not go down without a fight.

Washington Capitals: All-Franchise Teams by the Alphabet -- Team L

We are up to the letter “L” in our look back at the Washington Capitals All-Alphabet Franchise Teams. This one represents each decade in the history of the franchise.

Left Wing: Brooks Laich

Regular Season (with Capitals): 10 seasons, 616 games, 125-172-297, plus-1

Playoffs (with Capitals): 5 seasons, 51 games, 9-21-30, plus-1

When the Washington Capitals embarked on the Great Selloff/Rebuild, 2003-2008, they had to part with a number of veterans, some of them with deep roots in the community and wide following among Caps fans. No Capital had a more devoted fan following than forward Peter Bondra. When he was traded on February 18, 2004 to the Ottawa Senators after spending 14 seasons with the club, fans and management, as well as the player were choked up about it.  It almost seemed an afterthought that the return was a second round draft pick in the 2005 entry draft and a prospect forward by the name of Brooks Laich.*

Ten years later, and Laich is a fixture with the club. Perhaps not to the extent Bondra was, but Laich is widely viewed as a core player for the current edition of the Capitals. Laich, a sixth round pick (193rd overall) of the Senators in the 2001 entry draft, who played four games for the Caps after the trade in 2004, came out from the other side of the 2004-2005 lockout to establish a spot on the roster immediately. With 73 games played for the Caps that season, Laich embarked on a seven-year run in which he missed a total of 22 games, only four in the last five years of that run.

In those last five years of that stretch, from 2007-2008 through 2011-2012, Laich averaged 20-27-47, plus-4 per season. In 2011-2012 he finished 11th in the voting for the Selke Trophy as the league’s best defensive forward with more votes than Henrik Zetterberg or Jordan Staal.

One thing at which Laich displayed an adept touch during this span was scoring power play goals. In this five-year stretch, Laich was 38th overall in power play goals scored with 38. While this might sound like an unremarkable ranking, it was more power play goals than teammates Nicklas Backstrom (35) and Alexander Semin (34).

Then came the 2012-2013 lockout.  Like many players, Laich decided to play in Europe while the league and the players association worked out their differences.  On September 28, 2012 he signed with the Kloten Flyers in Swiss National League A.  He lasted 19 games (going 6-12-18 in the process) when a groin injury ended his further participation in Swiss hockey.   At the time it appeared as if Laich would miss a week or two at the start of the abbreviated NHL season that started in January.   Instead, it was an injury that bedeviled Laich, the club, and Capitals fans for more than a year.

Laich played in only nine regular season games and no playoff games in that abbreviated 2012-2013 season, recording only one goal and four points.  He was in the lineup to begin the 2013-2014 season, but the uncooperative nature of his injury relentlessly peeled games off his season resume – 11 games in late November and early December, three more in late December, a game in early February, single games on March 6th and 11th.  March 14th would be the last game in which Laich appeared in the 2013-2014 season, playing only 12 minutes in a 4-3 Capitals win over the Vancouver Canucks.  Laich’s season was over after 51 games.  Three days later he was in St. Louis to undergo a surgical procedure to address the injury.

At 31 years of age, Brooks Laich should be in the prime of his career with the Capitals.  Instead, there is uncertainty about his health, whether he will return to being that player he was for a five year stretch before the 2012-2013 lockout, and his role (he could play anywhere from third line center to first line left wing and spots in-between).  He is not a Peter Bondra (who is?), but he has been a very versatile player for the Caps, capable of playing a number of positions and in any situation.  That merits his getting a spot on Team L.

Center: Robert Lang

Regular Season (with Capitals): 2 seasons, 145 games, 51-92-143, plus-14

Playoffs (with Capitals): 1 season, 6 games, 2-1-3, plus-3

If I told you that Robert Lang ranked seventh in Washington Capitals history in points per game (minimum: 125 games played with the club), would you believe me?

Well, he doesn’t.  He ranks sixth.  Here’s the list:

• Dennis Maruk: 1.26
• Alex Ovechkin: 1.20
• Jaromir Jagr: 1.06
• Mike Gartner: 1.04
• Nicklas Backstrom: 1.00
• Robert Lang: 0.99

Lang is fourth in assists per game (0.63) with only Adam Oates (0.75), Backstrom (0.74), and Maruk (0.73) ahead of him.  Unfortunately, he did it for only 145 games with the Caps, the last 63 of them played for the 2003-2004 team that was sold for scrap with the idea of rebuilding from the bottom up.

Lang came to the Caps in what, in hindsight, looks like an “in for a dime, in for a dollar” strategy of roster management.  In July 2001 the Caps traded for Pittsburgh Penguin forward Jaromir Jagr and his $10.3 million salary in 2001-2002 (which the Caps promptly extended into a seven year – with an option for an eighth year – deal paying him $11 million a year).  When Jagr had a disappointing (by his standards) first season with the Caps, the club went out and looked for a center to complement him.

Lang was coming off a four-year stretch with Pittsburgh in which he recorded 94 goals and 239 points.  That he was Jagr’s teammate seemed to make him more attractive as a target.  The Caps signed him to a five-year/$25 million contract on the first day of free agency in July 2002.  His first year with the Caps was altogether what might have been expected as far as his numbers went: 23-42-69 while appearing in all 82 games.  That was fine as far as it went, but it did not have the added benefit of improving Jagr’s production, who actually saw a drop in points (from 79 to 77) from his first season with the Caps. 

The following season, Lang was better.  The team, unfortunately, was not.  Washington won two games in October, five in November, and four in December.  Their season was going nowhere.  Meanwhile, Lang was putting up big numbers: nine points (10 games) in October, 22 points (in 14 games, in all of which he recorded points) in November,  nine points (in 14 games) in December.

With the Caps about to embark on a clearance sale of epic proportions, there was the matter of what to do with Lang.  He was at or near the top of the points race.  He was their most productive, and thus most marketable asset. 

The Caps pulled the trigger on a trade on February 27th, with Lang leading the league in points (74 in 63 games).  Washington traded Lang to the Detroit Red Wings for a prospect forward (Tomas Fleischmann), a first round pick in the 2004 entry draft, and a fourth round pick in the 2006 entry draft.

The Red Wings might have been congratulating themselves on not having to part with a roster player in a trade for the league’s leading scorer.  However just four games into his new setting, Lang suffered a rib injury.  He played in only six of the Wings’ last 18 games, going 1-4-5.  The Caps would use their first round draft pick in 2004 to select Mike Green.

He played two more seasons with Detroit, then signed with Chicago as a free agent.  After one season with the Blackhawks, Lang was traded to Montreal for a second round draft pick.  A year later he signed as a free agent with the Phoenix Coyotes , the 2009-2010 being his last season in the NHL. 

It took Robert Lang a while to find his scoring groove.  Parts of four seasons in Los Angeles, a few games in Boston, and his early work in Pittsburgh gave little evidence that the seventh round pick of the 1990 entry draft (by the Kings) was going to be a scorer.  But he did find that scoring groove in his later years in Pittsburgh that started the most productive phase of his career, one that included his brief stay in Washington. 

Robert Lang, like Geoff Courtnall a decade before him, was a player traded at the pinnacle of his career due to circumstances (although the circumstances in Lang’s case were not of his doing).  Those circumstances, as was the case with Courtnall, cut short what might have been a long and productive career with the Capitals.  As it was, his performance in his brief stay in Washington still gets him a seat on the Team L bus.

Right Wing: Craig Laughlin

Regular Season (with Capitals): 6 seasons, 428 games, 110-173-283, plus-22

Playoffs (with Capitals): 5 seasons, 27 games, 6-4-10, even

Washington Capitals fans of current vintage know Craig Laughlin only as the smart (if occasionally goofy) sidekick to Joe Beninati in Capitals television broadcasts.  His Canadian-accented nasally voice is instantly recognizable (and no doubt endearing to Caps fans).  What fans of today’s team might not realize is that Laughlin was part of one of the biggest trades, if not the biggest trade in team history.

In July 1982 the Washington Capitals were on the brink of being moved or dissolved.  A “Save the Caps” campaign was begun, and then owner Abe Pollin decided in late August to keep the team in Washington   A week later, the team named David Poile as general manager.  Only 32 years old at the time, he jumped into the job with both feet. 

Barely a week after he was named general manager, Poile trade Ryan Walter and Rick Green – one who was once a second overall draft pick (Walter), the other a first overall draft pick (Green) – to Montreal for Rod Langway, Doug Jarvis, Brian Engblom, and a former 10th round draft pick of the Canadiens who just wrapped up his rookie season in the NHL: Craig Laughlin.

Laughlin fit right in.  It was not so much his scoring, although that part of his game seemed quite underrated (he finished seventh on the club in scoring in his first season with the Caps, his first full season in the NHL).  He was a hardworking, tight checking sort who harassed players all over the ice.  He would eventually be teamed with Alan Haworth and Greg Adams to become the “Plumbers Line” for their hardworking style of play (and with a nod to the “Plumbers” of the Nixon administration, being a DC team and all).

In Laughlin’s five full seasons in Washington he was one of only five players to record at least 100 goals (he had 105), and he was fourth overall in points over those years (273), behind only Mike Gartner , Bobby Carpenter, and Dave Christian.  Laughlin was third among the Caps over those five seasons in power play goals (38), trailing only Gartner and Carpenter.  He was also remarkably durable over those seasons, missing a total of only 12 games.

In the 1987-1988 season, Laughlin’s production withered, no doubt a product of the effects of knee injury he suffered in the previous spring’s playoff series against the New York Islanders.  He scored two goals in the Caps’ second game of the season, and then he went his next 21 games with just one goal to show for it.  Things did not improve.  Finally, on February 9th, with Laughlin stuck at five goals and ten points in 40 games, he was traded to the Los Angeles Kings for Grant Ledyard.  He played out that season with the Kings, then signed with his hometown Toronto Maple Leafs for the 1988-1989 season that would be his last in the NHL.  He played one more season, that with EV Landshut in West Germany before leaving the game at the age of 32 after the 1989-1990 season.

Out of lemons come lemonade, and Laughlin found a recipe for that when he was injured in the Islander playoff series in 1987, getting the broadcasting bug.   That is how most Caps fans probably know and remember him today.  But on some of the best teams in franchise history, Laughlin was a vital element.  He deserves to skate on the right side of Team L.

Defense: Rod Langway

Regular Season (with Capitals): 11 seasons, 726 games, 25-177-202, plus-117

Playoffs (with Capitals): 10 seasons, 78 games, 2-16-18, plus-2

In the first 29 years in which the Norris Trophy was awarded to the NHL’s top defenseman, four defensemen won the award in at least two consecutive years – Doug Harvey, Pierre Pilote, Bobby Orr, and Denis Potvin.  When Rod Langway won the award for the second consecutive year in 1984, he became the fifth defenseman in NHL history to accomplish this feat.

What made Langway’s achievement more impressive is that looking at the post-expansion era of the NHL and the defensemen who won the award at least twice – Orr, Potvin, and Larry Robinson – all of them recorded at least 11 goals in their trophy-winning years, and with the exception of Orr’s first trophy win in 1968, all of them recorded at least 64 points.  In Langway’s two wins he recorded a total of 12 goals and 65 points.

Langway was a defensive defenseman in an extraordinary sense.  That was not all.  He might be the single most important player in franchise history.  The means by which he came to the Caps was by the trade described above.  The Caps were in jeopardy of folding or moving, and shortly after owner Abe Pollin decided to keep the team in Washington, just-hired general manager David Poile made the trade that brought Langway to Washington.

Given the Capitals’ history of poor defense (in their first eight seasons they allowed 4.30 goals per game while the league average was 3.54), Langway was arguably the centerpiece of the trade.  Although he was still only 25 years with four years of NHL experience with the Montreal Canadiens, he finished in the top ten in Norris Trophy voting in each of his last two seasons with the Canadiens, and he was a member of a Stanley Cup winning team in Montreal in 1979.

What he was not was a scorer.  In 11 seasons with the Capitals, Langway never hit the ten-goal mark (he only scored a total of 25 in 11 seasons) and never recorded as many as 35 points in a season.  Nevertheless, he was a “plus” player in each of his first ten seasons in Washington (averaging plus-13).  He might not have been scoring, but opponents weren’t either.

The low scoring output did not lessen the appreciation for his game.  He was a first team all-star twice with the Caps, a second team all-star once, and received all-star team votes in each of his first seven seasons in Washington overall.  In addition to the two Norris Trophies he won, he finished in the top-five on two other occasions.  He finished in the top-five in Hart Trophy voting as the league’s most valuable player three times.

He was also durable, especially given his physical style of play.  In his first seven seasons in Washington, Langway missed only 35 games (five per season).  There was, however, a post-season injury he suffered that had significant impacts on the Capitals’ fortunes.  After a thrilling seven-game win over the Philadelphia Flyers in the first round of the 1988 Stanley Cup playoffs, the Caps faced the New Jersey Devils in the second round.  Late in the third period of Game 1, what would be a 3-1 Capitals win, Langway and the Devils’ Pat Verbeek were tangled up behind the Capitals’ net.  As Verbeek described it, “I was trying to prevent him from cutting back on me.  I stuck my leg out to keep him from getting position on me.  The toe of my skate cut him in the back of the calf…”  The skate left a three-inch cut to the back of Langway’s leg, and he headed to the bench immediately, trailing blood on the ice all the way.  He was treated, but he had to wear an immobilizing cast for 7-10 days, leaving him unavailable to the Caps for the duration of the series.  The Caps promptly lost Games 2 and 3 by a combined 15-6 margin (the Devils enjoyed 20 power plays over those two games), and the Caps lost the series to New Jersey in seven games.

Langway returned to play in 76 games for the Caps the following season, but the wear and tear on his body started catching up with him in the 1989-1990 season.  He played in only 58 games that season and did not record a goal (strangely, the only season in his career to that point in which he did not score a goal).  In 1990-1991 it was 56 games played.  He rebounded to play in 64 games the next season and record 13 points (his highest point total in three years), but he was not the dominating defenseman of the mid-1980’s.

In early November of the 1992-1993 season, Langway and general manager David Poile met, Poile asking Langway to assume a part-time role with the club.  He played in only 21 games that season, finishing with no points and a minus-13.  The manner in which the game evolved around him was reflected by the fact that in that 1992-1993 season, three other Capitals defensemen – Kevin Hatcher, Al Iafrate, and Sylvain Cote – finished with 20 or more goals.

That was Langway’s last season in the NHL.  After sitting out the 1993-1994 season, he played briefly with the Richmond Renegades of the ECHL, then spent a season with the San Francisco Spiders of the IHL.  In 1997-1998 Langway appeared in ten games for the Providence Bruins of the AHL to close out his professional resume.

Former teammate Craig Laughlin said of Langway, “[He] was the same as Wayne Gretzky, but in a defensive mode… He killed the penalties with the best of them. The way he pinned a guy to the boards…it’s an art. He doesn’t let the guy back into the play.”  Unfortunately, there was no statistic, advanced or otherwise, available back then to reflect that skill.  But to the extent one could trust their eyes, when Langway checked an opponent, he stayed checked.  Rare was the battle along the boards he lost; he was an expert at neutralizing any advance from that spot on the ice.  He was, as we noted above, more than that.  He might be the most consequential Capital in team history, in no small part the reason we still have hockey in Washington.  Team L has its captain and its stopper in Rod Langway.

Defense: Yvon Labre

Regular Season (with Capitals): 7 seasons, 334 games, 12-84-96, minus-89

Playoffs (with Capitals): none

If there has been a hockey player in NHL history to have played under more adversity than Yvon Labre, we’d like to meet him.  Then again, maybe not.  Although he did not play in every game for the Caps and the Pittsburgh Penguins over his nine year career, the teams on which he played had a combined record of 186-412-118.  If you were to convert that to an 82-game season, it’s a record of 21-47-14.

It started for Labre in 1969 when he was taken in the fourth round (38^th overall) by the Pittsburgh Penguins in the 1969 amateur draft.  After a year with the Baltimore Clippers of the AHL, he made the jump to the NHL in 1970-1971, playing in 21 games for the Penguins.  After spending all of two seasons in the minors with the Hershey Bears, Labre saw limited NHL action in the 1973-1974 season – 16 games with Pittsburgh. 

Whatever the Penguins saw in Labre, they were not sufficiently impressed to protect him from exposure in the expansion draft of June 1974.  It was there that his career with the Caps began.  He dressed for 76 games with the Caps in his first full NHL season, and laboring for the worst team in NHL history (8-67-5), he finished fourth on the club (first among defensemen) in scoring with 27 points.  He also led the team in penalty minutes by a wide margin – 182 minutes to Mike Bloom’s 84.

Labre played in all 80 games the following season, once more topping 20 points (2-20-22).  That, however, might have been the pinnacle of his Caps’ career.  Knee problems started to eat into his playing time.  He would play in only 178 of 400 games over the next five seasons, but he was still as tough a player (428 penalty minutes in those 178 games) as he was in those first two seasons with the club.

Unfortunately, his hard work and dedication was not rewarded.  In none of his seven seasons with the Capitals did they make the playoffs, only twice did they win more than 25 games.

In 1980-1981 injuries limited Labre to 25 games.  It would be his last in the NHL.  Still, he would be the last of the inaugural 1974-1975 team to skate for the club.   His effort in the face of misfortune was not unappreciated.  In November 1981 Labre had his number “7” retired by the club, the first of four numbers to be retired by the Caps.  The team would not retire another number for more than 16 years.

Stars and winners get a lot of ink and a lot of accolades.  But in his own way, Yvon Labre was both for this franchise, the embodiment of what being a professional means.  He has a special place on Team L.

Goaltender: Mike Liut

Regular Season (with Capitals): 3 seasons, 64 games, 27-27-5, 3.51, .871

Playoffs (with Capitals): 2 seasons, 11 games, 4-5, 3.46, .874

By the time Mike Liut pulled on a Capitals sweater he already built a resume as one of the top goalies in the league, having won 267 games over 12-plus seasons with the St. Louis Blues and Hartford Whalers.  His resume included a first team all-star berth, a second-team all-star spot, a Pearson Award (now the Ted Lindsay Award) as the league’s outstanding player, and six top-ten finishes in the voting for the Vezina Trophy.  In 1981 he finished second to Wayne Gretzky for the Hart Trophy as the league’s most valuable player.

He arrived in Washington in March 1990 in a trade that sent Yvon Corriveau to Hartford.  He had a fine home stretch that season for the Caps in terms of his own play (2.13 goal against average, .922 save percentage), although he didn’t have much luck, a 4-4-0 record in eight appearances.  He matched that 4-4 record in the post season as the Caps advanced to the conference final for the first time in franchise history.

Things took a bumpy road after that for Liut.  In 1990-1991 he appeared in 35 games but had just a 13-16-3 record.  His 3.73 goals against average was among the worst of his career.  Things were not any better the following season.  Stubborn back problems limited him to 21 appearances in which he was 10-7-2 with a 3.74 goals against average.  His last appearance in that 1991-1992 season was on February 4^th against the Buffalo Sabres, one in which he allowed seven goals on 43 shots.  It was the second time in five appearances in which he allowed seven goals and it completed a consecutive games total of 12 goals on 67 shots.  He might have been willing, but his body was betraying him.  It was his last season in the NHL.

Mike Liut came to the Caps to provide a measure of stability and steady production in goal that seemed lacking with the club.  It was often said that it was goaltending that failed the Caps in the end in the 1980’s when they never could seem to get over the hump of the first or second round of the playoffs.  Liut might have provided that – he did play on that first ever conference finals club – but physically the tank was running low.  Still, he did make contributions to those clubs of the early 1990s and gets the call in goal for Team L.

Team L certainly has both an old school and a new school look to it, reaching back to the early days of the franchise and some of its best days while adding some punch from teams of more recent vintage.  There is a grittiness and toughness about this team that others would find difficult to play against.  They would, in their own way, be pretty entertaining to watch.

* In one of the more bizarre turns of this tale, Bondra was offered a contract in the late summer of 2005 by the Capitals after his contract with the Senators (originally signed as a Capital) ran out after the 2003-2004 season. The team was reported to have offered Bondra a one-year deal at $1.5 million; Bondra countered with a proposal for an additional year and more money.  The teams were not able to agree on terms of a deal, and Bondra signed as a free agent with the Atlanta Thrashers.

Washington Capitals: All-Franchise Teams by the Alphabet -- Team K

We are closing in on the half-way point in the look back at the All-Alphabet Franchise Team for the Washington Capitals. There have been scoring teams, gritty teams, old school teams, and newer versions.  So let’s see what’s in store this time… K?

Left Wing: Steve Konowalchuk

Regular Season (with Capitals): 13 seasons, 693 games, 146-196-342, plus-62

Playoffs (with Capitals): 7 seasons, 39 games, 5-12-17, minus-1

Some players might be called the classic power forward, or the classic playmaking center, or the classic sniper.  Steve Konowalchuk was a classic all his own, like a classic 1947 Chevy pickup truck.  Strong, hard-working, reliable, rugged, and (in the eyes of some) with its own sense of style.

Konowalchuk came to the Caps out of Salt Lake City, Utah, by way of the Portland Winterhawks of the Western Hockey League, drafted in the third round (58^th overall) in the 1991 entry draft.  After spending another year in Portland (also having played one game with the Caps), he got an introduction to NHL hockey in 1992-1993, playing 36 games with the Caps (the remainder with the Baltimore Skipjacks of the AHL).

In 1993-1994 Konowalchuk’s progress to the NHL was complete.  He appeared in 62 games, going 12-14-26, plus-9 in his first full season.  It was the first of ten full seasons in Washington in which he established himself as one in a line of fine checking forwards that have been a staple of Capitals hockey over its history.

Playing the style of hockey he did took a toll on Konowalchuk.  From 1994-1995 through 1997-1998 he missed a total of 18 games, a respectable record of durability for a forward who employed an energetic physical style.  However, late in that 1997-1998 season he sustained a wrist injury – a detached ligament – that would prevent him from appearing in any games of the Caps’ run to the Stanley Cup final. 

Although he was only 25 years old when the wrist injury hit, it started a phase of his career when missing large blocks of time to injury seeped into his game. In 1998-1999 he was one of the many Capitals losing large chunks of games to injury, playing in only 45 games that season.  After two seasons in which he appeared in all 82 games, he was limited to 28 games in the 2001-2002 season, sitting out 54 games to a shoulder injury.

He came back to play in 77 games in 2002-2003, but time was starting to run out on the Caps as a competitive team.  In 2003-2004 the Caps started unwinding themselves from veteran of the 1990’s.  Konowalchuk was the first to go, traded with a third round pick in the 2004 entry draft to Colorado for Bates Battaglia and prospect Jonas Johansson.

The move did nothing to prevent his body from betraying him, though.  After playing 76 games with the Avalanche after the trade in October 2003, he missed most of the 2005-2006 season to another wrist injury.  Then, after working to get ready for the 2006-2007 season, he was found to have Long QT syndrome, a condition that can lead to irregular heart rhythms.  In September 2006, Konowalchuk announced his retirement.

In a sense, Steve Konowalchuk left it all on the ice.  On a night-in, night-out basis it would be hard to think of a Capital who gave more effort at both ends of the ice, in any situation.  He, along with linemates Jeff Halpern and Ulf Dahlen, comprised one of the most fearsome checking lines in team history, capable of playing keep-away with the puck for entire shifts at a time.  He was one in a line of Capitals forwards who defined a style by his hard work.  He clearly deserves a spot on Team K.

Center: Kevin Kaminski

Regular Season (with Capitals): 4 seasons, 132 games, 3-10-13, minus-5

Playoffs (with Capitals): 2 seasons, 8 games, 0-0-0, minus-1

How does a somewhat undersized (5’10”, 190) center who played in only 132 games over four seasons for the Caps earn the lasting nickname of “Killer?”  Alliteration aside, he does it by racking up 483 penalty minutes, including 33 fights in those 132 games for the Caps. 

Kaminski was drafted in the third round (48^th overall) by the Minnesota North Stars out of the Saskatoon Blades in the 1987 entry draft.  After spending another two years in Saskatoon (and getting one game with the North Stars to start his NHL career), he was traded to the Quebec Nordiques in June 1989 former Capital forward Gaetan Duchesne.  He spent four seasons in the Nordiques system, playing just six games with the parent club, before he was traded to Washington in June 1993 for prospect defenseman Mark Matier.

Kaminski was not much of a scorer, what with only three games in his Capitals career.  And he generally did not pick on elite goalies when he did score, one of them coming against the Tampa Bay Lightning’s Jean-Claude Bergeron in a 3-1 Caps win in March 1995, and another against against Eric Fichaud in a 6-2 win over the New York Islanders in his penultimate game as a Capital in April 1997.

But that goal in the middle.  March 3, 1996, at home against the Philadelphia Flyers.  Four minutes into the second period and the Caps holding a 2-0 lead, the Flyers went for a line change.  It went poorly as the puck was grabbed by the Caps at center ice.  It ended up on Kaminski’s stick on a breakaway.  Defenseman Karl Dykhuis tried to race back into the play but managed only to trip Kaminski down to the ice.  Nevertheless, from the seat of his pants Kaminski got off a shot that snuck through the pads of goalie Ron Hextall, the last goal in a 3-0 Caps win.

Kaminski played in four seasons for the Caps, his last stop in the NHL, only once playing more than 40 games in a season (54 games in 1995-1996).  But he left his mark, quite literally, on the hockey landscape.  His 483 penalty minutes in 132 games (3.66 per game) ranked 12^th overall during that four-year period among players with at least 475 total minutes accumulated.  His rambunctious style of play made him something of a fan favorite.  He will certainly keep things honest with a spot on Team K.

Right Wing:  Mike Knuble

Regular Season (with Capitals): 3 seasons, 220 games, 59-52-111, plus-18

Playoffs (with Capitals): 3 seasons, 24 games, 6-5-11, plus-7

Mike Knuble was something of a late bloomer.  He was taken by the Detroit Red Wings with a fourth round pick (76^th overall) in the 1991 entry draft after an 18-goal, 42 point season in 36 games for the Kalamazoo Junior K-Wings.  Rather than go the junior/minor pro route, he enrolled at the University of Michigan, where he played four years for the Wolverines.

After spending a year and most of another one with the Adirondack Red Wings, Knuble finally debuted in the NHL, suiting up for a game against the Colorado Avalanche in late March 1997.  He was three months shy of his 25^th birthday when he made his debut.

It would take a little while longer for Knuble to settle down as a regular with one team.  He appeared in 53 games with the Red Wings in 1997-1998 and another three in the post-season (none of them in the Stanley Cup final against the Caps).  He appeared in 82 games the following season, but as a New York Ranger after being traded by Detroit for a second round draft pick in the 2000 entry draft.  He had a decent season with the Rangers (15-20-35) and recorded a dozen goals for the Blueshirts in 59 games of the 1999-2000 season.  However, he was traded from the Rangers to the Boston Bruins in March 2000 for Rob DiMaio.

It was in Boston that he found his game.  Even that took a little time, though.  After two unremarkable years with the Bruins, the second of which was limited to 54 games due to back injuries, he hit his stride in the 2002-2003 season.  Finally, at the age of 30, Knuble had his first 20-plus goal season.  Thirty, in fact.  It would be the first of eight consecutive seasons in which he would record more than 20 goals.

Not that there weren’t moves in the meantime.  After five seasons in Boston, Knuble was signed as a free agent by the Philadelphia Flyers in July 2004. He spent four years in Philadelphia, one of which (2005-2006) ended in a career-high 34 goals and 65 points.

After the 2008-2009 season, it was time to move on again, this time signing as a free agent with Washington.  He immediately became a fixture on the right wing of the top line with Nicklas Backstrom and Alex Ovechkin.  Despite being the “old man” on the squad (at 37 he was the oldest player on the roster), he finished the 2009-2010 season with 29 goals in 69 games, his highest goals-per-game of his career.

The following season his production tailed off some, but he still finished with his eighth straight season with more than 20 goals (24 in 79 games).  What that season might be best remember for was not necessarily a goal, or anything that happened on ice, but a locker room speech captured by HBO in its 24/7 series chronicling the run-up to the 2011 Winter Classic in Pittsburgh.  With the Capitals mired in a seven-game losing streak and down 3-0 to Boston after one period in a mid-December contest, Knuble went off in the locker room between the first and second periods:

"Today, it's 3-0 and it will not f***ing be one of these laughers again. It will not f***ing turn into a 5-0, 7-0 f***ing laugher. Where they're f***ing giggling getting out of their f***ing* mess here. We are f***ing down 3-0 and we are going to come back and we're gonna f***ing win this thing. We're not f***ing going in the tank. That is enough right there. That's f***ing more than a year's worth. It's not going to happen again."

The Capitals mounted a furious comeback, assaulting the Bruins net with 26 shots on goal in the third period, but their comeback came up one goal short in a 3-2 loss that extended their losing streak to eight games.  It would be the last one in the streak, though.  The Caps went on a 4-0-1 run after that, including a Winter Classic win in which Knuble scored the first Caps goal in typical Knuble fashion, parking himself at the top of the crease and jamming at a loose puck until it squirted through the goalie’s pads.

Knuble’s streak of consecutive seasons with more than 20 goals would end in that 2010-2011 season.  In 2011-2012 his production dropped to six goals and 18 points in 72 games, enduring a streak of 34 games without a goal, while his playing time dropped from almost 18 minutes a game in 2010-2011 to 14 minutes a game.  He did, however, play an important role that season in one of the most important goals scored in Capitals playoff history.

After being a healthy scratch in the first three games of the Caps’ opening round series against the Boston Bruins, Knuble returned to the lineup for Games 4-6, scoring one goal in the process.  In Game 7 he got a sweater, and in overtime it paid off.  Early in overtime, Benoit Pouliot tried to send the puck deep into the Caps’ zone from just outside the Washington blue line.  His attempt was blocked at the blue line, and Knuble collected the loose puck.  He skate in with Joel Ward on a 2-on-1 and managed a backhand attempt that goalie Tim Thomas blocked but could not control.  Angling behind Knuble, Ward was there for the rebound and shot the puck through Thomas’ pads for the game-winning, series-clinching goal.

It would be Knuble’s last big moment with the Caps, who were eliminated by the New York Rangers in the second round of the 2012 playoffs.  The Caps informed Knuble that he would not be brought back for the 2012-2013 season.  He would go on to sign a free agent contract with the Philadelphia Flyers, for whom he played in 28 games in what would be his last season in the NHL.

Mike Knuble came to the Caps in what might have been regarded as the twilight of his career.  Having been something of a late bloomer, though, it might have been more accurately characterized as his later prime years.  The combination of his production and leadership were valuable contributions to the Caps in some of their most successful seasons.  The right side of Team K is reserved for Mike Knuble.

Defense:  Ken Klee

Regular Season (with Capitals): 9 seasons, 570 games, 43-68-111, plus-13

Playoffs (with Capitals): 6 seasons, 34 games, 1-2-3, plus-1

When going back through the history of the Washington Capitals and considering the games played by defensemen for the club, fans would recognize most of the leaders – Calle Johansson (983 games played), Rod Langway (726), Kevin Hatcher (685).  There they would also find Sergei Gonchar, Brendan Witt, Sylvain Cote, and Scott Stevens.  They might not realize that Ken Klee is eighth on that list with 570 games played for the franchise, although that comes with a catch, as we will see in a moment.

Klee had that effect, an unspectacular but dependable defenseman who gave the Caps 20 minutes of effort on a night-in, night-out basis.  To get to that level of play was quite a climb for the Indianapolis native.  It started when he was taken by the Caps in the ninth round (177^th overall) in the 1990 entry draft after his freshman year at Bowling Green University.  Klee played two more seasons at Bowling Green, then made the jump to the Baltimore Skipjacks in the AHL.  A year there, then a year in Portland with the Pirates when the Capitals’ changed AHL affiliations, and it was up to the parent club.  In 1994-1995 he split time between Washington (23 games) and the Skipjacks (49 games).

In 1995-1996 he stuck with the parent club for good, playing in 66 games and recording eight goals, two of them game-winners.  On a team that had Sergei Gonchar, Calle Johansson, Brendan Witt, Mark Tinordi, Jim Johnson, and Joe Reekie, it was tough to get playing time on the blue line.  That meant that Klee had to fill in from time to time at right wing, something he did over his first three full seasons.  In fact, Klee would often be deployed as a“rover” in a 2-1-2 formation used by Ron Wilson when he was head coach for the Caps. 

In 1999-2000 Klee assumed defensive responsibilities full time, one of four Caps defensemen that season to reach the 20-point mark.  After playing in 80 games in that 1999-2000 season, Klee appeared in only 54 games the following season, his year littered with a variety of injuries (wrist, leg, back, concussion, knee).  The same would be the case in the following year when he appeared in 68 games, missing 14 to rib, groin, and foot injuries.  He did managed to rebound from a two-goal, six-point season in 2000-2001 to a 16-point season in 2001-2002. 

He would almost duplicate that production in 2002-2003 (17 points in 70 games), but that would be his last as a Capital.  Klee signed as a free agent with the Toronto Maple Leafs in September 2003.  He had his best season, points-wise, in that first year with the Leafs (4-25-29), but saw his production drop off in the season coming out of the 2004-2005 lockout.  After 56 games in which he was 3-12-15, Klee was traded to the New Jersey Devils, which began a meandering journey in the later stages of his career.  From New Jersey, Klee moved on to Colorado, Atlanta, Anaheim, and finally Phoenix before his NHL career ended after the 2008-2009 season.

Ken Klee was a dependable, workmanlike defenseman that did not really have a comparable in Caps history.  He was not the offensive producer that marked the game of a Larry Murphy or a Sergei Gonchar, and he was not the banger with more limited offensive production that one might associate with a Mark Tinordi or a Brendan Witt.  He was the guy who got 20 minutes an night, and you might not have realized it.  That is often a good thing for a defenseman, and it is a quality that argues for Ken Klee getting the other defensive slot on Team K.

Defense: Joel Kwiatkowski

Regular Season (with Capitals): 2 seasons, 114 games, 6-9-15, minus-27

Playoffs (with Capitals): 1 season, 6 games, 0-0-0, plus-1

Sometimes, the guy with the bad numbers is not so much bad as a good soldier, making the best of a brutal situation.  That might be said of defenseman Joel Kwiatkowski, who manned the blue line in one of the saddest seasons in franchise history.  No, not those godforsaken abominations of the mid-1970s.  Those teams were just bad.

No, we are talking about the 2003-2004 season, one in which the Caps started poorly with an aging team, held a clearance sale, and limped to the finish with a collection of guys who might be bagging groceries right after the season ended.

And Joel Kwiatkowski.

Let’s back up a bit.  Kwiatkowski’s arrival in the NHL was not heralded by a brass choir playing a fanfare.  He was an eighth round pick of the Dallas Stars in the 1996 entry draft in what would be a surprisingly fertile part of that draft, given the position.  Fernando Pisani was taken with the pick after Kwiatkowski and played 462 games in the NHL; Willie Mitchell was taken four picks after that and is still playing with 795 games in the NHL to date.  Tomas Kaberle was taken five picks after Mitchell and played 984 games in the NHL.

But back to Kwiatkowski.  After two more season in juniors, followed by two with the Cincinnati Mighty Ducks of the AHL, he finally got his NHL break.  Well, crack.  In 2000-2001 he appeared in four games with the Ottawa Senators in the midst of a season played chiefly with the Grand Rapids Griffins in the AHL.  The following year it was 11 games with the Senators while spending 65 in Grand Rapids.  By the time 2002-2003 rolled around, folks came to the realization that this was not going to work.  After 20 games with Ottawa, Kwiatkowski was traded to the Caps for a ninth round pick in the 2003 entry draft (a pick that found its way back to Washington; Ottawa must have really wanted to part ways).

Kwiatkowski played 34 games with the Caps to wrap up the 2003-2003 season, then appeared in all six games of the post season, a first round loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning.  You could say he had an upgrade in surroundings and playing time.

That was not the case the following year.  By the time the Caps completed the 2003 portion of their season they had a record of 11-23-3-1, had already traded away long time Capitals Steve Konowalchuk, and were about to embark on a wholesale roster cleaning.  Through it all, Kwiatkowski soldiered on.  He would go on to lead the club in games played that season (80), although his minus-28 (worst on the club) was a barometer of just how bad things got by year end, a season in which the Caps would dress 51 skaters and five goaltenders.

He escaped from that purgatory to sign as a free agent with the Florida Panthers in July 2004, beginning his own quest for frequent flyer miles.  The following March he was loaned by the Panthers to St. Johns’ in the AHL.  He then played parts of two seasons in Florida before being traded to Pittsburgh in February 2007.  The following August he left the Penguins to sign as a free agent with the Atlanta Thrashers, for whom he played 18 games in 2007-2008 in his last NHL season.  He would wrap up his hockey career with stops with Severstal and SKA St. Petersburg in the KHL, then three seasons in the Swiss leagues before ending his pro career at the end of the 2012-2013 season.

For the Caps, Joel Kwiatkowski was an emblem of a gruesome time in franchise history, but he laced up the skates every night and made the best of a bad situation.  It is hard to do that when there really is no end in sight (remember, this was the season before Alex Ovechkin was drafted).  That is what a pro does, and Kwiatkowski should be respected for displaying that kind of character.  That’s why he gets a jersey for Team K.

Goalie:  Olaf Kolzig

Regular Season (with Capitals): 16 seasons, 711 games, 301-293-86, 2.70, .906, 35 shutouts

Playoffs (with Capitals): 6 seasons, 45 games, 20-24, 2.14, .927, 6 shutouts

Olaf Kolzig holds almost every meaningful goaltending record in Washington Capitals franchise history.  His name is all over the team’s record book:

• Seasons played: 1^st (16, also first among all players)
• Games: 1^st (711)
• Minutes: 1^st (41,259)
• Wins: 1^st (301)
• Losses: 1^st (293)
• Ties: 1^st (63)
• Shutouts: 1^st (35)
• Shots faced: 1^st (19,873)
• Saves: 1^st (18,013)
• Assists: 1^st (17)
• Penalty minutes: 2^nd (107)
• Games played, season: 1^st (73 in 1999-2000), 2^nd (72 in 2000-2001)
• Minutes, season: 1^st (4,371 in 1999-2000), 2^nd (4,278 in 2000-2001)
• Wins, season: 1^st (41 in 1999-2000), 2^nd (37 in 2000-2001)
• Losses, season: 2^nd (35 in 2003-2004), T-3^rd (31 in 1998-1999)
• Ties, season: 1^st (11 in 1999-2000), T-2^nd (10 in 1997-1998)
• Most shutouts, season: T-2^nd (5, accomplished three times)
• Lowest goals-against average, season: 2^nd (2.20 in 1997-1998)
• Highest save percentage: T-2^nd (.920 in 1997-1998)
• Most shots faced season: 1^st (1,997 in 2001-2002), 2^nd (1,987 in 1999-2000), 3^rd (1,957 in 2005-2006)
• Most saves, season: 1^st (1,805 in 2001-2002), 2^nd (1,794 in 1999-2000), 3^rd (1,781 in 2005-2006)
• Most saves, game: T-1^st (52; March 3, 2000, a 2-2- tie vs. Detroit)
• Games played, post-season: 1^st (45)
• Minutes played, post-season: 1^st (2,799)
• Wins, post-season: 1^st (20)
• Shutouts, post-season: 1^st (6)
• Goals against average, post-season: 2^nd (2.14, minimum five games)
• Save percentage, post-season: 2^nd (.927, minimum five games)

It did not come easy, at least at first.  Kolzig was taken in the first round (19^th overall) by the Caps in the 1989 entry draft, the first goaltender taken.*  Kolzig was thrown right into the fire, appearing in Game 3 of the Caps 1989-1990 season.  It was not an auspicious start.  He allowed four goals on 23 shots in a 4-1 loss to the Hartford Whalers.  Ten days later head coach Bryan Murray gave Kolzig another chance.  Kolzig was twice as…something.  He allowed eight goals on 40 shots in an 8-4 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs in what would be his last appearance for the Caps that season.

He would not get another chance with the big club until the 1992-1993 season, spending most of his time shuttling ampong the Tri-City Americans (the junior team to which he was returned after his two-game stint to start his Caps career), the Baltimore Skipjacks in the AHL, and the Hampton Roads Admirals in the ECHL.  He even spent a season with the Rochester Americans of the AHL, that coming in 1992-1993.

Oh, that chance in the 1992-1993 season?  One game (20 minutes, two goals on seven shots, no decision against Philadelphia).  That was followed up with a seven-game season in 1993-1994, 14 games in 1994-1995, and 18 games in 1995-1996.  Here he was, seven seasons removed from his draft year, and he had only 40 appearances with the Caps, with a record of 6-21-4, 3.32, .879.  He did not look like a first round draft pick.

Then came the 1996 playoffs against the Pittsburgh Penguins.  It is said that when a door closes, a window opens.  The door slammed shut on the playoff fortunes of number one goaltender Jim Carey, who was in the throes of what would be his second straight ghastly playoff season.  After Carey started poorly in Game 1, he was pulled in favor of Kolzig, who stopped all 12 shots he faced in a 6-4 Capitals win.  Then he won Game 2 with a 33-save effort in a 5-3 win.  In one what might be one of the most regrettable decisions in Capitals post-season history, head coach Jim Schoenfeld gave Carey the start in Game 3.  He allowed four goals on just 19 shots in a 4-1 Caps loss. 

Kolzig got the start in Game 4 and would turn in one of the most heroic performances by a Caps goaltender in the post-season in franchise history.  He faced 65 shots in 139 minutes and four overtimes against the Penguins, the shot total being at the time the third highest faced by a goalie in an NHL post season game.  The Caps lost in that four-overtime marathon, 3-2, but the window opened a crack for Kolzig.

He would not force that window open all the way until the season opener of the 1997-1998 season in Toronto.  Bill Ranford, who came to the Caps late in the previous season from Boston (with others) in exchange for Carey (with others) got the start in that game.  It would be a short night for Ranford.  After taking a shot by Per Gustafsson to the groin in the first period, Ranford was unable to return after the first intermission. Kolzig took over, and it became the Caps’ version of the Wally Pipp-Lou Gehrig saga. 

Kolzig grabbed the opportunity by the throat, appearing in 64 games and posting a record of 33-18-10, 2.20, .920, with five shutouts.  He would finish tied with Patrick Roy for fifth in the voting for the Vezina Trophy.  That would be but a start, though.  In the post season Kolzig carried the club on his shoulders through the first three rounds, going 12-5, 1.69, .946, with four shutouts.  He had a 5-1 record in overtime games.  He and his teammates came up short against a better team in the finals, but the Caps had their number one goaltender for the next decade.

The best of those years might have been the 1999-2000 season.  Kolzig appeared in a career high 73 games, went 41-20-11, posted a 2.24 goals against average, and finished with a save percentage of .917 with five shutouts.  That record was good enough for him to finish fourth in the Hart Trophy voting for most valuable player and got him named to the first NHL all-star team, with a Vezina Trophy as the league’s top goaltender to top it off.

Statistically, that would be the high-water mark of Kolzig’s career.  The Caps were an aging group as the new century started, and the arrival of Jaromir Jagr from the Penguins in 2001 did not have the desired results.  Kolzig could not carry the club on his own, and it showed most visibly in the playoffs.  In three post season appearances following his amazing run in 2008, Kolzig was 5-12, 2.48, .902, with two shutouts.

The 2003 appearance in the post-season would be Kolzig’s last with the Caps.  The club’s decline accelerated from there, precipitating a selloff of veterans in the 2003-2004 season.  Kolzig was not among them.  Coming out of the 2004-2005 lockout, he was the link to better years for the club and was the team’s leader, perhaps its captain in fact, if not in name.  Those post-lockout years were difficult for the club and Kolzig, who went 42-52-17, 3.27, .903, with one shutout over the 2005-2006 and 2006-2007 seasons.

In 2008, the arrival of Bruce Boudreau as head coach and the improvement among the young players drafted or brought in after the selloff restored the Caps to competitiveness, although Kolzig’s numbers lagged.  The Caps, seeing a chance to climb into the playoff race late in the season, traded for goalie Cristobal Huet in late February.  Kolzig played well after the Huet acquisition, going 4-1-0, 1.51, .938 in six appearances.  But it was a 5-0 loss to the Chicago Blackhawks, four of the goals scored in the first 18 minutes, that sealed his fate.  Huet finished the season, played every minute of the post season, and Kolzig’s career with the Caps was over.

He would sign as a free agent with the Tampa Bay Lightning the following summer, playing eight games for the Bolts in the 2008-2009 season.  However, he suffered an arm injury in practice in December that ended what would be his final season in the NHL.  He would get one more appearance in Washington, a 4-2 loss to the Caps on November 10^th that gave fans a chance to acknowledge his years with the club. 

Kolzig would be traded for the first time in his career, that coming in March 2009 to the Toronto Maple Leafs, but the following September he announced his retirement from the NHL.

Although no other goaltender in Capitals history has a last name starting with the letter “K,” it would hardly matter if there were any others.  Olaf Kolzig stands alone as the franchise’s number one goaltender, as much a part of its history, perhaps more in fact, than any other player to wear a Capitals jersey.
 

*  A footnote to that 1989 draft.  The Caps would take the first two goalies in that draft, Byron Dafoe being the other in the second round at 35^th overall.  Kolzig, Dafoe, and Arturs Irbe, who would later become goaltending coach for the Caps, were the only goalies among the 20 taken in that draft to appear in at least 70 NHL games in their respective careers.