Tuesday Roundup: It's Not Cold, It's Friesen

As mentioned last night, the Caps have acquired wing Jeff Friesen from the salary cap-busting Devils for the proverbial bucket of pucks. The move should be a good one for the Caps, provided that Friesen's attitude stays positive and he welcomes a leadership role with a very young team. Come March, they may even be able to move free-agent-to-be Friesen for something.

The WaPo calls Friesen a "proven scorer" (maybe a bit strong - he has a career high 31 goals, the only time he's topped 30, and though he's scored 20 goals five times, he's only done it once since 1999-2000) and is appropriately pessimistic about Alexander Semin or Petr Sykora ever showing up in Washington.

The WTimes also notes the trade, but the real scoop is the projection on the twelve forwards that will likely break camp with the team:

At the moment, the left wings are Friesen, Alexander Ovechkin, Matt Pettinger, Ben Clymer and [Miroslav] Zalesak; the centers Andrew Cassels, Dainius Zubrus, Boyd Gordon and Brian Sutherby; the right wings [Jeff] Halpern, Brian Willsie, Matt Bradley and Stephen Peat.

Most glaring is the absence of Chris Clark, who is all but guaranteed a roster spot, probably at Bradley's expense. And Jeff Halpern's a right wing? Spend your entire career becoming one of the better shutdown centers in hockey and a team captain and they shift you to the wing? Interesting. Also notable is the fact that Chris Bourque isn't going to make the team. That's disappointing as he already is a fan favorite and plays with the passion the team will undoubtedly lack at time. If it were up to the Rink, Bourque would replace Miro Zalesak, who is shifting from right wing to left wing (and we're also not huge Steve Peat fans, but understand his role is a necessary one).

Monday's Scoreboard:

• Only one game Monday night, Calgary's 3-2 win over Vancouver. The Flames, who at 3-1-1 are picking up where they left off in 2004, got a goal and an assist from Chuck Kobasew. Dan Cloutier had 20 saves for Vancouver (0-2-2).

Update:

• The Caps have made another round of cuts, sending forwards Jared Aulin, Eric Fehr, Jakub Klepis, Dave Steckel and (sigh) Chris Bourque to Hershey of the AHL and defenseman Jeff Schultz back to juniors. The move brings the Caps down to 29 players - two goalies, 11 defensemen and 16 forwards. They'll need to cut another 6 players by opening night, with two presumably being Semin and Sykora and then four blueliners (our guess? Nycholat, Green, Majesky - who will start the season on IR - and Cutta).