Looking at a couple of blueliners.

Good post, and I totally agree…Schultz has done nothing but prove himself to be an NHL-caliber defenseman, and he’s only going to get better with more experience. Definitely a keeper.

Agreed, and rec’d. Good stuff.

I think that this is very telling.

and while I think that Alzner has been better than I expected, I’ve also seen him be victimized on a couple of occasions. He definitely will be around, and will the first guy up if the cap allows. But let him get a bit more seasoned before he becomes the pillar of the Cap’s D.

And if you remember correctly, Briere and the Flyer’s made all of our D look bad.

Ask any fan of any particular team in the NHL (pretty much any level of hockey, really) if there’s one D-man their team should get rid of and I guarantee you their eyes will light up and foul invective will pour from their mouth about GDamn so and so. Every team has their defensive scapegoat – the guy who, justly or not, receives the lion’s share of opprobrium.

For many Caps fans, that guy is now Jeff Schultz. I think most of the reason is that he’s 6-6, 215 and yet rarely hits anyone. I can’t count the number of people in my section who constantly scream at him to hit somebody. (FWIW, these people LOVE John Erskine.) Honestly, I think Schultz is not quite his listed weight. Furthermore, he strikes me as a classic case of “growing into one’s body;” he needs time to refine his skating stride and coordinate his movement, particularly in order to speed up the release on his shot.

While I don’t think Schultz’s ceiling is as high as Alzner’s (mostly due to differences in hockey sense, leadership and skating ability), he does possess size and he’s generally responsible defensively. From a purely subjective standpoint, I feel like he makes fewer boneheaded plays than Jurcina. The concern with a guy like Schultz is that the team could let him go, only to watch him go to his new team and develop into the player they were hoping for when they drafted him.

I agree on his weight…no way Shultz is 215lb. In that regard he reminds me of Jeff Toms, our former 4th liner who could never keep weight on, couldn’t displace Todd “Hands Of Stone” Krygier on the 3rd line, and subsequently couldn’t stay in the bigs despite decent talent. But I digress.

Shultz is a very underrated defenseman. He is rarely out of position and he gets the puck out of the zone. He’s no offensive wizard and can’t breakout to save his life, but neither can half the d-men in the NHL. What that boy needs to do is to spend his summer in DC, put on 15lbs of muscle, and learn how to be mean. (Maybe he should go work out with some of the Redskins – London Fletcher and Marcus Washington come to mind. They’d make him mean.) One summer of added “muscle + meanness” will change that kids trajectory.