Season Review Ramblings
by Marshall Pirate on Oct 27, 2009 5:11 PM EDT
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I thought I'd post a few thoughts about the Caps season so far.
There is a trend among the Caps to play lazy hockey. It's been there for a while, it reminds me of myself in college writing term papers when I was their age (not that I'm old). While it is a disturbing trend for a team trying to win a championship, the comfort I take from the Caps is their ability to win games when they're not at their best. If you have to play your best to win all the time, you're the NY Islanders this year. If the Caps can win games, I'm not so concerned how they do it right now as long as they can do it in the playoffs. Just keep winning and work out the kinks along the way.
I don't seem to remember people complaining about the Edmonton Oilers winning games 7-6 when they won 5 Stanley Cups. I don't think the Caps should try to outscore everyone as much as they can every game, for no other reason than they get lazy (6-1 vs the Leafs this year turned into 6-4 in a hurry.) Let the horses run free, let Ovi, Backis and the gang score 4 early goals, then start playing your checking lines more during the later stages game. It's not about protecting a lead or not attacking, it's about putting a line on the ice that's disciplined, a line that is willing to play defense when you're up 6-1. They, too, will go for more goals, but they won't cough up the puck doing it. The Caps should play to their strengths, and that's offense. Score more goals than the other team and let the goalie bail you out may not sound like a recipe for success, but with a little defensive discipline, the Caps ought to have a consistent winning formula. Remember Grant Fuhr? I'm sure he didn't like being hung out to dry by Wayne Gretzky all the time, but he had 400 career wins to go along with his monstrous GAA. Paul Coffey didn't win best defenseman for his defense, but Jari Kurri did backcheck and still had 600 goals. Take what you want from that, but the Caps have the pieces, or at least most of them, to be a championship team, now they've just got to mix them properly. I'm very confident in this team, I don't think any team in the East is a match for them. I don't know enough about the West to say that, though.
The Caps could use a thug on the team every now and then, just as a deterrent. I think Erskine fits the bill on most nights, but he's got to be healthy first, and while I like Big John, he's a #7 defenseman in this league and nothing more. Don't kid yourself. I think Bradley and Clarkie and whoever else wants to get in on the action can be effective in a fight, but I think people will get the message when guys like Brooks Laich, Dave Steckel, and Milan Jurcina take a jab at someone. Other teams have to realize that "enforcer by committee" means more than just three players, two of whom are middleweights, before we can say we have a deterrent. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad we dropped Brashear, he was old and didn't fight and I don't think he was the deterrent people thought he was. He also has a reputation, meaning he gets calls against him all the time (including a phantom reputation call, a four minute high sticking penalty when not only was David Steckel the closest Cap to the play, the guy got hit by his own teammate.) Brashear can't fight Daniel Briere without getting tossed and maybe suspended, either. Daniel Briere, Ryan Whitney, and Darcy Tucker are the kind of sewage that we need enforcer by committee for. Brooks Laich can get away with pounding Briere's face in the next time he spears Ovi in the groin, but someone like Erskine couldn't. When it comes time to play a team with a real enforcer and we need a deterrent, let's call up a minor leaguer, but until then, some of our young guns need to get going when the going gets tough. It's the little cheap shots adding up that cost Bobby Orr his career, by the way. These types of hits have to be answered.
I think Jose Theodore has been the goalie we thought we were getting last year. I like what management did, keeping Theo to be the starter and letting Varlamov get starts here and there to bring him along. I think this will work out in the long run.
I can tell you Tom Poti is the best defenseman on the roster. Mike Green is the best offensive defenseman, obviously, but he needed to get his head on straight, and he seems to have woken up. It shouldn't have taken a knee on knee to do it, though. Milan Jurcina is the new Joe Reekie. He's starting to grow on me a bit. I like his physical style, and I'll be glad when the restraining fouls lessen, but until then, when he takes a penalty, at least it's entertaining. He's got a rocket for a shot and I'll be glad to see him use it more. I think Jeff Schultz is coming around. I don't care if he's slow as long as he's in position, and he doesn't have to hit all the time to be effective. I just think he's got some confidence and needs to keep it, because he's a pretty darn good player when he's got his head on straight, but he's another guy who needs to shoot more. What happened to the half-slapper? Brian Pothier has been invisible and I think we let his contract expire at the end of the year. Erskine has been Erskine, slow, mean, and prone to penalties because he's slow. I think he's a #7. Shaone Morrisonn looks solid, as usual, boring and effective. And then comes Tyler Sloan. I'm glad he made the team, he's a heck of a skater and a throwback defenseman who competes hard and gets his nose dirty. I think he's rough around the edges and could use some polish before he's anything like top-4 NHLer, but I think the pieces are there for him. In general the defenseman have been solid. I think Bob Woods has instilled in them the importance of being nasty around the crease, and I think he'll let them play their games.
The forwards have been interesting. It looks like the scoring has been pretty good all around, and in time players like Steckel, Gordon, Laing (maybe) and others will pot a few goals. All the players that are supposed to be scoring are scoring, so fear not. And secondary scoring is not as big a concern as you might think. Checking forwards aren't paid to score a bunch of goals, I don't get where this complaint is coming from. If primary scoring is from your top two lines, then Bradley, Fehr, Giroux, Aucoin, Clark, Schultz, and Green all count as secondary scoring, which means 10 goals from secondary sources in 10 games, so shut up. For all the talk about Mike Green, he's a Defenseman. With a D. Not primary scoring, any way you slice it. And for all the defenders who have scored 20 and 30 goals, it's rare for defenders to have multiple big-goal seasons, and though I think Green will continue to rack them up, it's rarer still to have consecutive big-goal seasons. There's usually a dip between big seasons (case in point - Kevin Hatcher had 24 goals in 90-91, he dipped to 17 the next year, then busted out with 34 in 92-93. Another guy was Sergei Gonchar, who had 21 goals in 53 games in 98-99 (including a career-high 13 PPG) then dipped under 20 the next two years before potting 26 in 2001-02.) Orr and Coffey were exceptions to this rule, they were consistently scoring big numbers for several years in a row, and while I'm not saying Green isn't in that class, he's not there yet. I'm not saying Green isn't in for a big year, I'm just saying his first job is defense, so don't count on it, hence calling it secondary scoring. The same can be said for the checking line forwards to a lesser degree, more of their job is scoring than defenders, yes, but still, they're not paid to score 20 goals, they're paid to shut down the other guys.
You can tell we miss Semin on the power play. I think it would be best for the Caps to not have Green and Ovi on the points at the same time. Ovi on the point has its advantages, it stretches out the penalty killers and usually gives him a little more room to get a shot off, but I don't think the defensive prowess of the two of them combined is doing us any favors back there. I'd like to see Poti on the top unit and move Ovi down low. Five forwards, because Green is a forward in disguise, is risky, and it's cost us two shorties in the last two games. Don't forget Poti has twice been a 40 point defenseman, three times has had double-digit goals, and he tied the Caps single-game playoff scoring record with four points against the Rangers last year. He knows what he's doing and won't cost us defensively, he might also bring maturity and better decision-making to the top unit that seems to be lacking a good deal of the time. Ovechkin is also our most physical player, and while he's great in space, I don't think it'll hurt us to have him play in traffic a bit. Ovi and Backis on the half boards, Knuble in front, Green and Poti on the points. Move Ovi to the point on the second unit and then have Morrison-Semin-Laich down low, perhaps. I like having Green, Backstrom, Ovechkin and Semin all on the same unit, because it's nasty when they get going, but I also think they get too cute. There needs to be more straight-forward players out there to mix in. If all 5 players are going for the perfect pass, they never shoot. Boudreau has got to mix it up. Maybe don't play your first unit for 90 seconds, either, get the second unit out after 60. If the other team can change up their penalty killers, they'll have more energy than a power-play guy who's already been out on a shift for 75 seconds, and the puck gets cleared.
Also, I'm not sure he'll ever change things at this point after the Ochocinco incident, but after Varlamov got the spelling of his first name corrected to Semyon from Simeon from Semen, I think it would be good for Alexander Semin to get his name corrected to Syomin. (It's the same E-umlaut letter that's pronounced "yo" that's in both of their names that got mistransliterated).
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Southeast Standings
| GP | W | L | OTL | PT | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Washington
|
59 | 41 | 12 | 6 | 88 |
|
Tampa Bay
|
57 | 25 | 21 | 11 | 61 |
|
Atlanta
|
57 | 25 | 24 | 8 | 58 |
|
Florida
|
58 | 24 | 25 | 9 | 57 |
|
Carolina
|
58 | 21 | 30 | 7 | 49 |
(updated 2.9.2010 at 12:41 AM EST)
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