3,380 – Regular season games played by the Caps’ current top-six defensemen (with another 290 playoff games to boot) with the recent addition of Tim Gleason.
Over the last year or so, the Caps have gone from having one of the most inexperienced bluelines in hockey to one of the most experienced, and will fall just short of the 3,564 career games that the 1998 squad had by season’s end.
Last June, we identified the defense as Brian MacLellan’s biggest challenge as Caps GM. And while experience doesn’t necessarily equate to success, of course, it’s clear that Mac has taken the challenge and addressed the issue, adding a trio of veteran rearguards (Gleason, Brooks Orpik and Matt Niskanen) to a group of incumbents that include stalwarts John Carlson, Mike Green and Karl Alzner as well as up-and-comers Nate Schmidt, Dmitry Orlov and others.
Make sure you read this post from our pal Mike Vogel (and this and this from Peerless) for some perspective on experience on the blueline, and realize that this is the best and deepest defense the Washington Capitals have iced in a generation.