With games now canceled until November 1, the time is ripe for more players to jump ship over to Europe. Players such as Nicklas Backstrom, who has joined Alex Ovechkin in the KHL on Dynamo Moscow, according to the blog Alex Ovetjkin and @plysenkov of Sovetsky Sport.

This makes me very happy.
» Continue reading “Backstrom Joins Ovechkin In Moscow”

In another installment of “Charitable Actions from Unlikely Sources,” we have Alex Semin’s lockout plans!

Per Sovetsky Sport (and via Dmitry Chesnokov), Semin will play with Sokol Krasnoyarsk of the VHL (the KHL minor league) for the league minimum, which is about $1600 a month.

Semin told SovSport the reason he signed to play for free is to give back to the club and the city where his career started.

How weird, that a notably selfish and chronically apathetic European(-ish) enigma would do something noble and good-hearted!
» Continue reading “Alex Semin To Play For Krasnoyarsk”

You know why hockey is the best sport? When Brendon Ayanbadejo of the Baltimore Ravens says that he would support gay athletes in the NFL, a Maryland state delegate tells him to shut his yap. When Matt Hendricks throws his weight behind the You Can Play Project, Ted Leonsis says “actually, let’s throw some official franchise support behind that!”

According to Mike Vogel, Hendricks (as well as (sigh) former Capital Mike Knuble) filmed a spot for YCP in May before heading home for the (sigh) offseason. The official twitter account, @YouCanPlayTeam, says that Hendricks’ video will drop tomorrow.

It should surprise no one that Matt Hendricks is the first one to step up and throw his weight behind YCP — he’s probably the most outspoken Capital about his charity work. (I’ve mentioned Mike Green’s charity work before, but I would argue it’s not what he’s best known for.)

You Can Play is a charity/awareness project that fights for equality in the locker rooms and an end to homophobic attitudes in sports. It was started by Patrick Burke (son of Toronto Maple Leafs GM Brian Burke) to honor his brother Brendan Burke, who died in a car crash in 2010 (Caps fans might remember it as the week of the Snowpocalypse in DC). Brendan was openly gay, and though he worked with the Miami Redhawks hockey team, he had quit playing due to the pervasive homophobia.

It’s a wonderful cause, and I’m so proud that the Capitals are officially supporting it.

I think we can only draw one conclusion from this interview: Michal Neuvirth is a supervillain.

Born of envy and lack of acknowledgement, he toiled in the shadows behind other, less talented goalies:

It’s true that until now, I have never been an official number one.

Always been the bridesmaid in the Washington crease, never the bride.

He was unappreciated and ignored by his coach:

I am happy about Oates [...] because it means Dale Hunter isn’t staying.

He simply didn’t talk to us goalies at all, I think he criticized us sometimes for no reason.

Now, slowly, his competition falls away, one by one…

At first – the Russian who was always in front of me because he was drafted higher and played in the NHL sooner. It was hard to get in front of him. But in the end I played much more than he did.

Hahaha…

I was the one who advised [Vokoun] to leave for Pittsburgh.

Ahahaha…

I am really sure that I have the weakest competition (Braden Holtby) I’ve ever had. I will try to be number one goalie this season. Finally!

MUAHAHAHAHA!
» Continue reading “Michal Neuvirth Reveals His Evil Plan”

I haven’t been keeping up with hockey news as closely as I usually might, because right now the big story — actually, the only story — is that of the lockout. And not only is that depressing, it’s also infuriating. Which side should I take: the rich old men who aren’t getting enough money from their indulgent investment? Or the rich young men who aren’t getting paid enough to play a game? The owners are completely unsympathetic, but I don’t have a lot of patience for the players, either. Obviously, neither side gives a damn about the fans.

So I recently read an article from Pro Hockey Talk that, thankfully, did not mention the lockout, but did give me the opportunity to roll my eyes for ten minutes. The headline was “Dale Hunter won’t miss dealing with Washington media.”

Of course! The notoriously cruel Washington hockey media! Anyone would be sick of dealing with the two newspapers and one TV channel that actually cover hockey! Not to mention the multiple unpaid bloggers who, if they somehow manage to get credentialed, are performing a labor of love that causes them to be somewhat less critical than an unbiased reporter, particularly to someone they are predisposed to adore, like a former player who is so beloved his number has been retired.

I don’t begrudge Hunter his decision to move back up to his farm and his horses and his comfortable job in the family business. I just think it’s silly that the media seemed to be a surprise. He says things like, “You have to answer every question.” Quelle horreur! Those nosy reporters, always wanting to know why you put a highly paid superstar and consistent 50-point scorer on the fourth line, or why you’re giving less ice time to the highest-profile player in the whole league.

He also described Kettler as being “downtown,” which was baffling to me as Kettler isn’t so much downtown as “20 minutes away from the city limits, in a totally different state.” Unless he meant downtown Ballston, which is also baffling because Ballston isn’t really big enough to have a downtown.

Oops, there goes the media again. We’re simply animals!

Alex Semin has finally up and done it: he’s a Carolina Hurricane. I guess the Canes’ new motto is “if you can’t beat ‘em, sign ‘em.” Alternate joke: it won’t be the first time Semin has been mentioned in the context of a disaster.

It’s only 1-year, 7 mil, though, so it won’t be as devastating as a Floyd or Isabel.

Fun factoid c/o @dchesnokov:

The Canes is the team Semin scored the most points (and goals) against in his career – 45 (27+18) in 41 games for the Caps.

Which is not terribly surprising, considering the Capitals play the Hurricanes what seems like seventeen times a season. Frankly, those totals look pretty low. I couldn’t score 45 points in 41 games against the Hurricanes, but only because I’m a goalie.

On the other hand, this is making the Hurricanes look slightly fearsome. They’ve got Staal, Semin, the other Staal, Skinner, the other Staal (no, the other one), and screwing up my list, Cam Ward. I can definitely see them coming in second in the SE (which still may not be enough for a playoff berth, but we’re not SouthLeast for nothing).

Finally, as I’m sure you’re wondering, Alex isn’t set to be an Atlantic tropical cyclone name until 2016. But, as the first name on the list, we’ll definitely get one!

See what the competish has to say about this over at Eye on the Storm.

I feel like George McPhee must be stage-dooring the Caps the way he’s getting things signed lately.

First, he locked down Filip Forsberg, whom you might remember from the draft last month. He got the standard 3-year, entry-level contract, in which he receives a severe pay raise when being called up from the AHL. As it stands he is expected to play in Leksand next season anyway.

Then he signed some guy named Matt Clackson, whom I only heard of when trawling the news archives of capitals.nhl.com. Apparently he was 8th in the AHL in PIM last season, so I confidentally expect I will never mention him again.
» Continue reading “Capitals Re-Sign Mike Green, And Other News”

The Capitals have signed Wojtek Wolski to a 1 year, $600,000 deal, because apparently GMGM has started listening to me and is signing players based on how fun it will be to hear Locker try to say their name. Wolski is Polish (though he grew up in Toronto and in fact played against one of Bob McKenzie’s sons), and his name is pronounced “VOI-tek VOL-ski.” In the words of The Jam, that’s entertainment.

His career stats are 95-163-258 in 424 games, for a .608 PPG, though last year he went 4-8-12 in 31 while spending 6 games in the AHL. He scored the majority of his points in his 5 years with Colorado, before having 2 lackluster seasons where he bounced from Phoenix to the Rangers to Florida. His season highs are his first full season with the Avs (50) and his season split between the Avs and Coyotes (65). He went on to score 35 points… then 12.

That brings him to us. We got him heavily discounted (his last contract was 2 yr/$7.6 mil) and with low expectations. It looks like he’s had a monkey on his back for the last two years — resulting in his being scratched and therefore looking worse and worse. What could be the source of this scoring drought? Could he be, dare I say, enigmatic?

Wolski has been thrown around as a sort of replacement for Semin. Superficially it seems he’s not — for one thing, Semin has 408 points in a comparable number of games, as well as a $6 mil price tag — but at his very best, he could be compared with an average Sasha year (like the last two seasons). I don’t know what he needs to be great: his time with the Avalanche didn’t overlap with their awful dark years, but I’m not sure they had any spectacular talent, either.

The other best description of Wolski is as a gamble, but this isn’t perfect either. If he’s a gamble, he’s an extremely safe one. His upside is 65 points and his downside is 12, but at $600,000 if he doesn’t perform, we haven’t lost very much, and we can stash him in Hershey if things get too awful. Or maybe he’ll go absolutely bizonkers with Mojo and vindicate McPhee’s signing. According to Neil Greenberg:

For ‪#Caps‬ to get fair value for Wolski’s contract, he needs to put up 4G/5A/minus-2 in 36GP.

Which isn’t asking a whole lot. We play the Blue Jackets and the Oilers, right?

Wolski seems like he wants to turn over a new leaf, and the Caps are a pretty good team to do it with. For once he’s joined his new team at the beginning of a season, with a new coach, hoping to install a new style. He’ll be playing (or at least practicing) with an extremely high-caliber and, perhaps more importantly, offensively-oriented talent. Maybe that will be enough to kickstart his scoring touch.

(As always, numbers from CapGeek, NHL.com, or Hockey-Reference.)

There are two ways a general manager can approach Free Agent Frenzy:

1. They can sign marginal players for outrageous amounts and lengths in a desperate attempt to fix a problem that they know exists but can’t quite pin down (or as a bull-headed adherence to the particular ethos they have arbitrarily chosen to build the team around)

or

2. They can do nothing, which allows them to avoid making insane impulse buys just to prove that they’re doing something (as in option 1) but which will cause the fanbase to moan that they aren’t doing enough to improve the franchise (though that same fanbase will be moaning six months later when the reality of option 1 is apparent).

So what has GMGM done?
» Continue reading “Capitals Behave Cautiously During Free Agency”

Adieu, Dennis Wideman. We barely knew you, and yet we knew you as much as we’d like.

Faithful readers will know that there is no love lost between myself and Wideman. I coined the term “Widemanesque” after game 5 of the WSH-NYR series, meaning “awful” or “disappointing” or “the worst ever.” I nicknamed him Dennis “NHL All-Star?” Wideman and Dennis “Useless Paperweight” Wideman. I was not convinced that he was an All-Star and totally let down by him during the playoffs.

And yet he was. Dennis Wideman was the only Capital to make it to the All-Star Game. He was 4th on the team in scoring (11-35-46). He led the team in ice time, averaging 23:54 in the regular season. On paper, he was perfectly satisfactory.

I think it’s most accurate to see him as disappointing. We paid him $4 million and expected him to take some of the pressure off Mike Green (as a dynamic defenseman capable of scoring) and be the final piece of a Stanley Cup-caliber team. He failed to do this, and worse, he didn’t seem to be disciplined for his mistakes.

Maybe it’s shallow to assume it was merely some form of hockey nepotism — Dennis Wideman and John Carlson (21:51) had the most and second most TOI/G on the team. They finished -8 and -15. Mike Green and Karl Alzner both had less ice time and a +/- of +5 and +12, respectively. But when Alex Ovechkin’s dwindling ice time is held up as an indication of the hardline stance Hunter was taking, it seems suspicious that two underperformers are not penalized… and are both former London Knights.

Because he was supposed to be better than this, it was all the worse when he was out of position, or made sloppy turnovers, or indirectly caused a goal against. I could’ve handled that sort of behavior from Jeff Schultz (not been pleased about it, mind you, but my expectations for Jeff Schultz are relatively low). I expected competent defense with a soupcon of scoring — the above-average scoring did not excuse the sometimes trainwreck defense. He was pretty good when he was good. He was a genuine liability when he wasn’t.

By trading Wideman rather than letting him walk as a UFA, we received a 5th-round pick in the 2013 draft and defenseman Jordan Henry from the Flames. They promptly signed him to a 5-year, $26.25 million deal with a full no movement clause. The best word I have to describe that deal? Widemanesque.