Off Wing Opinion

Back over the Summer, I think it might have been right after the Caps signed Brian Pothier, General Manager George McPhee said that getting the team into the playoffs was a realistic goal.

I blanched when I first heard that, as I believe the Caps are going to need at leasst one more season of developing talent and drafting low in order to put a playoff-caliber team on the ice. Then again, why not take McPhee at his word? All I ask is that we take a closer look at the scale of the challenge based on last year's performance, and figure out how much the team needs to improve in order to be playing in April and May.

Realistically, when you project the Caps making the playoffs, you're shooting for them to sneak into the tournament as a seventh or eighth seed. Listed below is the 2005-06 order of finish in the Eastern Conference from 7 to 15, listing point totals and goal differential.

7. MON -- 93 (-4)
8. TB -- 92 (-8)
9. TOR -- 90 (-13)
10. ATL -- 90 (+6)
11. FLA -- 85 (-17)
12. NYI -- 78 (-48)
13. BOS -- 74 (-36)
14. WAS -- 70 (-69)
15. PITT -- 58 (-72)

Looking at that list, qualifying for the playoffs in the East in 2005 meant scoring 92 points or more, and making sure your goal differential was within shouting distance of zero. For the Caps, that means 22 points and a combination of additional goals scored and fewer goals against of 69 -- less than an additional goal scored or prevented per game.

All of a sudden, that sounds doable. So how do we get there?

Cut Down On The Shots: On the surface, Olie Kolzig's performance in 2005-06 doesn't look that impressive. But while stats-wise it was less than a goalie would hope for, the on-ice performance was heroic as the Caps yielded more shots on goal than any other team in the NHL -- 35.1 per game.

It's a wonder that Kolzig didn't beg to be traded at the deadline. Cut down on the shots per game -- and let's be honest, when you're at the bottom of the league there's nowhere to go but up -- you'll take a good hack out of that target of 69.

Improve The Penalty Kill/Power Play: Washington was 28th in the league on the penalty kill at 78.9%. And even with Alexander Ovechkin potting 21 power play goals last season, the power play ranked 26th, at 14.7%. Taking a deeper look at last year's numbers, you'll see that the Caps found themselves down two men 62 times last season, that's eight times more than they enjoyed a two-man advantage. The result: They were outscored 16-9, even though they enjoyed slightly more total time with a two-man advantage than against. Even that up, and you creep a little closer to your goal.

Sounds fairly simple doesn't it? Cut down on your shots, score a few more goals at even strength, improve your power play, take fewer 5-on-3 penalties.

So did they do enough to make it happen? Let's start from goal and move on out:

Goalie

Kolzig is back and so is Brent Johnson. Barring injury that's the tandem that will start the season in D.C., though if the tenor at camp says anything, Frederic Cassivi has a lot of fans out there.

Defensemen

Out: Mathieu Biron, Jakub Cutta, J.F. Fortin, Ivan Majesky and Nolan Yonkman
In: Brian Pothier, John Erskine and Ben Clymer*

Nobody, and I mean nobody, is going to shed a tear for any of the guys who left town. Pothier, who only has less than two full seasons in the NHL under his belt even though he's 29, was brought in to upgrade the power play. Right before camp started the team announced that it had asked Clymer to shift back to the blue line, and imported free agent John Erskine from the Islanders. Erskine's arrival means that man mountain Sasha Pokulok will start the season at Hershey, but know this: Erskine is the kind of player that teams begin to take a hard look at around the trade deadline when they feel they're a body or two short on the blueline. If he doesn't have a two-way contract, and the Caps aren't within striking distance of the playoffs at the deadline, I could easily see him getting moved for a draft pick, allowing Pokulok to get some ice time at the end of the season.

While it's clear the team has upgraded here, it's less clear just how much better they will be. A lot is going to depend on the continued development of holdovers Shaone Morrison, Steve Eminger and Mike Green. Can Jamie Heward and Brian Muir perform as well as they did last season when they logged better than 20 minutes of ice time per game?

Another thing to keep in mind: In camp so far, Eminger, who was once projected as a power play quarterback, is nowhere to be seen on either or the two units. Dainius Zubrus and Pothier are the pair on the top unit, while Green and Clymer are running the second.

Forwards

Out: Jeff Halpern, Brian Willsie, Jared Aulin, Colin Forbes, Owen Fussey
In: Richard Zednik, Donald Brashear, Alexander Semin (back from Russia after two years away), Alexandre Giroux, Quintin Laing, Pete Vandermeer

The team wasn't willing to give Halpern the contract term that he wanted, so he'll be playing third line center for Dallas this season behind Mike Modano and Eric Lindros. Willsie got himself some nice money to go to LA. In both cases, the team figured that they could get comparable production out of younger players for less money, and it's hard to argue against that.

The top line of Ovechkin, Zubrus and Chris Clark remains intact. But the newcomers are scrambling the situation on the second line and the power play.

The key guys here are Zednik and Semin (with the other new arrivals more than likely filling out the roster at Hershey). We've already seen that Semin and Zednik will be on the top power play unit with Ovechkin, Pothier and Zubrus, so we ought to be able to expect some serious improvement there. Brashear is going to be looking over Ovechkin's shoulder, and God anyone help whoever crosses the Indianapolis native.

But questions will have to be asked about the second line, with the team looking to former draft pick Kris Beech to step in between Semin and Zednik. If not Beech, youngsters Brooks Laich or Brian Sutherby will get a shot. Ever since the middle of last season, the Caps identified acquiring depth at center as a priority, but they still haven't made an acquisition. Still, with all that extra ice time available, you get to see if a prospect can step in and get the job done, or provide just that sort of player a chance to develop.

So, with one or two surprises mixed in, that's what your 2006-07 Caps are going to look like. Does it look 22 points better than last season?

If Morrisson, Eminger and Green all blossom on the blue line at the same time, and somebody is able to develop into an NHL-caliber pivot on the second line, I'd say a playoff spot is a stretch goal. If not, I say the Caps are back in the postseason in Spring 2008. In any case, with Ovechkin back, the team will be fun to watch no matter what.

POSTSCRIPT: This little preview would have been impossible without leaning on JD Press and the best independent Hockey Salary Source around. And without some of the work done by Tyler Dellow, it would have been a heckuva lot more difficult.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 19th, 2006 at 12:56 pm by Eric McErlain and is filed under Hockey. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.