Here is a great blog post on the Caps’ defense by Japers’. Hockey Analytics is a great site and, yes, I believe our D is underrated and improving and will get even better with time.
Ted's Take
Here is a great blog post on the Caps’ defense by Japers’. Hockey Analytics is a great site and, yes, I believe our D is underrated and improving and will get even better with time.
The Caps defensive corps is very strong right now and has a lot of great pieces that can really fill out a line up. Typically of the six defensmen you dress you want one or two who can run the powerplay (Green is outstanding at this…Poti can do it to, and when healthy, Pothier is pretty good at it), kill penalties (Morrisonn, Poti, Schultz and coming soon, Alzner), make a good first pass out of the zone to get the puck up ice (Poti, Green, Pothier, Alzner, Morrisonn, Lepisto), and at the end of the day, clear out the front of the net (Schultz, Morrisonn, Erskine, Alzner).
The only issue is getting some players to play up to their size (Schultz needs to do this a little, Jurcina needs to do this a *lot*!). That, and have someone teach Schultz how to use his long arms (like Chara) does to get some torque on the stick to generate an explosive slapshot (I think he can do it, it took Chara a few years to figure it out…)
I said it before and I’ll say it now, this Caps team is the deepest Caps team I’ve seen in my 20+ years as a season ticket holder. There is strength at every position, and there are going to be players not making this team that would be a top 9 forward or a top 4 defenseman on lots of other teams in the NHL. In fact, right now, the Caps have a complete defensive line-up where all of the players are better than any defenseman on another team in this division (Tampa’s D is atrocious).
This is our year…