Tag Archives: Karl Alzner

Blog Love for Karl

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Understandable. Thank you. Click here.

We have done all that we said we would do this off season. And perhaps even more.

I know some folks wanted us to do even more. Some folks wanted us to do less. We did our best.

We now get a little bit of time off.

We have our Caps big rookie event at Kettler today, Saturday, and then many of our folks get some well deserved rest.

In a nut shell:

We participated in the amateur draft. We made a trade for Troy Brouwer.

We brought back Dave Prior and Olie Kolzig as goaltender coaches.

We re-signed Brooks Laich and Karl Alzner.

We signed as free agents Joel Ward, Tomas Vokoun, Jeff Halpern and Roman Hamrlik.We traded a young goaltender for a first and second round pick to Colorado.

We restocked our Hershey affiliate with some gifted players, some who are on two way deals and I am sure will get some playing time in DC adding to our depth.

We conducted rookie camp and saw some players that we believe will compete for a spot on our roster next season.

All in all, a busy and productive couple of months. Thanks for the support. Go Caps!

Juice

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Good for Juice and good for Karl Alzner. From adversity comes opportunity. We were decimated with injuries on our blue line and some players have embraced the crisis and made the best of it. Chemistry on pairings is a wonderful thing and these two have been rock solid for us over the last half dozen games.

Well played. Keep it up and onward to a hopeful sell-out tonight against the Blues. Red vs. Blue, a true DC matchup, eh? :-)

Looking Forward to the Draft

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Here we go again - back to the drafting tables. This is the weekend of the year where our amateur scouts earn their money and see payback for all of their time spent on the road.

We have a first round pick and a bunch of second round picks. We can trade up. We can make some trades for more picks. We can use our picks and prospects for a trade of a player that can help us today. We can trade some picks for this year for some picks in an out year. We can stay put and use them all. We have a lot of choices.

George McPhee plays it so close to the vest that even I don’t know what he is thinking. I do know that he listens to his scouts and professionals and that they fight and argue – in a good-hearted fashion - about who are the best players at what positions. I also know that the team’s philosophy is to pick the best available player on the board that is left when it is our time to pick. We don’t usually draft by positional need.

I do know now that we have a lot of fire power; a lot of role players; and a lot of goalie prospects in the pipeline. We have work to do in the off season on finalizing our lineup for next season but the draft will add to our potential lineup. Last year’s #1 pick, Karl Alzner, will be fighting for a spot in the lineup when camp opens. The NHL draft is a time of renewal and of potential and a time for us to hope and dream. Can we find someone who is a steal in the later rounds? Can we package up a pick and a player for a player that impacts our team today? Stay tuned. This is a fun time of year. The draft is how we chose to rebuild the team. It works. It is important and fundamental. Wish George and the scouting team luck this weekend. 

Why Do We Have Fans Like This?

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Last off season and pre-season, I received numerous emails and read some board postings from some of our fans on Nicklas Backstrom. Comments like “He is a bust”, ”Backstrom was at best a second round pick” and ”You blew this pick” came from some of our most earnest board posters directly to me. I think Nicklas Backstrom turned out to be a pretty good pick, don’t you? He is up for Rookie of the Year consideration. Alex Semin, Mike Green and Jeff Schultz all turned out pretty good too, didn’t they? Mike Green was picked 29th in the draft. Do you NOT think 28 other GMs are asking their scouts what went wrong in that draft?

Today I have received 3 emails - very, very deeply negative on Karl Alzner. What is up with these fans? He was Player of the Year in his league. He was captain of the Junior National team. He will most likely be a top 4 D-man in the NHL for a long, long time. Give the kid a break, will ya?