Caps Briefing: Looking Good
The Caps look good this year. Not only have they kept together a team that made the playoffs last year and added a celebrity goalie, but their starting left wing is now the spokesman for a major East Coast discount beauty shop chain.
Sure, Alexander Ovechkin scored a beautiful goal last night after he forechecked effectively and got ready for a brilliant pass from Alexander Semin. That will happen plenty of times this year. Today's amazing news is that the man famous for playing with the same intensity after losing teeth and breaking his nose is becoming a fashion icon.
Vienna based Hair Cuttery finally launched its long-awaited ad campaign featuring Alex Ovechkin. Ovie's simple hairstyle and jack-o-lantern smile are now appearing on billboards, buses and a snazzy web site. It seems like only yesterday we read the millionth article about how Ovechkin isn't as pretty as Sidney Crosby.
But there's also plenty on Caps minds besides great hair. The regular season opens Friday night, and the Caps have to figure out how to fit $57 million of players into a $56 million salary cap. The most likely choice is to send Karl Alzner to the Hershey Bears, where his $1.5 million won't count against the cap.
The Examiner agrees with the Post that Alzner and Chris Bourque made a great bid to stay with the team when they combined efforts on a goal last night against Boston, in the final preseason game.
It was indeed a beautiful play, but credit for that beauty actually goes to Caps winger Matt Bradley. It was Bradley whose hard work in the corner of the rink and telepathic cross-ice pass through traffic left Alzner and Bourque alone down the center of the rink for an easy goal.
A year ago, when the Caps drafted Alzner, they said he was the most NHL-ready player in a draft class that included guys like Patrick Kane and Sam Gagner, who played well last season in the NHL while Alzner waited and captained the Canadian team to victory at the World Junior Championship. There is no reason Alzner can't play in the NHL starting Friday night in Atlanta and help the Caps win a few more games at the beginning of this season.
However, defensemen don't tend to play their best in the NHL under the age of about 22. Alzner will get to play more minutes against less skilled players in Hershey. This is the right way to maintain his confidence, gradually get him used to playing against full-grown men and let him learn the ropes of professional hockey. It also gives the Caps more salary cap space, which gives them the flexibility to make trades to win more games later on this season and in the playoffs. If Alzner plays as well in the AHL as he should, and the Caps need him later on, they can bring him up any time.
Bourque, on the other hand, has been in the minor leagues long enough. It's just a matter of how many regular players will have to be injured or shelved before he can get significant playing time in the NHL. Because the Caps start the season with no major injuries to their forwards, and it doesn't make sense to give up on one good player's career in order to advance another, Bourque also belongs in Hershey, winning hockey games, and not in Washington, watching them.