Caps Briefing: Karl Alzner is Your New Superstar
Wednesday was the NHL trade deadline; this is the time of year when teams expected to contend for the Stanley Cup traditionally make big splashy acquisitions of nearly-washed up superstars desperate to make one more push for a championship. This year the Washington Post thought the Caps might try to pick up Chris Pronger. Some New York City media thought the Caps had tried to acquire Bill Guerin. We thought the Caps should go after Jay Bouwmeester. Instead the Capitals did nothing.
At least they appeared to do nothing. In Paul Newman's famous words, "Sometimes nothing can be a pretty cool hand." All season the Caps have faced a strange paradox. Even though they were winning in the NHL, they had some players in their developmental system who were good enough to play in the NHL but made too much money to fit into the Caps tight salary cap scenario. After training camp, many fans thought that defenseman Karl Alzner and forward Chris Bourque should have made the team.
The voices of dissent were largely quieted by the all star break, when the Caps were one of the best teams in the East, even as Bourque and Alzner remained one year further away from eligibility for free agency. After the all star break, The Hockey News published a rumor that the Caps, who enjoyed strong winning records from two solid goalies, planned on recalling rookie Simeon Varlamov to lead them into the postseason. Varlamov and the two goalies ahead of him have all been out for health reasons lately, and 20 year-old rookie Andrew Michal Neuvirth is 2-1, so there's not much more room to speculate about goaltenders here.
On defense, though, we expect to see Alzner play the last few games of the regular season and give the team much needed improvement in man to man coverage. The former fifth overall pick and captain of the Canadian national junior team has already shown in a few NHL games that he can make simple, successful plays on each end of the ice. By not picking up some overpriced has-been, the Capitals have finally left themselves enough space under the salary cap to find out if Alzner can be a regular contributor in the NHL.