This summer the Capitals planned to add a defenseman a center and a right wing, all of whom should contribute to the team’s sub-par power play. Yesterday, on hockey’s first day of free agency, the Capitals signed defenseman Tom Poti and towering center/right wing Viktor Kozlov, both of whom just finished contracts with the New York Islanders.

Poti, thirty and heading into his tenth professional season, is a medium sized defenseman who plays mostly offense and a little bit of defense. This would be bad news for a Capitals team that already has small-to-medium sized defensemen Steve Eminger, Mike Green, Brian Pothier and Ben Clymer playing mostly offense and a little bit of defense (with Clymer playing mostly at forward). Fortunately, Poti brings something to the table that only Pothier had before: a left handed shot.

On power plays, right handed hockey players tend to play the left wing and the left point, and lefties play the right wing and right point. Since Alexander Semin and Alexander Ovechkin are both righties, the Caps’ left side is full and only Pothier logged significant power play time last season. Since Pothier is not a power-play specialist, and hadn’t played over twenty minutes per night for a full season before 2006, he was a bit uncomfortable in the new role. Poti is and has, so he should do a much better job of keeping up with the Alexes.