Theordore, Schultz and Other Observations

Washington Capitals Hockey

With two days having passed since the Capitals opening game loss, a few things come to mind. First, as it's been said, "offense puts the fans in the seats, but defense wins championships". The Capitals have plenty of offense, but the defense is another matter. Of course the first line of defense is the goaltender and after watching Theodore give up 4 goals on 21 shots, my doubts about he being able to take the Capitals far into the playoffs remain. I just don't know if Theodore is capable of putting together a stretch where he shuts down the kind of teams that he's going to face in the playoffs. One thing is certain, if Theodore doesn't have a better performance than he did on Wednesday, the Capitals will be looking at a crater of a hole to climb out of. As far as the rest of the Capitals defense goes, while they don't have a defensemen of the Chris Pronger or Scott Neidermeyer caliber, Poti, Erskine, Pothier, and Morrison are serviceable defensemen, while Green is a superstar in the making. After this however things drop off pretty quickly. While Jurcina's game has improved a bit this year, Schultz showed in the play that allowed the Rangers to score the deciding goal, that he is a young player with good size, and little quickness or mobility. While I could live with the fact that Schultz isn't the most nimble player on the ice, he doesn't seem to possess much of a physical side to his game, and if he doesn't develop that aspect of his game as he matures, well, I don't know if he'll be a long term NHL player. The thing about the playoffs is that everything is amplified, and you don't have a lot of chances to make up for mistakes. Here's hoping that we don't see another blunder of the Schultz variety in tomorrow's game.

Hockey Talk
Sports and Culture