Defense Questions Still Remain For The Caps

Last night, the Capitals took on the Philadelphia Flyers. Both teams are expected to be major competitors for the Eastern Conference Championship. In the off season, Philadelphia picked up all star defenseman Chris Pronger to shut down teams' top scoring line and goalie Ray Emery. How'd they do? Both Alexander Semin and Alexander Ovechkin scored twice and the Capitals were able to put up five total goals against the revamped Philadelphia defense. So mission accomplished for Washington? Not quite. The Caps still lost 6-5 in overtime highlighting the major problem facing this team. While the Caps have no trouble scoring (15 goals through 3 games) they still are having trouble keeping the puck out of their own net (11 goals allowed in 3 games).

The Caps made no off season acquisitions to fix this problem choosing instead to rely on the development of their younger players to full the void. The results? Karl Alzner was reassigned to Hershey during the off season, and Tyler Sloan has yet to play a game. Neither, it seems, will be making much of an impact on the blue line this year. Instead the Caps will rely on the questionable play of Jeff Schultz (physical but often inconsistent) and John Erskine (who contributes fights and bad penalties and not much else). The Caps made the right move in the offseason by letting go of enforcer Donald Brashear who was a great fighter but could barely skate. If, however, that means Erskine gets a full time spot on the roster, then the Caps have taken one step forward and two steps back.

And let's not forget about the goaltending. Simeon Varlamov got the start last night, but after allowing four goals in the second period, he was pulled for Jose Theodore. While I do believe Varlamov is the future of this franchise and on the verge of becoming a great goalie, I do think he needs to get it going. The Caps have made it clear this year that they want to compete for the Conference championship and the Stanley Cup. If they hope to do so, they will need stronger goaltending.

Luckily the Caps can fix this pretty easily with Michael Nylander. No I'm not talking about playing the forward at center, I'm talking about trading him. For whatever reason, the Caps' center has fallen out of favor with Coach Bruce Boudreau and has been a healthy scratch for all three games this season and most of last season. Nylander is the second highest paid player on the team (behind guess who). The Caps have already expressed concern over cap space next season as many young players are going to be looking for raises due to their development and maturing play. Despite not playing, Nylander still has some value. By trading him, the Caps can gain a 2nd or 3rd line caliber defenseman while freeing up a lot of cap space.

The fact is, the longer they sit Nylander down, the lower his trade value becomes. He's too good and too expensive to just sit on the bench, so why not trade him? The Caps still need some defensive help and this seems like a pretty simple solution.