The Blue Line Carousel

With the resigning of Karl Alzner(finally) last week, the Capitals currently have 8 defencemen under contract for this season. Word around the blogosphere(if you aren't aware of this you are clearly not reading the important ones) is that Tom Poti will start the year on the LTIR. Given that we are over the Cap after the Alzner contract, this is extremely useful. This is a similar situation to what we started the year like last year, except this time it isn't lowly Tyler Sloan that is the odd-man out. Given the assumption that Green, Hamrlik, Alzner, and Carlson are all guaranteed starters, who doesn't find a jersey in their stall come opening night: Schultz? Wideman? Erskine

Let's start with Erskine. Of the three I believe to be the odd-men out, Erskine makes the least(1.5). He also plays the hardest in my opinion. He led the Caps blueliners with 166 hits. He averaged almost 5 hits/30 min which is comparable to Ovechkin. Let's also remember that his fight with then Thrasher, now Devil Eric Boulton was generally accepted as the best fight last year. I see no reason to keep the toughest defenceman out of this lineup.

Nest there's Wideman, who the Caps acquired as the trade deadline last year from Florida for who-care's-prospect and a 3rd round pick. He was limited to only 14 games last year and 0 in the playoffs due to the hematoma he suffered in a nasty collision with Tuomo Ruutu of the Hurricanes in late March. GMGM has said that he is back to full mobility and is rehabbing. With over 2 month still to go, I believe he should be okay by opening night. He struggled defensively last year in his first couple of games but he was starting to look comfortable just as he went down. Offensively he was still able to net 1 goal and pick up 6 helpers. He has 6 years of NHL experience under him and has scored 30+ points in each of his last 4 years. If he is healthy, I see no reason not to pair him with Erskine.

That leaves us with Schultz. For what it's worth(I believe diddly) Schultz is only a year removed from a league leading +50 rating. He played nearly all of that year playing alongside Mike Green(9 EV G) and was frequently on the ice with Ovechkin(37 EV G) and Backstrom(22 EV). When compared to last year's numbers, where he skated with varying lines, his rating dropped to +6 which was T-8 on the team and roughly 158th best in the league. BB was quoted earlier in the month as to hinting to pairing Green and Hamrlik together. Without Green and Ovechkin to at least make his +/- look good, Schultz brings little to the table. He is way too slow. He uses the body when the stick will do and tries to use the stick when he needs to check.

Regardless of who Boudreau decides to go with, I have to believe at least 1 of the 8 will not be around after the trade deadline. This could be expedited depending on how well Orlov does down in Hershey, which would be just fine with me.