Japers' Rink - All Posts

2013 Rink Wrap: Troy Brouwer

2013-05-23T15:00:09Z

Japers' Rink Player Card (click for hi-res version; a glossary of terms used in this post can be found here; data via Behind the Net, Hockey Analysis, CapGeek and NHL.com; h/t Habs EOTP):

Brouwer and his most frequent linemates:

2013 Capitals 5v5 Forward Usage, via Hockey Abstract:

Brouwer's Past Five Seasons (via Hockey Analysis):

Previous Rink Wrap: 2011-12 (5.60 rating)

Key Stat: Brouwer’s 0.40 goals per game output (and 33 goal pace across a full 82-game season) was the highest output from a Caps second-line winger since Alexander Semin’s 0.43 goal pace in 2010-11.

Interesting Stat: Troy Brouwer, a right wing, had a 48% faceoff percentage across 232 draws, a higher win percentage than Mike Ribeiro (45%).

The Good: Brouwer had a good regular season, and was among the team leaders in a number of areas. He finished second on the team in goals with 19 (including a team-high 7 game-winners), power play goals with 7, shots (111) and hits (108). His average ice time (18:47) and power play time (1:31) were both third among Caps' forwards (excluding oft-injured Brooks Laich), and he was one of two Caps forwards (Nicklas Backstrom being the other) who skated more than a minute-and-a-half per game on each special teams unit. And he only took nine minor penalties, finishing the season with the fewest minors per minute of any top-six forward. Overall, Troy did what was expected of a second-line winger – he scored, he was physical, he played special teams and he avoided putting the team in bad situations.

He even danced.

But the bigger question looming over Brouwer before the season started whether he would be able to fill the void left by the departing Alexander Semin, the divisive, love-him-or-hate-him (or both) former Cap who had the second-line scoring winger role locked down in the nation’s capital for years. Big shoes to fill, no doubt, but Brouwer’s stat-line was certainly comparable.

In Semin’s last two seasons in DC, he averaged 0.35 goals, 0.76 points and 0.89 penalty minutes per game. Brouwer’s pace in 2012-13 was 0.40 goals, 0.70 points and 0.60 penalty minutes, a similar stat line (save for the reduced penalty minutes). Additionally, Brouwer was able to give the team a bit more in terms of penalty killing and physicality, while not being relegated to a perimeter game. True, Troy wasn't going to pull people out of their seats with marvelous play-making the way Semin often had... but all goals count the same, right? And with Brouwer’s cap hit of $3.7 million, they came at almost a 50% discount over the pricier Semin. More importantly, Brouwer’s ascendancy into the second-line wing at half the price freed up enough cash for the Caps to bring in Mike Ribeiro, aka that coveted 2C the team had desperately needed for years.

Aside from the offense and the cheaper price tag, the way Brouwer was used by Adam Oates shouldn't go unnoticed (see above usage chart). He played tough minutes without the benefit of a lot of offensive zone starts, which likely explains his lower possession metrics (47.9% Fenwick, 10th among Caps' forwards, and a -3 CORSI Rel, 11th on team). Give him easier minutes and more o-zone starts, and it’s likely he’d see those numbers creep over to the good side of the Fenwick line.

The Bad: While he mimicked Semin’s more recent output in the regular season, he also mimicked Semin’s more recent playoff disappearances - an aspect of Semin's game that were not missed when he left town. The Disappearing Act That Was Troy Brouwer wasn't for lack of trying, of course; he finished the playoffs with a respectable 13 shots and threw in some physicality with 19 hits. But in the end trying wasn't enough, as Brouwer netted just one goal and one assist in seven games against the Rangers, and was noticeably absent for long stretches of the series.

Playoff performance aside, a further look at Brouwer’s numbers show that he, like some of his teammates, grew fat on the power play. Of his 33 points on the season, he only produced 13 at even strength, and his 1.35 Pts/60 at five-on-five placed him tenth among Caps forwards, behind Joel Ward and Jason Chimera. He was 11th among forwards in even strength goals/60, 11th in goals-against/60 and 14th in Diff/60. Part of that is obviously due to the tough minutes he logged, but there's certainly room for improvement - especially as a top-six forward (and of course a healthy Brooks Laich should help ease his workload). Ultimately, Brouwer had what amounts to a career year because of his performance on the power play, something that may not be repeatable if teams begin to adjust to Adam Oates 1-3-1.

And then there was his penchant for talking... perhaps too much at times (especially for someone whom certain segments of the fanbase still resent this atrocity). From his summer comments on Roman Hamrlik to taking swipes at Alex Semin, his signal-to-noise ratio is questionable. Regardless of whether he’s right or wrong, his style and tone can come off inflammatory and potentially be a distraction to a team that already deals with enough drama. Then again, George McPhee has referred to him as one of the game's great leaders - so maybe the buttons he's pushing are the right ones.

The Vote: Rate Brouwer below on a scale of 1-10 (10 being the best) based on his performance relative to his potential and your expectations for the season - if he had the best year you could have imagined him having, give him a 10; if he more or less played as you expected he would, give him a 5 or a 6; if he had the worst year you could have imagined him having, give him a 1.

The Discussion: What role should Brouwer be used in next year? Should he tone down his statements to the press, or is it good for the Caps to have an outspoken player like Brouwer on the team? What would it take for him to earn a "10"?

More on Brouwer's season: GM on a Couch - Troy Brouwer: Season in Review

Thursday Caps Clips

2013-05-23T10:36:32Z

Your savory breakfast links:

Alex Ovechkin sits down for a one-on-one with Mike Vogel. [Monumentall (video)]
If post-season player evaluations are your thing, today is your day:
- Troy Brouwer. [GM on a Couch, and look for our take on his year later this morning]
- Jack Hillen. [Peerless]
- Tomas Kundratek. [Ibid.]
- Jeff Schultz. [RtR]
- Tendies. [WaPo]
- And here's a look at the Caps' cupboard in Chocolatetown. Yeah, me neither. [THW]
Y'know, the Reading Royals' goalie Riley Gill has been putting up some great numbers in this Kelly Cup run. Good enough that Coach Courville invited the Caps' scouts to come see for themselves. [Reading Eagle]
Checking in on the players as they start their summer vacays:
- Karl Alzner is gone fishin'. [@MattHendy26]
- Brooks Laich rolls with the Sports Junkies. [106.7 The Fan]
- Here's more on Braden Holtby 's visit to his old stomping grounds in Saskatoon ... [Star-Phoenix, Shaw TV (video)]
- ... plus a few leftovers of Ovi dutifully stumping along at the Gagarin Cup celly. [Life.ru (video), Sports-Express (pics)]
Don't call it a comeback. At least not yet. [CSNW]

2013 Rink Wrap: Jay Beagle

2013-05-22T15:00:09Z

Japers' Rink Player Card (click for hi-res version; data via Behind the Net, Hockey Analysis, CapGeek and NHL.com; h/t Habs EOTP):

Beagle and his most frequent linemates:

2013 Capitals 5v5 Forward Usage, via Hockey Abstract:

Beagle's Past Two Seasons (via Hockey Analysis):

Previous Rink Wraps: 2011-12 (7.80 rating) 2010-11 (5.45 rating)

Key Stat: Jay Beagle had a tough time in the playoffs against the Rangers, his lone tally in Game 3 notwithstanding. He was on-ice for 14 even-strength goals-against in 48 regular-season games, but six in seven first round contests. Beagle skated to a -1 rating in five of those contests, four of which occurred in games the center received less than ten minutes of total ice time.

Interesting Stat: Beagle tallied a single game-winning goal on the season, a Jeff Schultz rebound that he shoved under Lightning goaltender Mathieu Garon in the third period on Valentine’s Day. Riding that confidence, Beagle would fire four shots on the Rangers' cage in his next game out, giving him seven shots over two games, the most trigger-happy two-game he had all season.

The Good: Beagle dressed in all 55 Capitals games in 2013, the three-year regular skating on the fourth-line with Matt Hendricks and Joel Ward or Joey Crabb for most of the journey, and playing big minutes on the penalty kill. A dependable bottom-six forward, Beagle was clutch in the faceoff circle down the stretch, winning more than half of his draws in 14 of the last 16 regular season contests and 58% of his defensive-zone face-offs overall on the campaign. When a team's fourth line can control the puck (whether it be in the offensive or defensive zone) off of the linesman’s hand, it has a chance to dictate the puck’s direction for the first couple seconds of each shift.

Beagle also increased his offensive output a bit under Adam Oates, his .17 points-per-game up a tick over the past two seasons. While not close to some high preseason predictions, Beagle kept his nose to the grindstone each night to improve, and ended up being rewarded with a career-high 12:06 of ice-time per night.

The Bad: The Capitals were finished by the Rangers in seven games because of the team’s inability to pierce New York’s defense and goaltender Henrik Lundqvist. While Beagle can count one of the team’s 12 goals in the series as his own (tipping Jack Hillen’s shot in for a third period lead in Game 3), it was his, and his linemates’, ineffectiveness in their own half of the ice that helped the Rangers skate into the second round. While the top-six forwards struggled to puncture New York below their own blue line the Capitals’ bottom-six had trouble returning the favor against the Rangers’ offense, and Beagle ended up being on the ice for those half-dozen even-strength tallies against, and just the one goal-for. The fourth-line didn't lose the series for the Caps... but it sure didn't help much to not lose it.

The Vote: Rate Beagle below on a scale of 1-10 (10 being the best) based on his performance relative to his potential and your expectations for the season - if he had the best year you could have imagined him having, give him a 10; if he more or less played as you expected he would, give him a 5 or a 6; if he had the worst year you could have imagined him having, give him a 1.

The Discussion: Beagle performed reasonably well for the team's investment and gave them big minutes on the penalty-kill, but there's room for improvement in his game - can he continue to improve his offensive production, or, at 27-years-old, is this what he is? If so, is that enough of a contribution for a regular on a team with aspirations? What would it take for you to give him a "10" next year?

Wednesday Caps Clips

2013-05-22T11:32:56Z

Your savory breakfast links:

Adam Oates on the season, in three parts. [CSNW (Part I, II and III)]
In a similar vein as what we wrote last week, The Boss chimes in on "success" and success. [Ted's Take]
What to expect when you're expecting realignment. [CSNW]
The (maybe) five-plus-million-dollar question: should the Caps bring back Mike Ribeiro? [WaPo]
Breaking down the team's other UFAs. [WaPo]
A look back at Mike Green's 2013. [Peerless]
If the Caps could change one thing before the puck drops next October, what would it be? [DSP]
Eric Fehr is a PoY finalist. [Caps Outsider]
Happy Dynamo Day, Alex Ovechkin and comrades! [KHL, RMNB]
The Reading Royals are one win away from the Kelly Cup. [Caps Outsider]
Sergey Kostenko is ditching North America. Oh. [RMNB]
Finally, happy 57th birthday to Tom Rowe.

On the Nature of Caps-Related Vitriol

2013-05-21T17:00:18Z

The Washington sports media is like an abstract representation of the Energizer Bunny. It plows on always, mallets in hand beating on the dual drum heads of indignation and self-righteousness. And nothing charges up those derisory batteries like the conclusion of a local team’s season.

And because the Jason Collins story is an antediluvian three-weeks old, and because the coverage of Robert Griffin III’s Twitter timeline, his knee, his wedding registry, his preferred Subway sandwich, is completely saturated, the Energizer Bunny turned its sights on the recently and unceremoniously eliminated Washington Capitals.

If you were able to cut a hole through the blanket of taciturn agony that invariably seizes Capitals fans in the days after a playoff elimination, you saw, you read, and you heard as the local media did their best impression of a territorial dog, sniffing around the base of a fence until finding the stale scent of one of its kind, and then adding its fresh product to the reeking urinary cocktail.

Not everyone is guilty of this. The beat writers and radio stations that show up day in and day out to cover this team do tremendous work. Even some more regular columnists have wrangled themselves enough of a familiarity with the team that their work holds water. Praises from these parties are sung with something like honesty, and their criticisms are not so vapid or untenable.

But the ones who are guilty, well, they're astoundingly guilty.

I don’t mean to liken the local rags and radio shows to animal urine, but think about it. They are hungry beasts, clamoring around the locker rooms. The players feeding quotes to the undulating bouquet of microphones is equivalent to a tourist tearing pieces of bread from a loaf and tossing them to the ducks of the Potomac. The ducks digest their little morsels, happily rustle their feathers, and with their own excrement fertilize the very grounds upon which the players-represented-by-the-bread-tearing-tourist walk.

Most recently, one such duck got her hands on one such morsel (though it had sadly been digested and expelled many times over already), and came to some sweeping conclusions about the Capitals. That conclusion, in summary, is that Alexander Ovechkin and George McPhee are bannermen for the Referees Against Washington conspiracy theory, and that their tinfoil-hat wearing is an indictment of the organization’s overall philosophy.

The quotes, in case you managed to miss them, came from Ovechkin after Game 7, who said, "Not saying there was a phone call, but [the NHL] wanted Game 7. You know, lockout, escrow, league must make profit." Two days later, the General Manager came to his captain’s defense, saying, "I don’t think there’s a league conspiracy, but it sure didn’t feel right."

Now, according to what’s put in black and white and thrown onto driveways every morning, these two quotes are evidence that the Washington Capitals’ biggest problem is a state of mind, and not some detail of their on-ice product.

That’s…a real stretch. A sanctimonious swing and a miss. Is there something wrong with the Capitals’ organization? Anyone who has held their head in their hands after six straight eliminations could tell you as such. None of these people, I’d wager, would presume to find the root of that problem in the midst of the most despondent locker room of the season.

One doesn't need to possess an innate familiarity with a club to make a valid point about them, but if they're going to put the culture of a team in their crosshairs, perhaps a bit more diligence than simply parachuting in to get a glimpse of the players cleaning out their lockers is in order.

In the wake of yet another disappointing conclusion to the season, what we’re getting in the stead of honest assessments of the team from informed parties are sensationalist diatribes derived from the paltry nuggets of information that rise above the rest because of their headline value.

This is the nature of the beast, though. Like a man who finds a blade of dead grass in his lawn and declares that his house sits upon an acre of plague, trivialities are turned into denouements, and the readership is pulled along like Hector behind Achilles’ chariot.

There is no value in reporting the likely truth, that Henrik Lundqvist’s stellar play was the steel backbone of the Rangers comeback— a notion that was reinforced in no uncertain terms by Ovechkin one day after the very media scrum during which he made the comments about officiating that have been brought under the microscope.

Where’s the excitement in that? The melodrama? A boxer with his gloves on doesn’t simply stand in front of a punching bag and not take a swing, just as a journalist doesn’t stop sifting through the sands of Alex Ovechkin quotes until they find the pebble they can wrongly pass off as a galleon.

This is Washington. This is where the Washington Capitals take a backseat to just about everything else in the journalistic purview, just barely registering on the peripherals of the profession until their playoff exit beckons to the writer or microphone monkey who licks his or her lips at the opportunity to absolutely lambaste someone, something, anything.

The media has branded the Capitals as losers, an assertion that was eloquently rebutted by the peerless Managing Editor of this blog. What they are either ignorant of, or unwilling to acknowledge, is that they are buying into their own narratives, beginning to sustain a circular process wherein they construct a hole of disdain for the anticipated perennial failure— camouflaged with twigs and trodden leaves— and then wait for the Washington Capitals to fall into it. As the team slowly crawls out, stories are written, columns are published, vitriolic on-air rants are blasted through speakers everywhere— all events that comprise the re-construction of the camouflaged hole, primed for the next year as they await the Caps falling through again.

2013 Rink Wrap: Nicklas Backstrom

2013-05-21T15:00:05Z

Japers' Rink Player Card (click for hi-res version; a glossary of terms used in this post can be found here; data via Behind the Net, Hockey Analysis, CapGeek and NHL.com; h/t Habs EOTP):

Backstrom and his most frequent linemates:

2013 Capitals 5v5 Forward Usage, via Hockey Abstract:

Backstrom's Past Five Seasons (via Hockey Analysis):

Previous Rink Wraps: 2011-12 (6.81 rating) 2010-11 (4.58 rating) 2009-10 (9.24 rating) 2008-09 (8.43 rating) 2007-08 (8.61 rating)

Key Stat: Backstrom had at least a point in 31 of the 48 games this season; of those 31 games, only seven times did he pick up a point when Alex Ovechkin did not (four of which came in the first half of the year).

Interesting Stat: Backstrom's four-assist night on April 2 against Carolina marked the seventh time in his career that he had four assists in one game (and the first time since November 2010). Only Ryan Getzlaf and Sidney Crosby have even come close to matching that feat since Backstrom's rookie campaign in 2007-08, with Getzlaf picking up at least four assists five times and Crosby doing so four times over that same span.

The Good: Looking at Backstrom's 2013, a few things stand out. He led the team in points and Individual Points Percentage at five-on-five, despite a mix of linemates (more on that in a moment), and once again led the team in assists, and he was one of two Caps forwards (Troy Brouwer being the other) who skated more than a minute-and-a-half per game on each special teams unit (and racked up many of his forward-leading blocked shot total while on the kill).

Drilling down a bit, the story of Backstrom's season becomes clearer. On March 12, Nicklas Backstrom started the game the way he had started most of the previous 24 - on the second line, having ceded his spot alongside usual running-mate Alex Ovechkin to Mike Ribeiro. Down by 2 in the second period, however, rookie coach Adam Oates made the pivotal decision to reunite his two young stars for the rest of the game. The Caps went on to lose 4-0 to Carolina, but the reunion stuck, and that game at almost exactly the halfway mark of the season would prove to be something of a turning point for the Caps.

It's pretty safe to say that a big reason for the team's resurgence - and for the resurgence of their captain - after that game and down the stretch was the decision to bring 8 and 19 back together, as the two of them helped drive the team to yet another Southeast Division title. From mid-March on there were few in the League as hot as Backstrom, who put up 27 points (and 6 of his 8 goals) in the campaign's final 24 games, including a nine-game, fourteen-point streak from the end of March to mid-April. And somewhere along the way he appeared in his 400th career game, picked up his 300th career assist and his 400th career point.

Seems like just yesterday he was that baby-faced pivot drafted by Alex Ovechkin, doesn't it? Sunrise, sunset...

The Bad: For the team, the 2013 season can really be broken down into two distinct seasons; for Backstrom it's more like three, as he started slow, heated up as the regular season ended then went ice cold in the playoffs.

There's a lot of "chicken or the egg" about the year for Backstrom, as well - it's hard to pin down exactly what aspects of his game (both good and bad) can be tied to the performance of the team in general or his linemates specifically. Did the team start slow because he did or was the team's slow start the reason for his slow start? Were his overall numbers down early on because his linemates weren't as good as usual or were his linemates unable to produce because Backstrom wasn't helping them to do so?

Whatever the reason, the first half of the year was one to forget for the Swedish center. Never exactly a sniper in a good year, the three goals Backstrom managed to score through 24 games was low even for him (although he did put up points throughout, with 18 helpers along the way). And while some of the underlying numbers - particularly defensively - showed that he wasn't quite as bad as he looked, it wasn't the Backstrom we were used to seeing. On top of all of that, there was still some concern that perhaps the injury suffered in the final weeks of his KHL tour of duty was having some lingering effects.

The cure for all of that, of course, seemed to be (among other things) returning to his spot alongside Alex Ovechkin, as the two of them wreaked havoc on the League down the stretch... that is until the playoffs and the New York Rangers came a-calling. While the top line started the first-round series strong, and while Backstrom did finish the seven-game run with the second-highest point total (3) on the team, the offensive force he'd been in the second half of the season was neutralized by both the Rangers and his own sudden inability to finish... and three points (one goal) in seven games is nothing to write home about. And when you've got $16 million and change on your top line and the trio can't notch a single even-strength point over the last four games of a series, something's not working.

The Vote: Rate Backstrom below on a scale of 1-10 (10 being the best) based on his performance relative to his potential and your expectations for the season - if he had the best year you could have imagined him having, give him a 10; if he more or less played as you expected he would, give him a 5 or a 6; if he had the worst year you could have imagined him having, give him a 1.

The Discussion: After two shortened seasons and some injury troubles of late, are you concerned about Backstrom's ability to produce the way he has in the past or do you chalk this up to a run of bad luck? Would you keep Backstrom with Ovechkin next year because of the chemistry or would the fact that the top line was shut down in the playoffs make you consider splitting them up again? How much does the decision to re-sign (or not re-sign) Mike Ribeiro this summer play into that? Provided he stays healthy and plays close to a full season next year, what kind of numbers do you see Backstrom putting up? And finally, what would it take for him to earn a '10' from you next season?

Tuesday Caps Clips

2013-05-21T10:37:00Z

Your savory breakfast links:

On the plus side, the Caps aren't losers. On the minus side, they're chokers... [WaPo]
... with no shortage of recent disappointments. [DSP]
Maybe they should work on managing expectations. [SI]
George McPhee won't tailor his roster to the Caps' new division (which is good, since that would be foolish)... [WashTimes]
... but it may be time for him to get bold(er). [NBC4]
Wojtek Wolski is headed to the KHL to the surprise of no one who has seen him burn through five NHL teams since February 2010. [WaPo, CSNW, DCEx, WashTimes, PHT]
Looking back at 2013 for John Carlson... [Peerless]
... and his most frequent partner, John Erskine. [Peerless]
What's Matt Hendricks worth to the Caps? Quick, everyone write! [WaPo, DCEx, WashTimes]
Related: Hendricks is very leader-y. [CSNW]
Brooks Laich threw out the first pitch ahead of last night's Orioles' game. No word on whether he quickly corrected anyone who called it a strike with, "Actually, it was a lockout." [RMNB]
Turning the tables a bit, what the Caps could learn from an O's legend. [Caps Outsider]
That's one heck of a road trip, Braden Holtby. [RMNB]
Speaking of, tales of father-son hockey road trips always coincide with increased dust in here... yep, there's some in my eye now. [Dump 'n Chase]
Alex Ovechkins throughout history. [FanPost]
He's Evgeny Kuznetsov. We're Vladimir. GMGM is Estragon. And... scene. [CSNW]
Finally, wishing a happy 34th birthday to Graham Mink, and a happy 65th birthday to Bill Mikkelson.

2013 Rink Wrap: Karl Alzner

2013-05-20T15:00:08Z

Japers' Rink Player Card (click for hi-res version, a glossary of terms used in this post can be found here; data via Behind the Net, Hockey Analysis, CapGeek and NHL.com; h/t Habs EOTP):

Alzner and his most frequent defensive partners:

2013 Capitals 5v5 Defenseman Usage, via Hockey Abstract:

Alzner's Past Five Seasons (via Hockey Analysis):

Previous Rink Wraps: 2011-12 (8.29 rating) 2010-11 (7.81 rating) 2009-10 (5.79 rating) 2008-09 (6.59 rating)

Key Stat: Skated 156:08 in the playoffs (including 52:41 against Rick Nash at even strength) and was only on the ice for two Rangers goals - single five-on-five tallies in Games 4 and 7 to go along with 22:55 of spotless penalty-killing.

Interesting Stat: Registered five shots on goal in a game for the first time in his career in his 282nd game (regular season and playoffs)... and then did it again a dozen games later in Game 7 against New York.

The Good: It's difficult, sometimes, to write about the thing that Karl Alzner does well because the things that Karl Alzner does well don't usually lend themselves to narratives. He plays big minutes, he plays tough minutes (as the usage chart above details) and he handles them, regardless of his partner (primarily Mike Green in 2013 after a couple of years of being virtually inseparable from John Carlson). And he always shows up for work.

Like many of his teammates, Alzner rebounded from a rough start to the season (more on that in a minute) to salvage a pretty decent campaign. He blocked a lot of shots (somewhat contrary to orders, and in part because the Caps struggled with puck possession) and continued to defend effectively and cleanly - Alzner was one of 15 NHL defensemen this season to play more than 1000 minutes and rack up fewer than 15 penalty minutes.

And while it's a far-too-small-for-our-liking sample, Alzner was superb in the playoffs (as noted above), shutting down Ranger big guns, excelling on the penalty kill and helping to tilt the ice at five-on-five - his individual Shots-, Fenwick- and Corsi-For percentages all led the entire team.

The Bad: Karl Alzner is a thinker and, at times, an overthinker. That certainly seemed to be the case early on in 2013, as he and his teammates adjusted to a(nother) new coach, and he'd be the first to tell you so... repeatedly. Eventually, things started coming more naturally, but that start... yikes. In the first ten games of the season, Alzner was on the ice for 17 goals against (nine of which came on the power play). He hit another rough spot (20 goals-against in 14 games) for three weeks in March, and those two stretches - 24 games, half the season - accounted for more than two-thirds of the goals for which he was on the ice during the regular season.

And you'd like to see a bit more from Alzner at even-strength, but given the game he plays, he's very much at the mercy of his teammates for stats both traditional and advanced. Oh, and Twitter lost a true superstar when Alzner hung up his thumbs during the lockout.

The Vote: Rate Alzner below on a scale of 1-10 (10 being the best) based on his performance relative to his potential and your expectations for the season - if he had the best year you could have imagined him having, give him a 10; if he more or less played as you expected he would, give him a 5 or a 6; if he had the worst year you could have imagined him having, give him a 1.

The Discussion: Alzner is a restricted free agent this summer - what's he worth in dollars and term? Is he a legitimate top-pairing defenseman on a team that aspires to be a contender? What would it take for you to give him a "10" next year?

More on Alzner's season: Peerless: Karl Alzner, By The Tens

Japers' Rink - All Posts

2013 Rink Wrap: Troy Brouwer

How do you rate Troy Brouwer's 2013 season?

Thursday Caps Clips

2013 Rink Wrap: Jay Beagle

How do you rate Jay Beagle's 2013 season?

Wednesday Caps Clips

On the Nature of Caps-Related Vitriol

2013 Rink Wrap: Nicklas Backstrom

How do you rate Nicklas Backstrom's 2013 season?

Tuesday Caps Clips

2013 Rink Wrap: Karl Alzner

How the Separation of Alzner and Carlson Strengthened the D Corps

How do you rate Karl Alzner's 2013 season?