Christmas is upon us once again, and Santa Claus is making a list and checking it twice. Unfortunately, quite a few Caps players will find themselves on Santa’s bad side when the sun rises on December 25.
The Naughty List:
1) Alex Semin
With just 15 points and 40 (!) penalty minutes through 30 games this season, Bad Sasha has reared his fluffy-haired head yet again. It sure is fun to know that $6.7 million is a fair price for a so-called “goal scorer” who is only on pace for 19 goals.
2) Jeff Schultz
When he isn’t busy committing horrific turnovers, he isn’t doing much of anything else. He’s an offensive non-entity (as if he’d ever be anything more than that) and his +50 season seems like a very, very distant memory. Roman Hamrlik is probably worse than Schultz, but I hold number 55 to a higher standard because a) he’s 12 years younger than Hamrlik, and b) we’ve seen him play better.
3) Alex Ovechkin
Alex the Average has just 24 points this season and is in a 46th place tie in the goal scoring race, sharing space on the leader board with offensive juggernauts like Jannik Hansen and Tuomo Ruutu. I don’t know what’s wrong with him, but something needs to change. He really came to life against Nashville after Coach Hunter separated the Mega Powers duo of Ovechkin and Backstrom; perhaps the captain still has a few tricks up his sleeve.
4) Michael Neuvirth and Tomas Vokoun
So far, DC’s very own Czech mates have combined for a 2.95 GAA, a 0.8995 save percentage, and 2 shutouts. These numbers aren’t completely terrible, but they are simply not good enough. Both of them are guilty of giving up some awfully soft goals, and if we make the playoffs, our goaltending must improve dramatically.
