For those of you that haven’t been able to stop by the Joel Ward Bobblehead redemption table yet, you haven’t seen that the next three Inova Blood Drive dates have already been set and confirmed. This year there will be a drive in the beginning of December, the end of January, the middle of April, and sometime in July. This means, hopefully, that there will be four new bobbleheads coming our way. Thus begins the speculations of who do you think it will be?
So far the blood drive bobbleheads given out of current Caps players are Brooks Laich, Karl Alzner, John Carlson, Braden Holtby, Jay Beagle, Nicklas Backstrom, and Ward. Clearly, after we saw Inova giveaway a Backstrom bobblehead at one of their drives, just because a bobblehead was given away at a game or in a Kids Club package doesn’t mean they won’t make one of that player themselves.
So let’s go down the list and see everybody who, in our eyes, is eligible for an Inova bobblehead. Starting from the top forward line all the way down to the backup goaltender, we have Alex Ovechkin, Eric Fehr, Marcus Johansson, Andre Burakovsky, Troy Brouwer, Jason Chimera, Liam O’Brien, Evgeny Kuznetsov, Michael Latta, Chris Brown, Brooks Orpik, Matt Niskanen, Mike Green, Jack Hillen, Dmitry Orlov, Nate Schmidt, and finally Justin Peters.
Looking at that list, there are plenty of names we could cross off for various reasons. Ovechkin, Brouwer, Green and Chimera have already been made into bobbleheads before so hopefully Inova doesn’t pull a Nicklas Backstrom on us again. Names like O’Brien, Latta, Brown, Hillen, and Schmidt could go because once injuries shake out I don’t see them up here much longer. Finally Inova tends to go for players that have played for the Caps in previous years first, or at least in the system, so I wouldn’t expect to see Orpik, Niskanen, or Peters to be given away at any upcoming drives.
This leaves us with Fehr, Johansson, Burakovsky, Kuznetsov, and Orlov. Five bobbleheads and four blood drives. Now my initial guesses are that Inova would have Fehr, Johansson, and Orlov so that leaves us with Burakovsky and Kuznetsov fighting for that last spot. But wait theirs more! What if Johansson flops and ends up getting dealt early one? Then you would have your four bobbleheads in Fehr, Orlov, Bura, and Kuzya. But what if Bura was only a preseason star and gets sent down to Hershey? Then were down to three.
Overall my guesses are that Fehr, Dima, Mojo, and Kuzya are most deserving of bobbleheads but then again Inova could surprise us and not do any of the players listed in this article (*cough* Joe Beninati and Craig Laughlin *cough*). But with for more drives added to your Caps season that bring our bobblehead totals to six so far! Nine if you include the Dane Byers Hershey bobble and the “Shep” Rose and Patrick Gaul Stingrays bobbles. So this gives us all something to look forward to as we rock the red and spill the pint!
Here you can sign up for each blood drive:
- December 6th, 2014
- January 31st, 2015
- April 18th, 2015
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