Conventional wisdom around the blogosphere was that the Capitals’ offseason needs included a second-line center and shutdown defenseman. So tonight it was a bit of a shock when it was announced that the Caps acquired rugged right wing D.J. King from the St. Louis Blues in exchange for prospect Stefan Della Rovere.
Yeah: WTF!?!
It’s a curious move, one that comes in response to coincidentally coincides with Max Talbot calling Alex Ovechkin a “real douche”.
It’s been reported that King recently signed a 2-year extension prior to the trade, so you have to wonder what GMGM’s plans are for the 4th line tough guy. Here’s our two guesses: send him down to Hershey, or use him as a healthy scratch almost every night.
Like most enforcers, his boxcar stats are – sparse. In fact, King only has 4 more NHL goals than I do and it took him 101 more NHL games to do it. Though his fighting skills are a bit more developed than mine:
DJ King is being brought to the Caps for one purpose: to punch an opposing player so hard that no one will even think about calling hitting one of their teammates a douche.
There are other “skills” DJ King brings to the table, like his amazing -4.45 GF/GA differential. Or his -7.7 Relative CORSI when he is on the ice.
With a whopping 67.6% of the time starting in the offensive zone, he managed to end there only 56.1 % of the time, so clearly he helps move the puck in the wrong direction.
Finally, there is his Penalty differential of -1.1, meaning he takes twice as many penalties as he draws and in hockey there is a clear positive correlation between penalty taking and losing.
Bah. Who am I fooling? He was brought here to kick ass. The real questions to ponder are:
- Realistically, how often will he get a Caps sweater?
- Whose spot does he take in the lineup?
- (And yes, this question again.) Do the Caps really need an enforcer?
Let us know in the comments.
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