The hero of January 1st (Photo: Dave Sandford)
The name of the Washington Capitals’ primary, um, uh, secondary scoring threat is Troy Brouwer, and for the second year in a row Brouw cracked twenty goals and forty points.
So, why the heck would anyone ever be down on Troy?
Maybe scoring three goals in the last 33 games, one since April, and none in the playoffs has something to do with it.
By the Numbers
| 82 | Games played |
| 17:31 | Average time on ice per game |
| 21 | Goals |
| 22 | Assists |
| 51.3% | Shot attempt percentage during 5v5 |
| 54.8% | Goal percentage during 5v5 |
Brouwer’s on-ice shot-attempt percentage in 10-game running segments, according to War on Ice
The Brouwer Rangers’ Take
I asked Nathan to write his analysis. Instead, he gave me… this…
Friends, Caps fans, comment trolls, lend us your ears;
We come to bury Brouwer’s season, not to praise it.
The nets that men miss live after them;
The goals are oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Brouwer. The noble Peter
Hath told you Brouwer was a passenger:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Brouwer answer’d it.
Here, under leave of Peter and the rest—
For Peter is an honorable man;
So are they all, all honorable men—
Come we to speak in Brouwer’s season’s funeral.
He was our liege, faithful and just to us:
But Peter says he was a passenger;
And Peter is an honorable man.
He hath deliver’d twenty and one goals
Whose ransoms did the scoresheets fill:
Did this in Brouwer act as passenger?
When ‘neath the winter sun, Brouwer hath clutch’d:
Passengers should be made of softer stuff:
Yet Peter says he was a passenger;
And Peter is an honorable man.
You all did see ‘fore the season’s birth
He raised up funds for Fort Dupont
And chilled Ian’s brow: was this a passenger?
Yet Peter says he was a passenger;
And, sure, he is an honorable man.
We speak not to disprove what Peter spoke,
But here we are to speak what we do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause:
What cause withholds you then, to love him still?
O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason. Bear with us;
Ours hearts are in the coffin there with Brouwer’s season,
And we must pause till it come back to us.
Brouw on RMNB
- We must start with the Winter Classic, which Brouwer won because he’s a god.
- Brouwer was just as pissed as we were about the no-scoring in the playoffs thing. I joked about him never scoring again, but he played very well in games at the end of the Isles series and especially in games 4 and 6 in the Rangers series. Sometimes it just doesn’t happen.
- Troy as best-guy-to-be-a-fan-of, a multi-part story:
- Pull quote of the season, about Alex Ovechkin: “The one thing I would love the hockey world to know about Alex is that has the worst style ever.”
- Troy played a stunning game in late March, scoring two goals and recording an assist— all in one period– to basically single-handedly bring the Caps out of a three-goal hole. Hence, the doofuses dancing above.
- For a while, the power play was a well-oiled machine, and Brouwer’s dynamism in the crease was the lubricated piston in its engine. See the example below, wherein the Ovi Shot from the Ovi Spot couldn’t happen, but Brouwer made it work anyway.
- Brouwer has something in common with Evgeny Kuznetsov: they’re both amazing players in the offensive zone– provided you can get them there. Check out this keep-in. Check out his super goal in his 500th game. Weeee!
- And remember when Brouwer broke Jimmy Howard?
Your Turn
First, how great was the Winter Classic?
Second, Troy Brouwer has one year remaining on his contract. With the introduction of new top-six talent like Burakovsky, Kuznetsov, and (supposedly) Wilson, plus the general manager straight-up saying he’s looking for a new top-line right wing, what exactly is Brouwer’s role on the Washington Capitals next season?
Read more: Japers Rink
