For the second offseason in a row, Caps defenseman Tom Poti is facing question marks. Last year he was hit near the right eye with a puck during a Game 6 playoff loss at Montreal. It took weeks for his vision to fully recover – a scary time for the 34-year-old veteran, who began wearing a half visor in training camp. He also had an allergic reaction to the prescription eye drops he was given by doctors and an eye infection lingered well into last summer. Eventually he recovered.
But now Poti faces another serious situation. He didn’t play a game after Jan. 12 thanks to a recurring groin injury. Four separate times this season Poti tried to return only to leave in the middle of a game with a setback. He would rehab for a few weeks, practice, return to the lineup and then suffer a setback. Poti saw one specialist after another yet never healed properly. But, according to general manager George McPhee, surgery was not recommended by a single doctor or expert Poti consulted.
“You always want to go the conservative route. You don’t want to be invasive,” McPhee said. “You don’t want to open somebody up. They thought that it might turn just through rehab and everything else and it didn’t. And I think his career’s on the line, and it’s too bad. It’s a real concern. He could get to 80 or 90 percent but couldn’t get past a certain threshold.”
That’s a shocking assessment. Remember, Poti signed a two-year, $5.75 million contract extension on Sept. 21. He was a key part of the puck-moving blueline McPhee hoped to put together. It might not be the most rugged group around, but a unit that includes a healthy Poti, John Carlson, Mike Green and Dennis Wideman – all under contract next season – will be difficult for opposing forwards to pin in the offensive zone.
“It’s hard, certainly, on him and it was hard on the club because we kept thinking ‘Well another week, another two weeks, we might have him back,’” McPhee said. “It’s often easier if a guy gets that injury and you know he’s out for the rest of the year. Then you can plan. But we couldn’t plan in this case.”
Instead, Washington made a trade deadline deal for Wideman – and just in time because Green had just gone down with his second head injury on Feb. 25. Then Wideman (right leg hematoma) was hurt March 29 and never returned. The Caps would like to have that group together in 2011-12. For now that’s up in the air. Poti has a little more than four months to prepare for training camp, but his offseason training regimen will certainly be affected.
“We’re going to do our exit medicals now and then we’ll address Tom’s situation and decide whether we can count on him for next year or not,” McPhee said.
Those are ominous words. If Poti can’t go by the start of the season he would be put on long-term injured reserve and not count against the salary cap. But Washington has enough room there to address its offseason needs, McPhee said. They’d rather have a healthy, effective Poti, who in 2009-10 ranked third among Caps defensemen in fewest goals against per 60 minutes on ice (1.66). And Poti played far more minutes (21:24 per game) and games (70) than No. 2 John Erskine (15:58 per game, 50) in that category. Meanwhile, no one else was even close to Poti’s short-handed time on ice (3:36) that season. He played :58 more than Jeff Schultz (2:38), the next closest when down a man. Age and injury have conspired to make Poti a forgotten man in some quarters. But as a back-end defenseman next season? You could do far worse – if he’s healthy. That’s the big question now.
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