Since he arrived from the Florida Panthers in a trade deadline deal last Feb. 28, Dennis Wideman has given the Capitals an added offensive dimension from the blueline. Seems like he’s been here a while already, doesn’t it? But Wideman has played just 24 games with Washington thanks in large part to that gruesome thigh injury last March 29 against Carolina – the team the Caps face tonight in Raleigh.
Wideman has four goals and 13 assists in those 24 games. Extend that to an 82-game season and you’d have yourself a defenseman with a 14-goal, 45-assist campaign. To be honest, even by expanding the sample size those numbers – 14/45/59 – are a stretch. Wideman’s topped 40 points just once in his career [50 with Boston in 2008-09] and there have been just six 59-point seasons from defensemen the last two years combined. Certainly don’t think I’m putting my already meager life savings on Wideman burning the NHL for 25 goals and 57 assists, which is his actual pace so far in 2011-12. In 10 games he has three goals and seven assists. The guy’s been durable with at least 75 regular-season games played each of the last five. But let’s not get crazy.
Still, it does bring up an interesting point: Is Wideman really that good at getting shots through traffic, especially on the power play? Well, if you go to the bank for money and the bakery for bread and the net for goaIs…guess if you want an articulate opinion you should just go to Brooks Laich.
“It actually reminds me a lot of when I was younger – Wade Redden was the same way. It wasn’t always the hardest shot, but it was always [thigh] high where it could be defected, where it could go in the net,” Laich said, comparing Wideman’s shot to a defenseman he saw up close as young player in Ottawa. In his prime, Redden was a mortal lock for between 35 and 50 points. He did it eight years in a row with some powerhouse Senators teams.
Laich continued: “And it’s a really underrated ability, an underrated talent. And that’s why [Wideman’s] got probably five or six points just by getting the puck through and on the net. You can score some goals like that. It doesn’t have to be the hardest shot, but a very accurate one is very tough to stop.”
Interesting. On the surface that’s one of Wideman’s obvious skills. And while the Caps have been a shot-producing machine in the recent past, getting attempts blocked was a huge issue in the 2010 playoff series against Montreal [41 in Game7? Is that even possible?].
Last year, the Caps averaged 31.3 shots on goal/game, dropping to 12th overall in the NHL. But thanks to that injury we didn’t get to see if Wideman’s alleged talent for getting shots through traffic holds up in the tighter structure of the playoffs. He pumped 65 shots on goal in 30 playoff games with the Bruins. Just as a comparison, Mike Green has 89 shots on goal in 36 career playoff games with virtually identical ice time in the postseason (about 25 minutes/game for both).
So far this season Wideman has 18 shots on goal with 12 attempts blocked and 11 misses. His shooting percentage is 16.7 percent. Considering his best season ever was 7.7 percent that’s pretty much the definition of unsustainable. And Wideman himself isn’t counting on this stretch of good fortune lasting all year. But, for now, he’ll take it.
“No, I still get shots blocked,” Wideman said. “Things seem to be going well right now. There’s probably going to be times that I get everything blocked. Sometimes you take a shot and it finds its way through and gets on net. Other times you think you have a wide open lane and someone else just throws a shaft out…and it hits. It can be just the way things are going sometimes.”
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