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Let's get ugly! Why Mike Knuble is perfect for the Capitals
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The uniform might have changed, but Capitals fans want to see Knuble be just as annoying in front of the Penguins net. (Associated Press photo/Rusty Kennedy)
Mike Knuble might not be the highest profile free-agent, but he is exactly what the Washington Capitals need.
Sure Knuble isn’t the guy you’d look to be flashy. He isn’t going to take the puck behind his back and score goals while falling on his stomach, and while his shot is decent, no goalie is going to cower in fear after facing one of his slap-shots.
No Knuble is a dirt-dog. He’s one of those guys who makes his money 10 feet around the net, dive-bombing the goal and scrambling for positions on rebounds. When the Capitals release their montage of top ten goals next year, Knuble’s appearance might be null. In essence he’s everything the Capitals need.
In watching the playoff series against the Rangers and Penguins, I begrudgingly began to respect the guys like Max Talbot, and yes even the drama show known as Sean Avery. These guys were very good players in all aspects of the game, but they certainly weren’t afraid to muck it up for loose rebounds in front of the net and fly in on a collision course with Simeon Varlamov in the process.
In fact, looking back, one of the reason’s I believed Pittsburgh won was because even the ‘golden child,’ the player lambasted for being soft, Sidney Crosby mucked it up in front of the net. If you look at the series, I’m willing to bet that more than half of Crosby’s goal came off rebounds or from loose pucks directly in front of the Capitals crease.
On the other side, the Capitals in both playoff series seemed to have some invisible barrier against rushing on the crease of the opposing goaltenders, like a dog being kept in thanks to some high frequency noise that no one else could hear. Our goals were too pretty! Ovechkin with his blinding moves, Federov cutting left and sending a game-winning goal home on a shot that went above the shoulder of the opposing goaltender. All this was nice, but where were the ugly goals? Who was crashing the net?
It was far too polite an effort, and that’s why I think Knuble is perfect. With Knuble you have a guy who is great at cashing in front of the goal, and really knows how to create havoc.
Another thing that Knuble gives Washington is consistency. From the age of 29 in 2002, to last year with Philadelphia at 36, Knuble in scored 20 or more goals and posted 45 or more points. Unlike baseball, where we’ve seen players time and again have their best years in their late twenties and early thirties, a late bloomer like Knuble is quite rare, as prior to 2002 he had never scored more than 15 goals in a season.
Expect Knuble to not have any trouble reaching that 20 goal plateau again. With the loss of Victor Kozlov, General Manager George McPhee said that Knuble should see action with Alexander Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom on the top line.
In talking to the Washington Times, I absolutely love McPhee’s line of thinking in wanting him to play on that line. “Backstrom and Ovechkin are going to have the puck a lot, and we need someone to be around the net to do some of the dirty work. Mike's made his living there. He's done a real good job in that regard. He's been remarkably consistent in the number of games he's played and the number of goals he's scored in the past five or six years."
That’s dead accurate, and as long as Knuble can keep that level of play up, by the end of next season we might all be wondering who Victor Kozlov was.
Caps notes: The overall terms for Knuble were $5.6 million for two years.
For more info: It was a devastating goal by Knuble against the Capitals in overtime last year, but this play should show you just how good Knuble is in front of the net. Check out the video below.
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