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Will the Caps Move Jeff Schultz Before the Deadline?

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by Kevin Klein

A/P

Before going any further, let your reading be with the understanding that all that follows is speculation, and is based upon personal observation and statistics wrangled from various corners of these here Internets.

Alright, straight to the point: will the Washington Capitals move Jeff Schultz on or before the April 3rd trade deadline?

Yes. They should, anyway.

That’s right, the Caps should trade away the defenseman that they took two picks before one Mike Green in the 2004 NHL Entry Draft.

It’s crowded back on the Capitals’ blue line these days, whatwith the sudden health of Dmitry Orlov and Mike Green. So crowded, in fact, that there’s no room for Schultz’s considerable bulk on the bench anymore. Indeed, since Green and Orlov have returned to the lineup, Schultz has spent gamedays in a suit, watching his teammates from the box above.

So what does that say about Jeff Schultz’s present role on this team?

Well, let’s start by looking at Steve Oleksy. Oleksy is the same age as Schultz, six inches shorter, and with nearly 400 games less NHL experience, yet he’s getting a sweater where Schultz is not. And not only is Oleksy getting the sweater, he’s been trusted with substantially more ice time than Schultz, and substantially stiffer competition to boot.

But Oleksy isn’t the only unlikely usurper of Schultz. Tomas Kundratek, who’s presently injured, has also been granted more time on ice, and more offensively efficient opponents. So, it’s safe to say Schultz is at the bottom of the totem pole, even with Kundratek and Erskine out.

Schultz has never really found his niche on this team. He thrived under Boudreau in 2009-2010, but as that season was an extreme outlier in nearly every aspect of the game, I’ll refrain from giving credence to the belief that Schultz was truly playing to his potential during that campaign.

Dale Hunter and his defensive coach of choice, Jim Johnson, saw potential in Schultz, but eventually grew frustrated with the same thing that’s driven Caps’ fans up their living room walls for years: despite a six foot six, two-hundred twenty pound frame, Schultz is a gentle giant. He doesn’t utilize his bulk, or seemingly his reach, and his tentative approach to the game has landed him stints in the pressbox under three different coaches in three consecutive years, making Schultz himself very much the common denominator.

So, with a completely extinguished role on the Capitals, and the trust that had been put in Schultz now vested in other players like Kundratek and Oleksy, who have far less upside than what was once seen in Schultz, it’s tough to imagine Double Nickel in the Caps plans going forward.

So trade him. At 27 years old, he’s got plenty of hockey left, but it’s becoming exceedingly clear that Washington isn’t the place for Schultz to thrive, and there’s gotta be a team out there whose eyes light up at the prospect of a huge, young, stay at home D-man, who shouldn’t come at much of a price.

Because unless you move him, those bags of popcorn he’s munching in the pressbox night in and night out are gonna cost you $3million/year, which doesn’t sound like a very happy thing to me.

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