Say Hello, Waive Goodbye

   

  For the second time in less than a year the Capitals waived DJ King. This time he asked for it to happen, in the hopes of getting some ice time somewhere. No one bit so once again it looked as if he was the team's invisible extra man, the assumed odd man out every game day. When Joe B didn't even name him as a healthy scratch on Saturday, I knew things were bad and sure enough, on Sunday it was announced that DJ would be sent down to Hershey. I read sighs of relief from other places, as if he were some dead weight on the team that had no value, when in truth he was traded for- giving up who I thought was an impressive minor leaguer in Stefan Della Rovere (10 goals and 10 assists, 147 PIM for Peoria over the last two years, and no points and 11 penalty minutes in 7 games for St Louis). GMGM thought he had some value, but BB, despite trying to give off this air of badassery, never liked him, so he was screwed.

  I don't get it. People loved Matt Bradley (more on that another post) and love Matt Hendricks. They cheer when Ovie takes someone down, but out and out fighting is bad? We have the only superstar who doesn't get vicinity calls in his favor and we don't need someone to take down the douches? Is Semin taking up all the PIMs?

  So in prep for this rant, I looked up DJ's stats again on NHL.com . I don't know anything about youth hockey. I don't know if everyone scores because the goalies are still learning. It's a concept beyond my American understanding, but the first line of 30 goals and 28 assists at age 15 impressed me. As I went down the list, I saw a guy who was an asset when given regular playing time. Somewhere around 2006-2007, which coincided with his first NHL run, the games played/PIM ratio jumped. Someone somewhere thought he was a pure enforcer. I don't know if he'll ever prove me wrong, but I disagree.

   A one-dimensional badass wouldn't hustle so hard in practice every day with a smile on his face, and his Twitter avatar certainly wouldn't be him fishing in a Snoopy t-shirt. He might have looked like Bambi out on the ice in actual games, but in BB's ADD style I don't know who could look smooth with more time in the press box than on the ice. This guy is awesome, and I don't think seventeen games in two years is anywhere near enough time to give him up as a lost cause. I hope he shows Hershey he's meant for this and makes Boudreau look like even more of a fool. There's a game tonight. We'll see what happens.