Caps defenseman Karl Alzner was hoping against hope that he would be able to make the current three-game road trip with the big club. Stuck at AHL Hershey much of the year, the Burnaby, British Columbia native was recalled just hours after Michael Nylander – and his $4.875 million cap hit – was loaned to Grand Rapids. One man goes down to the minors, another comes up. Caps coach Bruce Boudreau said the two moves were not necessarily related and that his team had an extra roster spot without Nylander and needed Alzner with the team – especially over the weekend when they have back-to-back games at Vancouver and Edmonton. Remember when Keith Aucoin was recalled at the last minute last week? He had to be driven to the Philadelphia airport by Hershey radio play-by-play man John Walton and then flew to Buffalo to join the Caps. Yeah, well – that’s not happening with the team on the far edge of the continent. So Alzner gets a chance. It seems like it will be for good. But if it is the Caps certainly aren’t sharing that with one of their prized prospects.
“They haven’t told me anything. I wouldn’t expect them to tell me,” Alzner said. “I know that I’m on this trip, which is all I’ve been looking forward to the last couple weeks.”
Burnaby is about 10 miles from downtown Vancouver. Alzner is one of several western Canada natives on the team. Shaone Morrisonn is also from Vancouver while fellow defensemen Mike Green, Jeff Schultz and Tyler Sloan are all from Calgary. Forward Brendan Morrison is from the Vancouver area as well and was a longtime member of the Vancouver Canucks.
With Nylander’s salary off the roster “It’s my fault [now],” Alzner said about getting sent back to Hershey. “That’s kind of the way I like it – to have everything in my hands so that I can control it a little bit more. If that’s what they want then hopefully I can just keep playing the way I play and hope make an impact and help out as much as I can – as much as they’ll let me.”
The team also recalled center Kyle Wilson and he likely makes his NHL debut Tuesday night at Colorado. And he’ll do it while celebrating his 25th birthday. The 6-foot-1, 201-pounder has scored at least 25 goals in each of his first three pro seasons. He has nine goals and nine assists so far for Hershey this season in 28 games. Center Mathieu Perreault has hit a wall in recent weeks and the 21-year-old was sent back to Hershey. In 18 games with the Caps he had two goals and five assists.
“We just thought [Perreault] was slipping a bit. He’s a young guy that got one point in his last nine games,” Boudreau said. “And he wasn’t bringing the energy that he could bring. He got down to playing eight minutes a game and when you’re 21 years old we want you to play a lot. We’ve been getting really good reviews from Kyle down there. So we just thought this would be a good time to make a quick switch.”
