Everyone knows that the Washington Capitals’ most valuable player is captain Alex Ovechkin. One could make a pretty solid argument for Nicklas Backstrom and Braden Holtby as well. However, who is their least valuable player? It is none other than left wing Jason Chimera.
It’s probably a good thing that there weren’t too many candidates for this award. One could make a solid argument for maybe Justin Peters, Michael Latta or possibly even Brooks Laich. However, Peters, as bad as he was, still at least served his purpose in letting Philip Grubauer develop in Hershey as the full-time starter. Latta was actually one of the Capitals’ best defensive forwards. Laich is a fairly easy target for Caps fans’ hate, but he’s a respectable third liner. Jason Chimera is less valuable than those three players.
First of all, Jason Chimera does virtually nothing to help out on offense. While he was a surprising playoff producer for the Caps with seven points in 14 games, he didn’t help the Caps much at all during the regular season. He only had 19 points and 51 penalty minutes. Jason Chimera was expected to at least be somewhat productive during the regular season after a career year in 2013-2014 despite being coached by Adam Oates. That didn’t happen as Jason Chimera had his worst regular season since 2009-2010.
Secondly, Jason Chimera was awful compared to his teammates. He was worst among Washington Capitals forwards with a scoring chance for percentage of 47.1%. Virtually every other forward was a positive possession player under Barry Trotz. However, Jason Chimera had the worst Fenwick For percentage (46.8%) and worst Corsi For percentage (47.3%) among all Caps forwards.
Thirdly, Jason Chimera added nothing on the power play for the Caps. He was below average on the penalty kill as well. Even Laich and popular hate target Troy Brouwer were both stellar on the penalty kill for the Caps. Fourthly, he probably cost Eric Fehr some money in free agency by being that bad on the third line.
The worst part? Barry Trotz “trusts” Jason Chimera. If Tom Wilson or Andre Burakovsky did the things that Chimera did, they likely wouldn’t ever see the ice. However, Chimera gets away with ineffective play and stupid penalties by being that “veteran presence” that NHL head coaches seem to love for whatever reason.
However, is this all Jason Chimera’s fault? Maybe not. It’s not his fault that old age hit him hard and ruthlessly. May Chimera serve as a lesson to NHL teams: if you extend a player until he’s over 35 years old, be sure you’re right about their expiration date. Because that’s something that you really don’t want to be wrong about. The Caps probably thought that Chimera had one more semi-productive year left in him before old age hit him. Turns out they were a year off.
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