Washington Post’s Katie Carrera observed,

After his first fight in Washington, it’s hard to imagine many teams will want to take many liberties against the Capitals this season when King has dressed for a game.

This is the good-as-gospel rationale about enforcers we keep hearing: by virtue of having one on the roster, our guys won’t get smacked around quite so much. At the risk of echoing  a lovely piece by Stephen Pepper on Japers’ Rink last year, I just don’t see it.

Think about it rationally. Much like Warren G and Nate Dogg, an enforcer must regulate. In order to regulate, however, there must be something- someone- to regulate. That means someone on the other team must be acting naughty- getting up in Sasha’s grill, snowing Varlamov, or calling Jeff Schultz unkind names. That’s when, with 16 in the clip and one in the hole, D.J. King hops over the boards and makes some bodies turn cold.

But that’s just a reaction. In this story, Ovechkin’s noggin has already merged with the dashers, and there’s already a Mike Green-shaped stain on the glass. King’s only job at that point is retribution. King having suited up didn’t stop that from happening, but at least he’s here to spill a pint of the other guy’s blood.

The argument of enforcer-as-deterrent is unfounded. Enforcers don’t dissuade the other team from thuggery, they perpetuate it. They escalate it. Because like Brashear before him, King’s paycheck is implicitly tied to the violence he can deliver. If the fight doesn’t come to him, he’ll go to it– sort of like he did with Thornton. Who’s the thug in that story?

D.J. King averaged just 5:29 on the ice during his time with the Blues.  Compared with the 09-10 Caps, he’d rank at the very bottom of ice time. And in addition to his admittedly awesome fighting prowess, King doesn’t really have the hallmarks of a well rounded player.  He’s not like my hero, Chris Simon. King isn’t going to lead the team in goals like Simon did in 99-00, he’s just going to lead the team in penalty minutes (like Simon also did 99-00).

Maybe I’m just being grumpy. Please tell me if I am. I just didn’t see the D.J. King-sized hole on the Caps roster. And maybe D.J. will do something terrific in the coming months that will put me as deep in the tank for him as I am for Matt Bradley†. But was the team’s chemistry really beckoning for a pugilist? And does having that pugilist now do anything substantive to improve the team’s chances?

Here’s how you answer those questions: name a game that Caps would have won last year if D.J. King was on the team then.

Couldn’t think of any? Me neither. Get off my lawn.

† Here’s our latest bet:  Matt Bradley will have more GWGs than total goals this season. I took the affirmative, Ian took the negative. Winner owes loser an order of pub fries.

Conventional wisdom around the blogosphere was that the Capitals’ offseason needs included a second-line center and shutdown defenseman. So tonight it was a bit of a shock when it was announced that the Caps acquired rugged right wing D.J. King from the St. Louis Blues in exchange for prospect Stefan Della Rovere.

Yeah: WTF!?!

It’s a curious move, one that comes in response to coincidentally coincides with Max Talbot calling Alex Ovechkin a “real douche”.

It’s been reported that King recently signed a 2-year extension prior to the trade, so you have to wonder what GMGM’s plans are for the 4th line tough guy. Here’s our two guesses: send him down to Hershey, or use him as a healthy scratch almost every night.

Like most enforcers, his boxcar stats are – sparse. In fact, King only has 4 more NHL goals than I do and it took him 101 more NHL games to do it. Though his fighting skills are a bit more developed than mine:

DJ King is being brought to the Caps for one purpose: to punch an opposing player so hard that no one will even think about calling hitting one of their teammates a douche.

There are other “skills” DJ King brings to the table, like his amazing -4.45 GF/GA differential. Or his -7.7 Relative CORSI when he is on the ice.

With a whopping 67.6% of the time starting in the offensive zone, he managed to end there only 56.1 % of the time, so clearly he helps move the puck in the wrong direction.

Finally, there is his Penalty differential of -1.1, meaning he takes twice as many penalties as he draws and in hockey there is a clear positive correlation between penalty taking and losing.

Bah. Who am I fooling? He was brought here to kick ass. The real questions to ponder are:

1. Realistically, how often will he get a Caps sweater?
2. Whose spot does he take in the lineup?
3. (And yes, this question again.) Do the Caps really need an enforcer?

Let us know in the comments.