Photo: Geoff Burke
Over the offseason, Brooks Orpik signed what many thought to be the worst contract of free agency– a five-year, $27 million deal that ends when he’s approximately 84. After months of kind of bummer analysis (even from us), the former Penguin jumped on the ice tonight for the first time as a Capital and he was noticeable– in a lot of different ways.
First, let’s see the hits because you guys want to see the hits.
In 23:06 of ice time, Orpik delivered six punishing body-checks, tied with Alex Ovechkin for most in the game.
“He commanded the spotlight with his physical game,” CSN Washington’s Joe Beninati said. Beninati and Craig Laughlin awarded Orpik The Palm for player of the game.
Brooks Orpik gets The Palm. pic.twitter.com/JWjqOAPvbQ
— Ian Oland (@ianoland) October 10, 2014
Orpik was also the Capitals’ second-worst defender in shot differential, though his team still managed 57.1 percent of the shot attempts during 5v5. And Orpik did that despite taking just 25 percent of his face-offs in the offensive zone, the most defensively deployed player in the lineup. Impressive.
Peter took a neutral approach to Orpik in his recap:
I’m not gonna turn every game into a trial on the Orpik contract though; that would be tedious. And those hits were pretty nice for what they were.
And hitting is what he was brought here to do.
Personally, I loved Orpik’s effort and I loved how he stuck up for his teammates. He didn’t get scored on, and the people cheered. I’d call his first night a success.
