DC Pro Sports Wrap (Caps and Wizards)

No Redskins? What??? That’s because we cover them separately in our Smoke Signals, so chill out. Nats will be covered in a separate article.

Washington Capitals

Corey Masisak writes on Dave Steckel and how Steckel was to become more offensive for the Capitals. Steckel is the Caps strong face off guy and plays the penalty kill well, but is not looked at as a big scorer. Steckel would like that to change. Steckel’s task gets more complicated simply because of the health of the Washington Capitals.

Despite being a regular last season, Steckel isn’t necessarily assured a place among the team’s top 12 forwards when the season begins Oct. 9 in Atlanta. With Nicklas Backstrom, Sergei Fedorov and Michael Nylander on the roster, Steckel will be no higher than fourth on the depth chart at center.

Barring injury, there appear to be four players (Steckel, Boyd Gordon, Donald Brashear and Matt Bradley) vying for three spots on the fourth line, and that doesn’t factor in Eric Fehr or a player such as Chris Bourque making a push.

Two prospects who put together impressive training camps and pre-season were cut. Mathieu Perreault and 2008 first rounder John Carlson were axed form the roster, as expected. Carlson will spend his season in the OHL playing for London. Of course, we will cover these prospects wherever they are. Perreault meanwhile will be in the AHL with the Caps affiliate Hershey Bears. Both are considered prospects who are close and could land with the Caps soon.

Hershey Bears hockey blog recognizes the log jam in DC and the salary cap realities and how it may effect the Bears roster.

Washington Wizards

Seems like Dominic McGuire is making an impact in the Washington Wizards camp. As to what the Wizards are looking for from McGuire …

Defense and rebounding will still be McGuire’s calling card but if he can become a consistent offensive threat as well, Jordan will be able to take some of the load off of Butler, who ranked fourth in the league in minutes played (39.9 per game) last season but missed 24 games because of an assortment of injuries.

Another thing clear coming from the Washington Wizards training camp, Antawn Jamison is taking a big leadership role as team captain and requiring accountability from the younger Wizards.

We know what it takes to be serious about our jobs and when it’s time to joke. But I think our young fellas, we had to baby-sit a little too much last year. When I come back to that bench, don’t be laughing about the last play. Tell me what’s going on. Help your teammates. … I welcome them bringing laughter into the locker room, but on this practice court and during games, it’s time to be serious.”

Focused. Intense. These guys better be prepared to play hard and play serious because Jamison will be watching, carefully.

“My message to Andray is: ‘You want to be treated like a veteran, you’re ready for the task, well you need to show it.’” Jamison said. “We need him to be consistent. … We need Andray this year more than we need anybody. We need him to bring energy night in and night out. And I’m not talking about four out of five games. Every night. There’s no reason Andray shouldn’t be averaging 14, 15 points game.”

Jamison is simply telling it like it is. If the Wizards want to take that next step, that next step goes beyond Gilbert Arenas, Jamison, and Caron Butler.

Meanwhile, talking about frustration, Gilbert Arenas is taking his frustration out from his knee injury and channeling it to helping the younger Wizards progress and grow.

On Saturday, the $111 million man tried to mask his frustration over the third surgery on his left knee in 1 1/2 years by working with the team’s young players as they opened their training camp at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Etan Thomas is probably one of the most eager for the start of the season. Thomas returns tot he Wizards after missing all of last season because of a leaky aortic valve that was repaired via open heart surgery. Thomas was given the clean bill of health in June and has been steadily growing stronger and working out harder since.

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