What Does Brenden Dillon Bring To The Washington Capitals

The Capitals defense has struggled for a lot of this season.

Most of their defensemen have been iffy in their own end. For a long time now there has been the thought that they will add a player to the back-end. That thought is now a fact, Brenden Dillon is now a part of the Washington Capitals.

On Tuesday afternoon the Capitals acquired the defenseman from the San Jose Sharks for a second round pick in 2020 and a third round pick in 2021. What does he bring? How can he help this struggling D corps? We’ll just tell you a couple of things here to help you understand what Dillon will bring the D.C.

Dillon is 29-years-old and is on an expiring contract. This is a rental, plain and simple. His current contract has him at a $3.270 cap hit and the Caps are only on the books for 1.635 of that thanks to San Jose retaining 50% of his salary in the deal. Dillon is a very good defenseman. He is not going to be very cheap next off-season . Unless he comes in and blows the doors off the place and the Caps make room for him this is a fairly short-term add.

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Still, it could be a big add. Dillon is a very good defenseman. He was possibly lost in the big names that San Jose has on its blueline. Guys like Erik Karlsson, Brent Burns and Marc-Edouard Vlasic. All-stars, Olympians and Norris Trophy winners.

When San Jose acquired Erik Karlsson it was assumed one of the best offensive defensemen ever would play with one of the leagues best defensive defensmen of today in Vlasic. For whatever reason, it didn’t work that season. Karlsson struggled when he got to San Jose and didn’t click with Vlasic much.

Karlsson started to play much better in SJ when he got paired with Dillon. It was after that when the Sharks started to play much better as a team and eventually made it to the western conference final. Bottom line here, Dillon isn’t just a low pairing guy used to playing with bottom pairing guys. He can play with the big boys and excel in doing so.

He brings size and physicality. Dillon is now the Capitals biggest defenseman. He is 6’4, 225lbs according to NHL.com. The biggest Caps defenseman before getting Dillon was John Carlson at 6’3, 217lbs.

Dillon will use that size. Dillon had the most hits on the Sharks and by a pretty wide margin. He totaled 178 hits with San Jose, the next highest was Barlcay Goodrow and Timo Meier, both have 132 hits. Dillon has the second highest hits total on the Capitals already behind only Tom Wilson’s 214. Garnet Hathaway slips to third with his 160 hits.

Dillon won’t go running around to get hits however. He’s solid in his own zone and uses his big frame to dole out the punishment responsibly in his own zone.

But he’s not just a big guy who can’t skate. In recent seasons he has improved his skating tremendously. When the Sharks traded for him in 2014 you could probably say he was an average skater, maybe above average. Dillon was one of the guys who was maybe outmatched in the 2016 Stanley Cup Final against the Pittsburgh Penguins who could fly.

After that Final he came out and said he needed to get better at skating, and he did. Dillon now has the speed to be able to skate out of trouble, but also join to rush if he sees the opportunity. Still, you can’t expect too much offense coming from the new guy.

So far this season Dillon has just one goal and 14 points in the 59 games he’s played. His career high in goals is 6 which he scored in 2013-14 with the Dallas Stars and his career high in points is 22 which he has scored in each of the past two seasons. There is some offense there, but not a ton. But this move is about defense, not offense.

He was a big part of the league best penalty kill. The Sharks 85.9% penalty kill is the number one ranked PK and Dillon played about 119 minutes on the kill this season. That was fourth most on the Sharks.

Dillon wasn’t a big turnover guy this season for the Sharks. His 22 giveaways was the fourth most on the Sharks blue line. Right now, he would be the best on the Capitals defense among the regular six defensemen. Carlson has 70 giveaways, Orlov has 52, Jensen has 40, Gudas has 34, Kempny has 33 and Siegenthaler has 30.

Still, the Capitals breakout style can encourage giveaways. Long passes are obviously a lot harder to complete and send the rush the other way, so we’ll see how quickly Dillon can adjust to the Capitals play and if it fits his style.

This is also a guy who was loved by his teammates in San Jose and would stand up for them if necessary. Dillon has 83 penalty minutes so far this season and if a fight was needed, or somebody needed to be made responsible for a “dirty” hit it was a pretty good chance it was Brenden Dillon there for his team.

To me, this is a great move by the Capitals. The Caps need a steady guy on the back-end and they got possibly the best guy on the market. A great guy by player standards but also great guy by human and teammate standards.

Welcome to D.C. Brenden Dillon, I’m sure Capitals fans will love you.