Next up on our Washington Capitals report card series is defenseman Dennis Cholowski who was picked up by the Caps off waivers before they put him back on waivers towards the end of the regular season. Ironically he came from the Seattle Kraken and it was the Kraken themselves who picked him right up off waivers.
He wasn’t inserted into the lineup until the Caps made their first ever visit to Seattle in November. He played in just seven games for the Capitals recording one assist. He had a plus minus of negative four with four blocks and two hits while averaging 19:43 minutes of ice time.
That lone assist came in Washington’s 5-2 win at the Winnipeg Jets on a goal from Conor Sheary. His advanced stats weren’t too good.
Cholowski’s Corsi For percentage came out to 40.83 percent, good for last on the team in the regular season. He also had an Expected Goals For percentage of 41.26 percent and a High Danger Chances For percentage of just 38.24 percent, via Natural Stat Trick.
The weird part for Chowloski which explained his lack of playing time was how well the Capitals were stacked on defense. But instead of sending him to the Hershey Bears they decided it would be best if he sat in the press box instead of getting game action even though it would’ve been at a different level.
The Seattle Kraken did send him to the AHL to get playing time with their affiliates the Charlotte Checkers where he had three goals and 15 assists for 18 points in 31 games. With the Kraken he had two assists in four games.
Grade D+: It’s really hard to grade a player’s performance if they’re not on the ice that often. It’s even harder to grade them if they only appeared for the team briefly before going back on waivers. But he did alright when he did play for the Caps.