And the Caps are starting Djoos/Orpik/Kempny for a lot of minutes.

youre saying this like its a bad thing. r/hockey is straight trash at evaluating defensemen. i blame EA games.

Djoos is a very creative young offensive D who plays years ahead of his age. he plays like hes 30 but hes only like 24. he doesnt make many mistakes and the times he gets beat is because hes outsized. he jumped Madison Bowey on the development chart and has pretty much never been benched by Trotz save for once or twice in the beginning. hes earned his spot and kept it at a very young age.

Kempny has been crucial for the Caps. they picked him up for like a late/mid round pick and he helped completely stabilize their holes on defense. honestly the GM doesnt get enough credit for that deadline deal. it was a necessity to get him because Alzner walked for nothing and their rookies werent developing as needed. Kempny has been huge down the stretch.

im not going to bother defending Orpik because ive done it many many many times and it never sticks. people want to believe the circlejerk about him and refuse to acknowledge that he brings a particular type of defense the roster needs. hes vital to the team, whether reddit wants to believe it or not.

Caps defense ended the year a lot better than where it started. if you want to look for things the Pens needed to exploit its not the defensive corp.