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NHL Free Agency 2018: Washington Capitals sign Madison Bowey

By Thomas G |
LAS VEGAS, NV - JUNE 07: Madison Bowey #22 of the Washington Capitals hoists the Stanley Cup after Game Five of the 2018 NHL Stanley Cup Final between the Washington Capitals and the Vegas Golden Knights at T-Mobile Arena on June 7, 2018 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Capitals defeated the Golden Knights 4-3 to win the Stanley Cup Final Series 4-1. (Photo by Dave Sandford/NHLI via Getty Images)
LAS VEGAS, NV - JUNE 07: Madison Bowey #22 of the Washington Capitals hoists the Stanley Cup after Game Five of the 2018 NHL Stanley Cup Final between the Washington Capitals and the Vegas Golden Knights at T-Mobile Arena on June 7, 2018 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Capitals defeated the Golden Knights 4-3 to win the Stanley Cup Final Series 4-1. (Photo by Dave Sandford/NHLI via Getty Images)

On Thursday, the Washington Capitals re-signed defenseman Madison Bowey to a two-year contract worth $1 million per year

The Washington Capitals have had a pretty busy summer. Not only did they win their first Stanley Cup, they’ve been busy re-signing players. On Thursday, defenseman Madison Bowey agreed to a two-year contract with the Capitals.

This deal has a cap hit of $1 million per season and is worth $2 million over two seasons. In his rookie season, Bowey finished with a total of 12 points in 51 games. Each of those points were assists, as he has yet to score his first NHL goal.

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The Capitals selected Bowey with the 53rd overall pick at the 2013 draft. For his junior career, he played five seasons with the Kelowna Rockets of the WHL, where he recorded an impressive 172 points in 259 games.

Bowey played with the Capitals AHL affiliate Hershey Bears for just over two full seasons before being called up to the NHL. In the AHL, he maintained his impressive offensive production with 51 points in 113 AHL games.

Despite not appearing in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, he will still get to see his name on the Stanley Cup, as he played enough games (51) in the regular season. Though his rookie season didn’t go as planned, he may come to be an important part of the Capitals’ defense in the future.

Additional Bowey Analysis

Unfortunately, Bowey’s advanced stats are not looking so great. In fact, they are quite abysmal. For a Stanley Cup winning team, the Capitals have a surprising amount of players with ugly advanced stats.

Bowey had a Corsi for percentage of 44.8 percent, and a relative corsi of -3.9 percent. This is quite painful to look at. His fenwick is even worse, at 43.7 percent. He was never able to form an effective third pairing with Brooks Orpik. Bowey did, however, look much better while playing alongside Dmitry Orlov while Matt Niskanen was injured early in the season.

Additionally, Bowey is clearly not an offensive defenseman, at least in the NHL. The only way he can fix up his possession stats, is to play a more consistent game on either end of the ice. Clearly, he still has a lot of things to clean up in his game. But hopefully having a more consistent partner on the third pairing should help him, whether that be Christian Djoos or someone else.

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Conclusion

Bowey didn’t look NHL ready in 2017-18. However, with a contract worth $2 million, it would seem that management thinks otherwise. Hopefully, he’ll be able to learn something from the Stanley Cup champions around him. Bowey is still young and had a number of factors out of his control that negatively impacted his performance. He also didn’t play in any games after the acquisition of Michal Kempny.

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