There are the penalties Brooks Orpik can live with, the ones where the Washington Capitals defenseman is being physical or preventing scoring chances. Then there are the penalties that irk him, the stick infractions that keep Washington’s high-skilled players such as Alex Ovechkin and Evgeny Kuznetsov off the ice while the penalty kill team goes to work.
Orpik leads the team with 12 penalty infraction minutes for six minors. His average of 1 minute 30 seconds puta him on pace for 123; he had 66 last year. Orpik, 35, hasn’t had more than 70 penalty minutes since the 2008-09 season, so it’s unlikely that trend will change this year; after just eight games, it’s too small a sample size to accurately project Orpik’s penalty minutes.