The Capitals have acquired Michal Kempny from the Blackhawks for a third round pick which will be whichever is higher between the Capitals own pick and the one they got from the Leafs earlier.
Kempny is a left-shooting defenseman from the Czech Republic who can't even spell his own first name correctly. He is 27, in his second NHL season and has a cap hit of basically zero, which is the only kind of player the Capitals can acquire (unless they ship our Orpik or Beagle, but good luck with that).
Kempny is a pending UFA.
He has one goal and six assists in 31 games, and a solid CF% of 53% but one that is also positive relative to his team. It looks like he's the kind of player who is cheap and can keep the puck moving in the right direction, and so this looks like a solid move for the Capitals.
Although, it must be said that it makes no sense why they'd pay an asset for Kempny when the superior Cody Franson was available for free and right shooting.
The Capitals top four is pretty sweet. Niskanen and Orlov are a great pairing, as are Carlson and Djoos. (Although this isn't really all that consistent, as a lot of the time Carlson gets put with Orpik, and no one knows why). The bottom pairing is a mess, however.
Brooks Orpik, who is one of the worst players in the NHL, usually gets paired with Madison Bowey when Trotz doesn't have him (Orpik) with Carlson. Both Madison and Carlson do way better with anyone else, by the way.
It's unfair to write off Bowey, since his most common partner is Orpik and he is nearly at 50% possession without him, but at this point Kempny seems like a slight upgrade.
Kempny will likely get paired with Orpik and his stats will subsequently nosedive. The Capitals would have been way smarter to acquire Franson instead of Kempny, and play Franson in place of Orpik, which would in turn vastly improve Bowey.
(They could have paid a third round pick to Arizona to take the contract of Jay Beagle, which would have allowed them to fit Franson in and bench Orpik. Franson would play with Bowey and the team would be significantly better than it is today).
Instead, Bowey will unfairly get sent to the pressbox and Orpik will make this look like a wasted of a draft pick.
At least Kempny is a decent player, and can move up in a pinch, but I also wouldn't put it past Trotz to demote Djoos either, even though he's been fine.
So while I approve of picking up a halfway decent defenseman, the problem wasn't Madison Bowey in the first place. It was Orpik and this doesn't fix that.
stats from naturalstattrick.com