Speculation: Acq./Rost. Bldg./Cap/Lines etc. Part LXXXIV -- The Doggiest Days (Woof!) 2017

[Devil Dancer]

If anyone has issues with this conversation we can move it to the OT thread, btw...

Eh, anything's better than the luck v. the magic "it"/clutch argument.

 

[hockeykicker]

Also , gmbm answers every question concerning everything that has been said here

https://www.washingtonpost.com/amph...3af5c0-715d-11e7-8839-ec48ec4cae25_story.html

 

[hockeykicker]

Wait. What does that leave us with on defense?

“I really like Lucas Johansen, and whether it’s now or six months from now or a year from now, I think he’s going to be a factor,†MacLellan said. “Christian Djoos got 58 points at the American League level last year. I guess the knock on him is size (6-feet, 162 pounds), but I don’t think Schmidt (6-1, 194 pounds) is a big guy.â€

Johansen is the Caps’ first-round pick in 2016, and he doesn’t turn 20 till November. Djoos, 22, excelled for Hershey, the team’s top affiliate. MacLellan went down a list: Madison Bowey, Jonas Siegenthaler, Tyler Lewington — they’re all defensemen, and he believes they’ll all play, and soon.

Okay, fine. So Schmidt — who averaged 15-1/2 minutes a night, was benched when Shattenkirk arrived in a midseason trade and wasn’t in the lineup to start the playoffs — is gone. But good lord you traded Marcus Johansson — who scored the series-clinching goal against Toronto — for two measly draft picks.

“We had tested the market out,†MacLellan said, “and we had a sense of what teams were willing to pay.â€

Uh, Mac. If you were gonna dump Johansson, why not do it before the expansion draft, because then you could have protected the three-time Norris Trophy winner speedy Schmidt?

But MacLellan not only argues that he couldn’t trade Johansson before he knew whether he could retain unrestricted free agent Oshie and restricted free agents Kuznetsov and Dmitry Orlov, but that the size of those contracts, driven by the market, would dictate whether they had to deal Johansson at all.

“Depending on how much money we spend there, they’re going to affect how much money we need to get rid of,†MacLellan said. “You have certain levers that you can push as far as the trade route, and we had laid out the options. If we need this much money [in salary-cap space], we’ll trade Johansson. If we need this much, we’ll trade these two guys.â€

Fine, fine. But Oshie’s contract, man, it’s so long. At the end of eight years (for $46 million), he’ll be 39. Couldn’t we have signed 35-year-old Justin Williams for two years, like Carolina did?

“The decision becomes: Do we want Oshie or not?†MacLellan said. “I don’t know what the stink is. Oshie, he’s a big part of our culture. He drives the team. We felt it was necessary. People like Williams at 36, but they don’t like Oshie at 36?â€

Plus, MacLellan argues, the salary cap will be up in five or six years. “It better be, or the league’s in trouble,†he said. So that means Oshie’s $5.75 million annual cap hit will be less of a problem going forward, not more of it.

Among others, said he was worried about a kuznetsov offer sheet

 

[twabby]

Those are some pretty unsatisfactory answers. And I'm laughing at the idea of an offer sheet.

 

[Alexander the Gr8]

How does any of this justify the Johansson trade? He had to clear more than $4M in order to keep Oshie and Kuznetsov. He knew prior to the expansion draft what the salary cap would be for next year. Let's be generous and say Kuznetsov and Oshie collectively asked for $2M more than what GMBM was anticipating. That still leaves us with $2.5M of cap space to be cleared just to fit them in.

Conclusion: He would've had to trade Johansson no matter what. We could still have Schmidt or Johansson, but that would require him having the balls to actually buy out Orpik.

The Caps had the worst off-season of all the NHL teams and there's no justification for such poor asset management.

 

[g00n]

Pretty much expected. They didn't just flat out blunder the draft. They got squeezed by the FA prices.

 

[Hivemind]

First off, a positive note. $4M for Robin Lehner makes Grubauer's deal look like a complete steal.



Now, for that article. Woah boy, where to start.

Fundamentally, MacLellan basically confirmed many of our fears. He confirmed that they didn't have a good idea of which UFAs they were keeping at what price before the expansion draft. Regardless of where the salary cap ends up, they should have had a pretty solid ballpark on what the agents were looking for from their clients and how it would impact their cap structure. It should not have been a surprise to find out whether or not they could keep Oshie or Orlov or Kuznetsov. They've been able to talk to their agents for several months at that point, and the team had been eliminated from the playoffs for nearly two months. MacLellan lost more assets than he had to because he didn't have a concrete idea of what his own players were going to cost in reality.

Next, downplaying assets that provided quality play at the NHL (Schmidt) in order to upsell prospects (Johansen, Djoos). It's the Family Guy "mystery box" argument. Sure, maybe Djoos or Johansen turn into useful LDs in the NHL, but Schmidt was already one of those. They're hoping that those guys are what they already gave up. Also, just writing off a 30lb difference between Schmidt and Djoos is downright laughable.

Third, he's completely ignoring the term of Oshie's contract. Age is a huge factor, but it's not the only factor. It's a lot easier to swallow the risk of a 36 year old Williams because that risk will only be on the books for 2 years. If Oshie ages poorly, his contract is on the books for two more Presidential elections. Simply making the comparison between liking Williams at 36 and liking Oshie at 36 is a cop out that ignores half the argument against the Oshie contract. Let alone the fact that Oshie will be 39 when his contract actually expires.



I'd honestly be a lot more comfortable if GMBM came out and told us that this off-season didn't go according to plan. That he had other ideas, but they didn't work out because of X, Y, or Z. Explain to us what wrenches threw them off course, and why they didn't see them coming. That he acknowledges and shares our discomforts about some of the transactions, and is looking at ways to remedy these issues in the future. Instead he doubled down, and that scares me.

 

[g00n]

Meh. I'm fine with the youth movement. He lost a few picks over the years but there are guys waiting for a chance. It's not like we're a Cup dynasty that has so much to lose if they make a tiny mistake. Probably flame out in the playoffs regardless of the roster if they don't get over their choking mentality anyway.

 

[Hivemind]

If the impetus behind this was a youth movement, losing 26 year old Schmidt while keeping 36 year old Orpik makes no sense. Nor does trading 26 year old Johansson to keep 30 year old Oshie until age 39. This isn't a youth movement, this is a cap crunch. They're turning to prospects because they have no other choice. They made themselves cap compliant by ditching younger players in their prime.

 

[g00n]

If the impetus behind this was a youth movement, losing 26 year old Schmidt while keeping 36 year old Orpik makes no sense. Nor does trading 26 year old Johansson to keep 30 year old Oshie until age 39. This isn't a youth movement, this is a cap crunch. They're turning to prospects because they have no other choice. They made themselves cap compliant by ditching younger players in their prime.

They've said they value Orpik in the locker room. Remember all those years we had crap defensemen and then some young talent like Green but nobody to really mentor them? Same complaint if we go with nothing but kids. That said I would be fine trading him for cap space anyway.

And I said I'm fine with a youth movement. I don't care if they fell backward into it or planned it. We knew change was coming this summer, and this is it.

 

[Hivemind]

You don't need to pay $5.5M for veteran mentors.

But my general point is I don't really consider it a youth movement when half of their moves have been offloading younger players. The only aging veteran they let go was Williams. And they've done so while keeping large chunks of the payroll carved out for players north of 30.

 

[Revelation]

They should've picked if they're either gonna keep going all in while Ovechkin and Backstrom are still producing or if they're gonna do a heavy rebuild. All in makes more sense since they don't have the draft assets to beat out rebuilding teams for a while.

In that case pony up the prospects to get rid of Orpik and keep Schmidt and Johansson (if this is his market value), get an underrated cheap D like Schlemko for depth. Maybe do a cheeky move like replacing Orlov with Methot and trading Orlov+ for Duchene and Johansen+ for Drouin or something like that.

Ovechkin Kuznetsov Wilson
Burakovsky Backstrom Oshie
Johansson Duchene Drouin
Stephenson Beagle Barber (just pking spare parts since each of those lines can play 18 minutes a game)

Schmidt Carlson
Methot Niskanen
Djoos Schlemko

Holtby
league min backup

I'm sure it works cap wise. Probably no prospects or picks til 2019 but who cares. Go all in on steroids then when Ovechkin's contract expires firesale everything and rebuild on steroids

 

[Hivemind]

That roster is not even remotely close to being cap compliant...

 

[twabby]

That's not to mention Trotz is not the coach to lead a youth movement IMO. It reeks of a lack of preparation from not knowing where his RFAs were going to come in at (which should be close to known quantities) and not understanding Vegas's appetite for goalies in the expansion draft and the resulting market around the league.

 

[Langway]

The article further makes it seem there were no trade talks with Vegas until Vegas circled around and had the protection lists in. That along with the last minute FA decisions and continued Orpik adherence are massive red flags re: MacLellan's competence. I find it interesting there was an alternate smaller cap dump scenario (Gruabuer+Beagle?) but, again, the entire off-season comes across as needlessly rushed and last minute. Was it a wise plan given the other unique complications the off-season presented? Is it a practice he'd change going forward? Did the exclusive focus on winning put off bigger picture questions that likely should have been made regardless of outcome? This also goes back to there being zero word of extension talks with Carlson and that player looming as the next potential asset either lost for nothing or signed at the last minute at no discount.

They need to get bogged down less by the minutiae of numbers, admittedly an important element, and be more chiefly concerned with the team they're building and the values they're adhering to. Instead, they seem to cynically try to stuff as much of what they deem as good stuff into the product from year-to-year and believe that's mostly all there is to it. How they conduct themselves and improve doesn't seem too relevant and they still haven't tackled anything big picture. If you spend to the cap and have five 30+yo players making over $5M you damn well better be good. Those players aren't getting better--even if an Ovechkin rebound will be essential--and it's a reality they need to think more about. They have defensive depth on the way but the quality of their forward depth is pretty bad outside of two players (one of which could walk).

Carolina and Philadelphia should be much better. New Jersey could be as well if Hischier is ready to produce and their style helps compensate for a weak blueline. I hope they sweat next season and maybe we learn more about what they're truly made of. Mostly I'd guess it only leads to Trotz relying on Convention to the detriment of development until he's out. However it plays out I'm not looking forward to it. I'll watch some measuring stick games and check the stats but I don't know how they sell this team. MacLellan doesn't seem to know either.

 

[Ridley Simon]

How does any of this justify the Johansson trade? He had to clear more than $4M in order to keep Oshie and Kuznetsov. He knew prior to the expansion draft what the salary cap would be for next year. Let's be generous and say Kuznetsov and Oshie collectively asked for $2M more than what GMBM was anticipating. That still leaves us with $2.5M of cap space to be cleared just to fit them in.

Conclusion: He would've had to trade Johansson no matter what. We could still have Schmidt or Johansson, but that would require him having the balls to actually buy out Orpik.

The Caps had the worst off-season of all the NHL teams and there's no justification for such poor asset management.

For the gaziilionth time:

Can we wait and see what Schmidt signs for in Vegas, and how he does without all their talent around him? And perhaps see what his replacement actually does before everyone commits Hari-Kari over this decision?

Good Lord. Of course the a Caps were going to have a hard off-season. There is a salary cap. We all knew it. Fak me. Last years team would have like a 95m cap hit this season once everyone signs with their respective news teams.

And far as the team next season.... People just love to draw conclusions before they merit out.

 

[Ridley Simon]

It's Monday!!

Let's all take turns playing quarterback!!!

 

[CapitalsCupReality]

Those are some pretty unsatisfactory answers. And I'm laughing at the idea of an offer sheet.

He basically just pissed on your guy Schmidt and you were expecting satisfaction? Lol...

Lots of stuff going on behind the scenes that none of us are privy to. I'm at least moderately satisfied even if I don't love the answers.

 

[CapitalsCupReality]

How does any of this justify the Johansson trade? He had to clear more than $4M in order to keep Oshie and Kuznetsov. He knew prior to the expansion draft what the salary cap would be for next year. Let's be generous and say Kuznetsov and Oshie collectively asked for $2M more than what GMBM was anticipating. That still leaves us with $2.5M of cap space to be cleared just to fit them in.

Conclusion: He would've had to trade Johansson no matter what. We could still have Schmidt or Johansson, but that would require him having the balls to actually buy out Orpik.

The Caps had the worst off-season of all the NHL teams and there's no justification for such poor asset management.

Feels like his response about having a good idea of his value means he already knew what he would get for Mojo and it didn't matter on timing, probably because the rest of the league knew they were in a bind no matter what and were lowballing him.

Buying Orpik isn't about balls it's about good vs bad business and it's a bad business decision to buy him out before this coming season. Add to it they love his leadership and it's pretty much a no brainer to keep him at least going into next season.

 

[CapitalsCupReality]

The article further makes it seem there were no trade talks with Vegas until Vegas circled around and had the protection lists in. That along with the last minute FA decisions and continued Orpik adherence are massive red flags re: MacLellan's competence. I find it interesting there was an alternate smaller cap dump scenario (Gruabuer+Beagle?) but, again, the entire off-season comes across as needlessly rushed and last minute. Was it a wise plan given the other unique complications the off-season presented? Is it a practice he'd change going forward? Did the exclusive focus on winning put off bigger picture questions that likely should have been made regardless of outcome? This also goes back to there being zero word of extension talks with Carlson and that player looming as the next potential asset either lost for nothing or signed at the last minute at no discount.

They need to get bogged down less by the minutiae of numbers, admittedly an important element, and be more chiefly concerned with the team they're building and the values they're adhering to. Instead, they seem to cynically try to stuff as much of what they deem as good stuff into the product from year-to-year and believe that's mostly all there is to it. How they conduct themselves and improve doesn't seem too relevant and they still haven't tackled anything big picture. If you spend to the cap and have five 30+yo players making over $5M you damn well better be good. Those players aren't getting better--even if an Ovechkin rebound will be essential--and it's a reality they need to think more about. They have defensive depth on the way but the quality of their forward depth is pretty bad outside of two players (one of which could walk).

Carolina and Philadelphia should be much better. New Jersey could be as well if Hischier is ready to produce and their style helps compensate for a weak blueline. I hope they sweat next season and maybe we learn more about what they're truly made of. Mostly I'd guess it only leads to Trotz relying on Convention to the detriment of development until he's out. However it plays out I'm not looking forward to it. I'll watch some measuring stick games and check the stats but I don't know how they sell this team. MacLellan doesn't seem to know either.

Do we know there are open lines of communication? Maybe GMGM left hoisting them all the middle finger on his way out and they knew any discussions would be near pointless? Completely speculative but I'm not sure that article confirms a whole lot beyond the surface of these decisions.

On Oshie(not directed at you) I think everyone needs to suck it up and realize Management/Ownership loves him and feels like he was worth the long term deal because he's checking a lot of boxes for a model player today, except maybe age.

 

[Alexander the Gr8]

For the gaziilionth time:

Can we wait and see what Schmidt signs for in Vegas, and how he does without all their talent around him? And perhaps see what his replacement actually does before everyone commits Hari-Kari over this decision?

Good Lord. Of course the a Caps were going to have a hard off-season. There is a salary cap. We all knew it. Fak me. Last years team would have like a 95m cap hit this season once everyone signs with their respective news teams.

And far as the team next season.... People just love to draw conclusions before they merit out.

I don't care what Schmidt does for Vegas, we knew what he was worth here. One could argue he was our best D in the series against the Penguins. His replacement was going to be part of our system no matter what. We need two NHL ready Ds from our system to replace Schmidt and Alzner. Do you have faith in the management preparing two NHL Ds from our prospect pool immediately?

We were expecting to have a hard off-season but not this hard. Alzner, Williams and Shattenkirk were out for sure, we knew that. I expected us to lose either Schmidt or Grubauer, but I didn't think that signing our FAs was really going to be at the cost of Johansson too.

Feels like his response about having a good idea of his value means he already knew what he would get for Mojo and it didn't matter on timing, probably because the rest of the league knew they were in a bind no matter what and were lowballing him.

Buying Orpik isn't about balls it's about good vs bad business and it's a bad business decision to buy him out before this coming season. Add to it they love his leadership and it's pretty much a no brainer to keep him at least going into next season.

The rest of the league knew we were in cap hell but I don't believe for one second that a 2nd and a 3rd would've been the best offer on the table prior to the expansion draft. It's like he just called Shero on the phone and made a deal in 5 minutes before even consulting other GMs around the league.

Good business would've been never signing Orpik in the first place. His "leadership" led us to three straight 2nd round exits despite by far the top team in regular season points since he came here. Trotz is doing everything he can to diminish Orpik's role and now we're forced to start the season with Orpik back into the top 4.

It's like GMBM said: "We'll sign Kuznetsov, Oshie and Orlov and make sacrifices on every other part of our roster."

Maybe he didn't have a plan at all and got caught off guard.

 

[Revelation]

At least he used my patented Oshie ages into Williams argument for giving Oshie that 8 year deal.

 

[CapitalsCupReality]

I thought myself that there were probably better offers. What if they were from Toronto or Philly or NYR or the (gods help us) the Pens? You make those deals? Just saying that kind of scenario could have been in play if there were better offers. I'm as big of a Mojo supporter as anyone but I don't think he's all that well thought of league-wide by other GM's. Hell most of our own fans wanted him gone for years now.

Schmidt is wildly overrated by some here. Good little player, will be missed but hardly irreplaceable.

Convenient to start laying blame at Orpik's feet for team failures and call it good business. The people in charge love him. They love Oshie and they're apparently OK overpaying for those types. All we can do is accept it or go watch another team.

 

[Alexander the Gr8]

I thought myself that there were probably better offers. What if they were from Toronto or Philly or NYR or the (gods help us) the Pens? You make those deals? Just saying that kind of scenario could have been in play if there were better offers. I'm as big of a Mojo supporter as anyone but I don't think he's all that well thought of league-wide by other GM's. Hell most of our own fans wanted him gone for years now.

There's 15 teams out west, and they have more cap space on average than the eastern teams.

 

[CapitalsCupReality]

There's 15 teams out west, and they have more cap space on average than the eastern teams.

That doesn't mean a single one made a serious offer if at all.