I'm not sure about the effectiveness of Washington's "soft reset." They aren't winning another Cup with Ovechkin. Aside from possibly Leonard, they don't have a Backstrom/Kuzenzkov/Carlsson calibre player, nevermind an Ovechkin. Strome is a good 2nd line C but he's not a star 1C. PLD sucks or isn't a star. A few of their younger (i.e. under 30) players including Chychrun and Thompson are pending UFAs. They'll need new contracts. Washington won one Cup and that's with Ovehckin, who regardless of what you think of him, was drafted #1 overall and one of the two best players to of his generation (his contemporaries won Cup(s)).
I'm not sure what the Penguins are doing. They aren't even making moves like the Benning Canucks where they attempt to aquire younger core players while drafting high.
I think the Caps moves in the off-season were mainly to secure Ovy's goal scoring record without giving up high quality picks. He needed 41 goals to tie Wayne. He had a horrid start to 23/24 season and was pacing for 20 goals before picking it up in the second half. Wanted to make sure he had a good enough team to replicate the 31 goals or better this season so that he would need about 10-12 to break/tie the record in 25/26.
Insane start for him of 15 goals in 18 games, so only needs 26 to tie. 26 in 62 games or so would be a 33 or so pac for the rest of the season had he not gotten hurt. So, now to get those 26 goals he'd have under 50 games left, so just over 0.5 goals per game pace needed.
Dubas arrvied in June 2023. Made the EK move for a final PO runs for Crosby and co. But, they just don't have enough supporting cast. Sid at $8.7 and Geno and Letang in the low $6's is like $21 mill, and adding in EK at $10 mill. These 4 account for $31 mill of their $88 mill cap. They just wanted filled out the remaining $57 mill well.
Looking at the Guentzal deal, they went for prospects that were 19-21 years of age over taking draft picks.
After spending 2/3 of his icetime in 20 games with at least one of Draisaitl/McDavid, Podkolzin finally scored a goal
Kidding.
