Speculation: Caps General Discussion (Coaching/FAs/Cap/Lines etc) - 2021 Off-Season Pt. 2

[twabby]

The Caps were 4th in goals this year. 3rd last year. 5th the year before. 3rd cumulative since the Cup win. Goals are not their problem. Go back and watch the Cup run; the authority, crispness, and passion they played with. The compete level was off the charts. We didn't need 2 1Cs to win. Backstrom played half of it with a busted hand. It was the Ellers and the DSPs and Connellys and Stephensons and Burakovskys and Vranas that stepped up at key moments to keep us in it.

The big problems since then are way more about leadership (on and off the ice) and systems. We stopped evolving, the buy-in level is damn near nonexistent. What I'm seeing rewatching the 2018 playoffs is lightyears beyond where we are now. Injuries were huge this year, but otherwise what we're lacking is fire.

I was very clear to start my last post by saying that we should keep Kuznetsov if he can get his shit together and the team is up for it. But IF we CAN'T work it out, yes, we should consider realistic options. Your ideas about Marner, Pettersson, and Hertl are masturbatory fantasies. Guys like Danault and Krejci are actually available.

Of course they needed a true 1C to win it all. Without Evgeny Kuznetsov having the best stretch of his career the team is likely out after the first or second round again. Depth contributions help put a team over the top but without the best players making significant contributions the team isn’t even in a position to win.

Even this season the 4th line stepped up and had a very good series against the Bruins but the Capitals were beat in 5 because their star players were completely outmatched by Boston. Relying on depth contributions, leadership, and structure only gets you so far. The requisite top-end talent needs to be there and right now it isn’t. And with the Capitals’ best players getting even further away from their prime (and in Backstrom’s case battling a hip injury) I don’t see how they can be expected to be much better next season.

Regular season offensive numbers are great to cite but if they do not translate to postseason goal-scoring then maybe there’s something missing.

 

[Melkor]

Did you know that hockey hurts when played seriously? It can hurt a lot. The guys that play the hardest feel the most pain. It takes courage to do something you know is going to hurt. Blocking a shot can feel like getting hit in the leg with a hammer. Just the act of hustling as hard as you can for an entire game hurts. So on the one hand we have a bunch of players like Oshie and Wilson and Backstrom and Ov and Carlson and Eller playing thru all that daily hockey pain plus injury and on the other hand you have Kuzy barely cares. Kuzy doesn't battle in the corner til it hurts. He doesnt go to the net and get beat on. He is no longer on the ice for defensive situations anymore and often isnt even interested in giving his best effort at his best skills. You think that his teammates are ok with that?? I sure as hell wouldnt want to stick my hand in a meat grinder for a teammate that thinks its funny. Talk about a clown show.

Tf is this post? Do I know what hockey is? Why wouldn't you ask me what day is today while you're at it?

I have no idea and neither do you what his teammates think about him. He was never the kind of player to block shots or grind on the boards so I'm sorry but 90% of your post makes zero sense. It's all about his effort doing stuff he's good at. Quite honestly his teammates have no right pointing fingers at anybody while sucking this bad 2 years in a row. Top to bottom awful postseason showings by everybody. You wanna call somebody out? Better make sure you yourself don't look like a total trash. It's none of their business making a call on who's to get traded. If anything at least half of them are candidates to lose their spot here after that Boston series and the other half better look in the mirror first.

Kuznetsov needs to stay until they find a reasonable replacement, nothing less. Doesn't matter if it's through free agency, he's part of a package for such player, said player comes via separate trade or it's somebody from their system. You play him until his wheels come off or you shut him down for the season if you don't get who you want if not a single one of this scenarios works.

Drouin literally said through the agent he doesn't want to play for Tampa and they got the better player for him

 

[Marshall]

Evolving Hockey projects the Caps to lose Nic Jensen.

In related news, Caps management surprised; pleased.

Evolving-Hockey

 

[Langway]

Vincent Vaneck is another enticing option at goalie, so keep an eye out for him as a possible goalie selection.

 

[BiPolar Caps]

They're projecting Richard Panik from Detroit.

What does Yzerman have on the rest of the league?

 

[tenken00]

Evolving Hockey projects the Caps to lose Nic Jensen.

In related news, Caps management surprised; pleased.

Evolving-Hockey

Losing Jensen will hurt. Not many options at RD. Either in-house or outhouse.

Edit: Actually the RD market isn't as bad as I thought. But do we have the cap space?

 

[txpd]

So, the media has the Caps losing Oshie and Jensen. The Kraken board seems pretty unanimous that its Vanecek. So, given that it now cant be any of those, who might it be?

 

[Hivemind]

If the Caps are dumb and expose Jensen it will be Jensen.

If the Caps don’t expose Jensen, it will be Sprong.

If by some crazy bounce they expose neither Jensen nor Sprong, I imagine it would be either Sheary or Dillon.

 

[searle]

Personally I'm praying it's Dillon, if not Dillon then Schultz.

Think Jensen hurts us in a lot of quiet ways, Sprong is the kind of guy who could put the pieces together and be a weapon, and VV probably outperforms his contract next year - would rather we got to keep him, get him more exposure and trade him for assets if Sammy gets his head out his ass.

 

[895]

I get this is an unpopular opinion here but...



Oshie praises Kraken coach but wants to stay with Capitals: report

"I guess I've given thought to the possibility (of playing in Seattle), but my allegiance is here," Oshie said in May. "I've done, I feel like, as much as I can to prove that this is where I want to be. So I've got family out there, you know, that's great, but Washington (D.C.) is where I want to be. This is where I've bled and cried, everything here. And this is where I want to stay for the long term.
"People can speculate and they can make assumptions about what I want to do or what I would like, people bring up [becoming Seattle captain], that stuff's not that important to me. This is where I want to be with my buddies, with my family, my kids are growing up in schools here. This is where I love to play hockey."

Nowhere does he mention wanting to stay because of wanting to win. He wants to stay because this is where his friends and family are and because it's a nice place to live. We have a country club culture on this team.

That's fine if you just want to see Ovechkin chase Gretzky for the next few years before a full rebuild. But I want to see a second cup.

 

[txpd]

I see. "I want to stay because this is my home." is bad.

 

[Calicaps]

I get this is an unpopular opinion here but...



Oshie praises Kraken coach but wants to stay with Capitals: report



Nowhere does he mention wanting to stay because of wanting to win. He wants to stay because this is where his friends and family are and because it's a nice place to live. We have a country club culture on this team.

That's fine if you just want to see Ovechkin chase Gretzky for the next few years before a full rebuild. But I want to see a second cup.

That's really what you took from that? That it's a country club? You think hockey players don't care about quality of life for themselves and their family?

 

[Melkor]

If the Caps are not dumb they are not going to waste a protection on the kind of player Jensen is. Whatever you think he brings to the table make no mistake about it - there's a bunch of players of the same caliber or better every single year on the market.

 

[txpd]

That's really what you took from that? That it's a country club? You think hockey players don't care about quality of life for themselves and their family?

If maybe, you already thought it was a country club, then....

Leonsis makes a job with the Capitals as a sales assistant to general manager one of the best jobs in the league. I dont get why that would be bad either. So, the Caps are a destination team for NHL players because its a country club?

 

[tenken00]

If the Caps are not dumb they are not going to waste a protection on the kind of player Jensen is. Whatever you think he brings to the table make no mistake about it - there's a bunch of players of the same caliber or better every single year on the market.

The question is who do you protect out of Jensen, Dillon, or Schultz? It's not just a vacuum of protecting Jensen or not.

 

[Langway]

Nowhere does he mention wanting to stay because of wanting to win. He wants to stay because this is where his friends and family are and because it's a nice place to live. We have a country club culture on this team.

This is where I've bled and cried seems just fine to me. He's tight with the team and is fully prepared to live and die with them regardless. I don't think that's a country club mentality per se. The GM just mainly needs to do a better job of surrounding them if he's indeed keeping it largely intact.

 

[BiPolar Caps]

I get this is an unpopular opinion here but...



Oshie praises Kraken coach but wants to stay with Capitals: report



Nowhere does he mention wanting to stay because of wanting to win. He wants to stay because this is where his friends and family are and because it's a nice place to live. We have a country club culture on this team.

That's fine if you just want to see Ovechkin chase Gretzky for the next few years before a full rebuild. But I want to see a second cup.

Oshie's a professional and you can always expect him to say the right things, BUT he does have a connection to both the Seattle/Washington area as well as Dave Hakstol having played for him at North Dakota.

Hakstol recently noted "When I look at good teams, you always start with character," Hakstol said. "There's an aspect of ability and there's different levels to ability. There's the obvious on-ice portion and I'm a guy that believes work ethic is part of that ability piece. Work ethic is a skill." Seattle's Hakstol: "You Always Start With Character"

Oshie definitely has work ethic and character.

I could see Seattle reaching out to BMAC and inquiring.

 

[CapitalsCupReality]

Tf is this post? Do I know what hockey is? Why wouldn't you ask me what day is today while you're at it?

I have no idea and neither do you what his teammates think about him. He was never the kind of player to block shots or grind on the boards so I'm sorry but 90% of your post makes zero sense. It's all about his effort doing stuff he's good at. Quite honestly his teammates have no right pointing fingers at anybody while sucking this bad 2 years in a row. Top to bottom awful postseason showings by everybody. You wanna call somebody out? Better make sure you yourself don't look like a total trash. It's none of their business making a call on who's to get traded. If anything at least half of them are candidates to lose their spot here after that Boston series and the other half better look in the mirror first.

Kuznetsov needs to stay until they find a reasonable replacement, nothing less. Doesn't matter if it's through free agency, he's part of a package for such player, said player comes via separate trade or it's somebody from their system. You play him until his wheels come off or you shut him down for the season if you don't get who you want if not a single one of this scenarios works.

Drouin literally said through the agent he doesn't want to play for Tampa and they got the better player for him

Laughable…

 

[YippieKaey]

Kuzy is kind of a problem in the locker room etc sure. But he also lead the playoffs in scoring when we won the cup. So he does have that side too him. Maybe just pay the guy for counseling and ignore his cokeness. Or just dump him, Oshie and maybe even Backs( although he should finish his career with the Caps i agree) to free up tons of cap space and then go after Eichel. Maybe Buffalo would appreciate a character guy like Oshie and not be savvy enough to be alarmed about Kuzy?

I can see Buffalo agreeing to an Oshie + Kuzy for Eichel trade. Then Eichel can be 1A or 1B center depending on how he works with Ovi. But maybe im dreaming.

 

[Melkor]

Laughable…

Their on ice product is what's trully laughable. I imagine Carlson sitting across the table with Maclellan talking shit about Kuznetsov while playing absolutely ignominious himself. Yeah, laughable. At the end of the day, I don't care what they do outside the rink if they perform up to expectations. If they don't - I still don't care, they deserve equal blame for their failures doesn't matter if one is in deep depression and the other just loves doing lines every day of the week and twice on Sunday.

 

[YippieKaey]

I think what is needed is players that play with authority. Im not saying Josh Anderson is the best player in the league but watching him during MTL:s cup run you saw him do THINGS. Whether that was scoring, crashing the net, hitting or just working his ass off that sends good signals. You also saw that from a lot of players on the 2018 run and you usually see it from Ovi on this team. Kuzy, Backs, Carlson etc are really skilled and great players but they don´t have that quality. Tom Wilson is nowhere near as skilled as those guys but he plays with authority which makes things happen which is what you need in the playoffs.

I know it´s an intangibles thing but this team just feels like it needs more intangibles. A guy like Hornqvist would also be nice.

 

[Melkor]

The question is who do you protect out of Jensen, Dillon, or Schultz? It's not just a vacuum of protecting Jensen or not.

I haven't really paid much attention to possible scenarios but how about nobody out of this three? Dillon and Jensen could be had for free at first request by anybody as far as I'm concerned. Schultz really doesn't hold enough value to sit and cry about his possible departure either. Carlson should be protected because he still has a very high market value and Orlov should be protected because he's the only one who tried to look like a defenseman of a pro hockey team lately. The rest of that D is a tire fire.

 

[CapitalsCupReality]

Their on ice product is what's trully laughable. I imagine Carlson sitting across the table with Maclellan talking shit about Kuznetsov while playing absolutely ignominious himself. Yeah, laughable. At the end of the day, I don't care what they do outside the rink if they perform up to expectations. If they don't - I still don't care, they deserve equal blame for their failures doesn't matter if one is in deep depression and the other just loves doing lines every day of the week and twice on Sunday.

Don't mix up underperforming for not giving a shit like 92. A proper intelligent analysis easily identifies multiple problems and doesn’t conflate them.

It's also possible, if not likely that said players who don't care are undermining the entire team effort overall.

 

[tenken00]

I haven't really paid much attention to possible scenarios but how about nobody out of this three? Dillon and Jensen could be had for free at first request by anybody as far as I'm concerned. Schultz really doesn't hold enough value to sit and cry about his possible departure either. Carlson should be protected because he still has a very high market value and Orlov should be protected because he's the only one who tried to look like a defenseman of a pro hockey team lately. The rest of that D is a tire fire.

I'm... actually not sure. Can you choose to protect less than 3 defensemen?

As for the actual choosing itself, if any of them has any positive value (production over cost), why wouldn't you protect them? At the very least, they could be a throw-in candidate for a larger trade. Or at least give me a bag of chips. Kettle-cooked. Salt and malt vinegar. Mmmm.... malt vinegar.

 

[Hivemind]

The question is who do you protect out of Jensen, Dillon, or Schultz? It's not just a vacuum of protecting Jensen or not.

Jensen. Easily.