Speculation: Caps General Discussion (Coaching/FAs/Cap/Lines etc) - 2021 "Season" Pt. 1

[TheLegendOfPatPeake]

It's certainly possible to struggle at points during the season and come out on top. However, the list of teams that struggled early, struggled in the middle, struggled late and won absolutely nothing is much-much longer.

For me, this is the worst defensive system I have seen Caps play since the days of Adam Oates. If Laviolette's name was Reirden, he'd be getting absolutely crucified. I'm watching plays on both sides of the ice that I cannot begin to understand. Like, Chara following an opposition forward in the D-zone out to the top of the circles and having Kuznetsov rotate and try to cover the front of the net. In what world does that make any sense?

The second Rust goal last game just blew my mind. Carlson looks like he has never played hockey in his life. Literally watches the puck go by him at 20 milles an hour, right on the tape of Rust who doesn't have a single Cap within 15 feet of him. In the mean time, the goalie is contemplating what's for dinner.

Right now, this is the easiest team to score on in the league, bar none. The only reason we are not the last team in the division is Vanecek playing well above expectations for a whole month.

They play man on man in the d zone. I don’t really get it myself because that seems to benefit a team that is faster but not an old team.

 

[Corby78]

Are you really suggesting that a cap contender budgeting only $2.5 million (Samsonov and Lundqvist) for your goaltending tandem so they can upgrade their bottom six and bottom pairing is good management?? With no room to manoeuvre if your ageing vet and immature prospect don’t combine for elite-level goaltending? But no, you’re right, having Carl Hagelin, Dillon or Schultz on the team is way more important than having a proven goaltender.

If all three of their current top three goaltenders were on the roster together, they’d still have a lower cap hit than Richard Panik.

It seems to me that their concern was that Samsonov might struggle with a heavy load, rather than struggle to stop pucks at all. Given he was coming off an injury, zero games played in 10 months and had mixed results in his one NHL season, assuming he was going to be solid was quite an assumption. And rather uncharacteristic of Caps management, given their usual outlook on young players (just look at how cautious they’ve been letting young guys like Vrana, Fehevary and Siegenthaler get good ice time over established vets).

What I’m suggesting is that if you wanted holtby (big mistake imo) or another vet your then giving up more elsewhere. We don’t get to pick the price for players or just randomly come up with trades. The market and other teams have a say. We needed to fix the d, needed to try and fix the bottom six, needed to find a way to sign 19/8, if we would have gotten a goalie and not done something else then everyone would have bitched about that too. People are complaining because we lost.

nobody was pissed when we were winning, it’s amazing how that happens. If everyone could build an all star team under the cap they would but it’s hard, especially when you have been selling out for 10 years and the few guys you hoped would extend the window (bura/kuzy/vrana) have not really played consistent hockey

 

[Raikkonen]

There is a great foundation at D.
Goalies are hit and miss, maybe Sammy will become better one, maybe not. They can upgrade a G position any year.

Things are in bad state at F. Old and slow. Some are even a bit dumb. Some cant score to save their life.

There is no magic trade that will fix it. Once you decide this F core is not good enough you start with trading Kuzy and then you can sell forwards who are on the wrong side of 30.

Retooling F is faster than D but Caps have D. That's a part of the work done already! GMBM could use that advantage. I think if they fail to win a series this Spring he should pull the trigger. Why wait?

 

[Corby78]

In the end it comes down to guys playing above their cap and surprising people. We had that in 18, the blues did too in 19. TB had some young guys fill big roles early with a low cap hit. Right now that’s not happening. It can change but players need to step up, with every team at the same cap hit, it drives parity in the rosters.

 

[Ridley Simon]

Here’s my full on “appeal to authority”:

I trust Laviolette to figure it all out — FAR better than any poster on this board. The man has had no camp, half his players (seemingly) for most of the season, and zero practice time.

no offense to anyone here, at all. but.... really?

 

[AlexModvechkin8]

Losing isn’t fun but I’m not hitting the panic button. It’s been a very weird start with no camp, a new system, injuries, and Covid absences. It actually reminds me a lot of the WFT start in that regard.

True, they’re not very good on defense but I think they’re actually doing alright in terms of not allowing a ton of high quality chances. The issue is they let up a lot of volume and VV has hit a bit of a wall so it looks worse than it is. I think.

They’ll figure it out and get right. Hopefully.

 

[Futures Passed]

Here’s my full on “appeal to authority”:

I trust Laviolette to figure it all out — FAR better than any poster on this board. The man has had no camp, half his players (seemingly) for most of the season, and zero practice time.

no offense to anyone here, at all. but.... really?

I’m less worried about coaching and the roster as a whole and more worried about the goaltending. I think they’ll make a move though.

 

[tenken00]

Sorensen from Novacaps with another interesting tidbit.

Vitek Vanecek is actually pretty good at high danger shots - shots around the goal crease, but alarmingly bad at low danger shots - shots from really far out. His average goals allowed distance is 27.38 feet out.

Maybe he needs vision correction treatment if it's harder for him to track the puck the further out the shot is ? I've heard of baseball players becoming better hitters/fielders after getting LASIK eye treatments and was able to see the ball much better.

Low Danger Shots Have Been High Danger For Vitek Vanecek

 

[kicksavedave]

Sorensen from Novacaps with another interesting tidbit.

Vitek Vanecek is actually pretty good at high danger shots - shots around the goal crease, but alarmingly bad at low danger shots - shots from really far out. His average goals allowed distance is 27.38 feet out.

Maybe he needs vision correction treatment if it's harder for him to track the puck the further out the shot is ? I've heard of baseball players becoming better hitters/fielders after getting LASIK eye treatments and was able to see the ball much better.

Low Danger Shots Have Been High Danger For Vitek Vanecek

IMO its probably not an eyesight thing. If it was you would see pucks hitting his catching glove a lot and bouncing out or off it or just whiffing at them. Instead what I see if some poor technique and some unlucky bounces. He's had what seems like an inordinate amount of double doink deflections of his own and other teams skates. But he also hasn't done a good job of fighting through screens when the puck is out at the points. He needs to get low (easier to see between shins than to see around butts) and bob side to side a bit more to pick up the puck off the stick of the Dman. He's very stationary when the puck is out far and NHL D men can pick corners better than guys he's used to playing against. Its shows up with those "he never saw it" kind of goals, which is not to say he saw a blurry puck go past him... more like he never saw the shot leave the stick because he was too easily screened.

 

[g00n]

Sorensen from Novacaps with another interesting tidbit.

Vitek Vanecek is actually pretty good at high danger shots - shots around the goal crease, but alarmingly bad at low danger shots - shots from really far out. His average goals allowed distance is 27.38 feet out.

Maybe he needs vision correction treatment if it's harder for him to track the puck the further out the shot is ? I've heard of baseball players becoming better hitters/fielders after getting LASIK eye treatments and was able to see the ball much better.

Low Danger Shots Have Been High Danger For Vitek Vanecek

See I read that the opposite way. If the HDSV% is the measure of proficiency vs High Danger shots his sav% is pretty low compared to others, and in general. And the shot distance is fairly tightly grouped except outliers.

Here's the data sorted by HDSV% (worst to best) among goalies with 300 TOI or more (top 31 tenders come from this):

That puts VV at 6th worst in the league in high danger areas (Holtby is 2nd worst...woof) by raw stats and the HDGSAA comparing to expectations has him 5th worst. Compared to the regular GSAA, which is fairly close to average or break-even vs the league, it seems VV has issues with those HD chances as well as the longer shots.

What's interesting is if you sort by rebound attempts then VV's avg goal distance sticks out. He gives up a lot of rebounds but the avg goal distance is pretty far out compared to other goaltenders giving up similar numbers or rebounds, which suggests the rebounds are hurting less than expected. High danger shots are probably going straight in with fewer than average rebounds that lead to goals, and some longer shots are also getting right through (possibly from screens). VV has faced a lot of shots vs TOI so the rebounds are likely just teams peppering him to see what gets through.

Also note VV is 13th in the league in total TOI so the overuse concept may be flawed as well.

 

[twabby]

If Arizona is going to ride with Kuemper I'd be interested in taking a look at Antti Raanta. Career .920 goalie and is 5th in the NHL over the past 2+ seasons in goals saved above expected/60 according to NST and 15th according to Evolving Hockey. Of course his issue has never been ability it has been staying healthy, so unless the Capitals are reasonably confident he is past his injury woes then I wouldn't pursue him. However if he is deemed healthy he is a clear #1 in this league and would be a good add.

Panik fit nicely in Arizona so I could see some interest in them bringing him back, but I imagine the Capitals would have to shed more salary or have Arizona retain in order to make the cap work. Plus I imagine the Capitals would have to add some value to make the deal worthwhile.

Raanta is really the only target that sticks out for me right now and it seems like a difficult fit at that, so really I'd just prefer Samsonov grabs the #1 spot and holds onto it.

 

[Ovechkins Wodka]

phoenix had to forefit their 1st round pick so I guessing they would want some extra draft picks

 

[John Price]

 

[Ovechkins Wodka]

to hard to even keep up with the changes

 

[Futures Passed]

If Arizona is going to ride with Kuemper I'd be interested in taking a look at Antti Raanta. Career .920 goalie and is 5th in the NHL over the past 2+ seasons in goals saved above expected/60 according to NST and 15th according to Evolving Hockey. Of course his issue has never been ability it has been staying healthy, so unless the Capitals are reasonably confident he is past his injury woes then I wouldn't pursue him. However if he is deemed healthy he is a clear #1 in this league and would be a good add.

Panik fit nicely in Arizona so I could see some interest in them bringing him back, but I imagine the Capitals would have to shed more salary or have Arizona retain in order to make the cap work. Plus I imagine the Capitals would have to add some value to make the deal worthwhile.

Raanta is really the only target that sticks out for me right now and it seems like a difficult fit at that, so really I'd just prefer Samsonov grabs the #1 spot and holds onto it.

I like Raanta as an option and I would potentially be interested in Greiss (with salary retained) as well. Raanta has higher upside but, as you mentioned, has had some the health issues. There are not a lot of viable options that would work for the Caps now, so I am being realistic about who they can acquire. I liked Samsonov going into the season, but everything has gone wrong for him, the injury setback, the shortened camp, the coronavirus setback. The trade deadline is just under two months away, so it's getting harder for me to believe that the Caps will be able to give their current goalies a full vote of confidence going into the playoffs at that point.

 

[Ridley Simon]

See I read that the opposite way. If the HDSV% is the measure of proficiency vs High Danger shots his sav% is pretty low compared to others, and in general. And the shot distance is fairly tightly grouped except outliers.

Here's the data sorted by HDSV% (worst to best) among goalies with 300 TOI or more (top 31 tenders come from this):

View attachment 396901

That puts VV at 6th worst in the league in high danger areas (Holtby is 2nd worst...woof) by raw stats and the HDGSAA comparing to expectations has him 5th worst. Compared to the regular GSAA, which is fairly close to average or break-even vs the league, it seems VV has issues with those HD chances as well as the longer shots.

What's interesting is if you sort by rebound attempts then VV's avg goal distance sticks out. He gives up a lot of rebounds but the avg goal distance is pretty far out compared to other goaltenders giving up similar numbers or rebounds, which suggests the rebounds are hurting less than expected. High danger shots are probably going straight in with fewer than average rebounds that lead to goals, and some longer shots are also getting right through (possibly from screens). VV has faced a lot of shots vs TOI so the rebounds are likely just teams peppering him to see what gets through.

Also note VV is 13th in the league in total TOI so the overuse concept may be flawed as well.

Re TOI. Only 5 teams have played less games than the Caps. I believe what — 1 start was someone other than VV?

it seems to me he is gassed. Similar to what happened to IS last year. Guy had NO NHL starts in his career and now has what, 12 in a row? Fatigue isn’t just physical man, I think it’s mental and emotional. That fact that he had one of his worst games after a week hiatus speaks volumes for me.

 

[txpd]

I dont think VV is gassed after playing 5 games in the last 15 days with minumul travel. I dont think Samsonov was gassed last season so much as his bubble got burst when they raised his role. But thats just me.

 

[WanderingCapsFan]

Is there really no way to work the cap so that Copley gets a start or 2? VV obviously needs a break. It looks like they're not going to play Anderson unless they are forced to. Sammy is getting his necessary reps in Hershey. Copley has been serviceable in his NHL appearances. I don't get it.

 

[Ovechkins Wodka]

Is there really no way to work the cap so that Copley gets a start or 2? VV obviously needs a break. It looks like they're not going to play Anderson unless they are forced to. Sammy is getting his necessary reps in Hershey. Copley has been serviceable in his NHL appearances. I don't get it.

Arb contracts paying Min players 500k more has made us lose Chandler, Djoos, and Copley. Sometimes it would be smarter to take the QA and not go to Arb. If you dont want to end up in Detroit or the Minors

 

[g00n]

Re TOI. Only 5 teams have played less games than the Caps. I believe what — 1 start was someone other than VV?

it seems to me he is gassed. Similar to what happened to IS last year. Guy had NO NHL starts in his career and now has what, 12 in a row? Fatigue isn’t just physical man, I think it’s mental and emotional. That fact that he had one of his worst games after a week hiatus speaks volumes for me.

I'm not going by games I'm going strictly by total TOI. He's 13th in the league in total TOI for goalies.

If he's mentally fatigued after 11 games, with all those other keepers logging more time overall and more games, that's a problem.

I suspect the issue is the opposite.

His best stretch came when he was playing every other night. Did he hit a wall after 7 games, and has been unable to recover even with more rest? Or was he just in a rhythm before?

 

[Ovechkins Wodka]

He just had a week off from covid shut downs. If he didnt get enough rest in a week I dont know what to say. Hes a backup and get back Sammy

 

[Ridley Simon]

I dont think VV is gassed after playing 5 games in the last 15 days with minumul travel. I dont think Samsonov was gassed last season so much as his bubble got burst when they raised his role. But thats just me.

VV has played really well, and now he hasn’t.
So.... he’s just “lost it”? Is that the answer? He needs a break. A game or 2 to watch and collect what he sees.

 

[Ridley Simon]

I'm not going by games I'm going strictly by total TOI. He's 13th in the league in total TOI for goalies.

View attachment 396970

If he's mentally fatigued after 11 games, with all those other keepers logging more time overall and more games, that's a problem.

I suspect the issue is the opposite.

View attachment 396971

His best stretch came when he was playing every other night. Did he hit a wall after 7 games, and has been unable to recover even with more rest? Or was he just in a rhythm before?

He’s a G thats used to splitting time. He’s gone plenty of stints were he wasn’t in “rhythm” in Hershey and was fine.

so I assume we are just dismissing professional pressure? You are comparing him guys that have done this for a lot lot lot longer than VV has. I think he needs a break. I think he’s got what it takes, but he’s very inexperienced and he’s got some seeds of doubt and they keep running him out there. Akin to a G having a bad game and leaving him in to take his lumps.

I think he needs to watch a few games. Just like skaters do. But he cannot.

I’m not sure how else to explain it.

 

[kicksavedave]

I think he needs to watch a few games. Just like skaters do. But he cannot.

I’m not sure how else to explain it.

Lets all take up a pool and buy him NHL Center Ice then...

 

[Ridley Simon]

He just had a week off from covid shut downs. If he didnt get enough rest in a week I dont know what to say. Hes a backup and get back Sammy

I’m not talking about being physically gassed. Rest has zero to do with it. He needs to watch a game or 2.