Speculation: Caps Roster General Discussion (Coaching/FAs/Cap/Lines etc) - 2022-23 Season Part 3: Drop the puck!

[g00n]

I have not forgotten Ovie's last minute replacement.

I haven't forgotten all star Dennis Wideman either.

Of course my favourite all star legend has to be John Scott!

This is weak.

 

[HTFN]

They traded Forsberg because they believed in his potential, they 100% had high level expectations of him.

Yes, it 100% would have been the better play. Jack Hillen averaged more time on ice then Wilson did, he would have been much better served playing 20 minutes a night on the top line and the power play.

Which is the worst way to handle anything, especially when it comes to developing anything (persons, skills, etc.). You can do all the wrong things and still end up with a win. It'd still be asinine to do repeat it expecting the same results.

Judge. The. Process.

and only drafted Wilson in the first place because they had the Forsberg pick and some latitude to reach a little on a boom/bust project whose OHL stats look like this:

Plenty of defensemen are going to beat your rookie in ATOI

Aaaand finally, it's basically just you in here saying it'd somehow go better if they'd slow cooked him with no real proof or reason to believe it except that you think the way it was done was somehow worse. I just don't get it, especially since the process should change player to player anyway and isn't even how they're currently doing it.

Don't get the point of this one at all.

 

[Ridley Simon]

They traded Forsberg because they believed in his potential, they 100% had high level expectations of him.

Yes, it 100% would have been the better play. Jack Hillen averaged more time on ice then Wilson did, he would have been much better served playing 20 minutes a night on the top line and the power play.

Which is the worst way to handle anything, especially when it comes to developing anything (persons, skills, etc.). You can do all the wrong things and still end up with a win. It'd still be asinine to do repeat it expecting the same results.

Judge. The. Process.

? What does Jack Hillen have to do w Tom Wilson? A bottom pairing D vs a Winger?

If you want to be mad about, ok dude. Be mad. I get it. Running a pro sports team isn’t a 100% “Good Decision” landscape (although what is, in life?), so you break eggs.

Wilson simply is NOT the poster child for reckless work with prospects. He turned out amazing. Truly amazing. (Let’s not discuss his injury, that’s irrelevant)

 

[um]

This is weak.

good one.

 

[Hivemind]

and only drafted Wilson in the first place because they had the Forsberg pick and some latitude to reach a little on a boom/bust project whose OHL stats look like this:
View attachment 647430

Plenty of defensemen are going to beat your rookie in ATOI

Aaaand finally, it's basically just you in here saying it'd somehow go better if they'd slow cooked him with no real proof or reason to believe it except that you think the way it was done was somehow worse. I just don't get it, especially since the process should change player to player anyway and isn't even how they're currently doing it.

Don't get the point of this one at all.

If you expand the stats to include his playoff run, you'll see why Wilson was picked in the first round. He posted a point/game performance for Plymouth in the OHL playoffs and it boosted him from being ranked in the 2nd round in most mid-year rankings to being between 17-25 in the final rankings.

But the fact that his overall stats looked like that is one of the reasons many of us felt he was rushed into the NHL in the first place. We saw flashes of his offensive potential, particularly in his playoff runs (both pre-draft and the season after the draft), but he still needed time to further refine his offensive game. Even things like cycling weren't second-nature to him at that point. People seemingly forget that for his first few seasons in the league, Wilson was basically just a hunter-killer missile on the ice, seeking out big hits but not much else. He used his size to blow people up, but wasn't effective at using it to protect the puck, occupy the crease, or cycling along the boards. He picked up penalty killing in his 3rd season, but it took him a while to really grow into an offensive game. A lot of us would have preferred had been in a situation in which he could have been playing regular shifts in the offensive zone, on the powerplay, and with the puck on his stick. That wasn't going to happen being a 4th liner/energy player/PKer in the NHL playing 10 minutes per night. Obviously the NHL/CHL transfer agreement prohibited from playing in the AHL in 2013-14 (which would have been the idea situation for most of us), but it's not exactly an outlandish proposition that he might have been able to develop his offensive skillset quicker if he was allowed to play longer in Plymouth where he would have received a lot more offensive duties.

Further still, there was also the fact that Wilson making the team in 2013-14 led to Mathieu Perreault being traded for peanuts certainly didn't help public opinion.

 

[HTFN]

If you expand the stats to include his playoff run, you'll see why Wilson was picked in the first round. He posted a point/game performance for Plymouth in the OHL playoffs and it boosted him from being ranked in the 2nd round in most mid-year rankings to being between 17-25 in the final rankings.

But the fact that his overall stats looked like that is one of the reasons many of us felt he was rushed into the NHL in the first place. We saw flashes of his offensive potential, particularly in his playoff runs (both pre-draft and the season after the draft), but he still needed time to further refine his offensive game. Even things like cycling weren't second-nature to him at that point. People seemingly forget that for his first few seasons in the league, Wilson was basically just a hunter-killer missile on the ice, seeking out big hits but not much else. He used his size to blow people up, but wasn't effective at using it to protect the puck, occupy the crease, or cycling along the boards. He picked up penalty killing in his 3rd season, but it took him a while to really grow into an offensive game. A lot of us would have preferred had been in a situation in which he could have been playing regular shifts in the offensive zone, on the powerplay, and with the puck on his stick. That wasn't going to happen being a 4th liner/energy player/PKer in the NHL playing 10 minutes per night. Obviously the NHL/CHL transfer agreement prohibited from playing in the AHL in 2013-14 (which would have been the idea situation for most of us), but it's not exactly an outlandish proposition that he might have been able to develop his offensive skillset quicker if he was allowed to play longer in Plymouth where he would have received a lot more offensive duties.

Further still, there was also the fact that Wilson making the team in 2013-14 led to Mathieu Perreault being traded for peanuts certainly didn't help public opinion.

I know that, I'm not begrudging them making the pick. You just wouldn't call that guy a guy with pedigree which was the original sort of dispute. The Capitals weren't expecting so much as hoping and there are lots of guys with a similar story who don't work.

Wilson in Plymouth was just not going to learn as much of value as he did in Washington. You're not wrong, that's the place to go to try to expand that offensive potential but because he was such a manchild you're still putting him in a scenario where he has to actively, mentally section off the physical part of his game or risk it becoming a crutch he'd have to unlearn at the NHL level anyway. You would have to basically ask him to go out and play like Anthony Mantha to grow some of those skills independent of his physical gifts, but then you've spent a development year un-teaching him to be a power forward. No doubt he could just pick up 16 year olds and relocate them at will in front of the net and score more goals, but what does that get you?

I don't think it's really the end of the world to test his physical acumen against men ASAP and then, when it turned out he still looked like a man among he could just follow the same development path he had in the OHL (and did, because his game never made any colossal sweeping changes). Obviously you don't get the luxury of just doing that with anybody, but his case was compelling enough.

And then in the end, we're revising history on a draft pick that was mocked by rivals like he's Hugh Jessiman or Dylan McIlrath or something and has turned into a guy that gives them all headaches and can't be put "in his place" despite some valiant efforts, then started scoring 20 goals just to rub salt in the wound. Why are we litigating this at all?

 

[Hivemind]

Why are we litigating this at all?

Mostly because there hasn't been a Caps game in what feels like ages, and the claim that the Capitals slow cook their prospects was brought up again. So Wilson was a natural counter-point to that.

Trying to keep my response short overall - but I think there was a lot more competition for Wilson in the OHL in 2013-14 than you're giving credit for. Would he beat up some 16 year olds? Sure. But he'd also get undisputed 1st line duty that year and get matched up against D like Aaron Ekblad, Darnell Nurse, Adam Pelech, Slater Koekkoek, and Anthony DeAngelo plus arguably one of the very best class of forwards in OHL history (McDavid, Brown, Domi, Marner, Burakovsky, Horvat, Bennett, Konecny, Anderson, etc etc etc). Given that he had shown flashes of top tier offense in the OHL, but had not yet been able to sustain it shows to me that there was still things for him to learn and achieve in that league.

(Setting aside the Perreault trade) - I think my preferred option would have been 10 games in the NHL against men (max without a contract year ticking) then going back to the OHL for more offensive duty.

 

[Raikkonen]

I suspect Wilson would be still about the same with alternative path too

 

[YippieKaey]

They traded Forsberg because they believed in his potential, they 100% had high level expectations of him.

Yes, it 100% would have been the better play. Jack Hillen averaged more time on ice then Wilson did, he would have been much better served playing 20 minutes a night on the top line and the power play.

Which is the worst way to handle anything, especially when it comes to developing anything (persons, skills, etc.). You can do all the wrong things and still end up with a win. It'd still be asinine to do repeat it expecting the same results.

Judge. The. Process.

How do you judge a process if not by looking at the result? I dont get this. Results are the outcomes of the process and if they are not relevant for judging the process then why even judge the process at all?

 

[Hivemind]

How do you judge a process if not by looking at the result? I dont get this. Results are the outcomes of the process and if they are not relevant for judging the process then why even judge the process at all?

It's like playing cards. You can go all-in on with a 4 & 8 before the flop and then get lucky by hitting a straight, sure. But that doesn't mean it was a good idea to go all-in on such a low% hand. You just got lucky that it worked out. And, vice-versa, sometimes you can make the best play but get unlucky.

While hockey certainly isn't cards, the same principles apply. You don't know what the outcome is going to be when you make these types of roster decisions. Using 20/20 hindsight doesn't evaluate the process, it just evaluates the results based on information that wasn't available at the time.

 

[YippieKaey]

It's like playing cards. You can go all-in on with a 4 & 8 before the flop and then get lucky by hitting a straight, sure. But that doesn't mean it was a good idea to go all-in on such a low% hand. You just got lucky that it worked out. And, vice-versa, sometimes you can make the best play but get unlucky.

While hockey certainly isn't cards, the same principles apply. You don't know what the outcome is going to be when you make these types of roster decisions. Using 20/20 hindsight doesn't evaluate the process, it just evaluates the results based on information that wasn't available at the time.

Do they though? In the card game example it was was pure luck. In the case of player development there is a minor element of chance but like 90% are things like training, opportunities given etc.

If processes are not judged by the results, how do we know that a process is good or bad?

 

[Hivemind]

Do they though? In the card game example it was was pure luck. In the case of player development there is a minor element of chance but like 90% are things like training, opportunities given etc.

If processes are not judged by the results, how do we know that a process is good or bad?

In the context of the cards example, yes I chose one that was particularly lucky to demonstrate the point. The same principle applies to much smaller deviations within cards as well, identifying the slight differences between the best course of action and the second and the third. Two different plays can both have >50% odds of success (or similar odds of failure), but seeing the slight advantage of one play versus the other (and their relative payouts) is what separates a decent player from a good one from a great one.

Whether we care to admit it or not, there's a lot of chance when it comes to drafting and developing prospects. Even the best teams have draft duds and guys who don't pan out, and even the worst teams find a gem every now and then. Organizations can try and shape them as much as possible via training and opportunities, but they don't have a magic bullet. Even when they do what they think is right, things sometimes don't pan out the way they hope. Nor can they forecast injuries or other development setbacks. And choosing the opportunities given is exactly what I'm talking about. Figuring out what approaches are going to work is how you steer it one direction or another, how you identify the path that might work 55% of the time against the one that might work 45% of the time.

How do you judge it? Well, with much broader contexts than just one player. You look at the processes employed against comparables (and multiple of them), and learn from them. You replicate what works.

 

[YippieKaey]

In the context of the cards example, yes I chose one that was particularly lucky to demonstrate the point. The same principle applies to much smaller deviations within cards as well, identifying the slight differences between the best course of action and the second and the third. Two different plays can both have >50% odds of success (or similar odds of failure), but seeing the slight advantage of one play versus the other (and their relative payouts) is what separates a decent player from a good one from a great one.

Whether we care to admit it or not, there's a lot of chance when it comes to drafting and developing prospects. Even the best teams have draft duds and guys who don't pan out, and even the worst teams find a gem every now and then. Organizations can try and shape them as much as possible via training and opportunities, but they don't have a magic bullet. Even when they do what they think is right, things sometimes don't pan out the way they hope. Nor can they forecast injuries or other development setbacks. And choosing the opportunities given is exactly what I'm talking about. Figuring out what approaches are going to work is how you steer it one direction or another, how you identify the path that might work 55% of the time against the one that might work 45% of the time.

How do you judge it? Well, with much broader contexts than just one player. You look at the processes employed against comparables (and multiple of them), and learn from them. You replicate what works.

Yeah for sure. My take would be that you judge processes by the results but you have to look at a multitude of results. Then experiment with the contents of these processes until you find the process that leads to the largest "success ratio" .

 

[g00n]

good one.

You want more then offer more.

 

[twabby]

I think the evidence is dubious that players actually develop better in the AHL with more minutes vs. the NHL in fewer minutes. The speed of the game is so much slower in the AHL and everything I've heard from players and coaches is that the biggest adjustment is the speed of the NHL game vs. the minors. Not just the straight line skating speed of course, but decision-making is much quicker in the NHL.

It's why I think Wilson's overall development path was quite reasonable, aside from having him be a punchman too much early on for my liking. Had he been in the AHL for a few years I'm not really sure how much of his offensive game would have developed to where it is currently. He of course struggled a bit scoring early on but as he got acclimated to the NHL game he really did develop into quite a nice playmaker and goal-scorer. And I think playing against NHLer night in and night out really helped that process.

On the other hand it's why I very much dislike what's happening this year. Why is Protas not playing in the NHL right now? Why was McMichael never really given a shot this year despite a solid year last year? How is playing against a bunch of weaker, slower scrubs in the AHL doing anything for their development? I don't really buy the "they're there to build confidence" argument.

It always seemed a bit counter-intuitive to me to suggest that the minor leagues are anything but a league to store extras. People don't get stronger by putting themselves in comfortable situations. They get stronger by putting themselves in uncomfortable situations, challenging themselves and learning from those uncomfortable situations. Right now it seems unlikely that Protas and McMichael are really improving their games much at the AHL level.

And it's not like there isn't a spot open for one of them (preferably Protas) in the lineup:

 

[Brian23]

It always seemed a bit counter-intuitive to me to suggest that the minor leagues are anything but a league to store extras.

The arguments been warped, but the initial point was that the Capitals weren't known for overcooking their prospects, and I was making the argument they were often doing the exact opposite of rushing to get any high drafted player into the NHL as soon as they could. It wasn't till the last few years that they've refused to graduate anyone.

So, I agree with you to an extent.

 

[um]

You want more then offer more.

I was just joking around about the silliness of the NHL All star game.

Obviously tone gets lost on keyboards.

 

[twabby]

The arguments been warped, but the initial point was that the Capitals weren't known for overcooking their prospects, and I was making the argument they were often doing the exact opposite of rushing to get any high drafted player into the NHL as soon as they could. It wasn't till the last few years that they've refused to graduate anyone.

So, I agree with you to an extent.

I meant more in general. The current discussion re: Wilson and their prospects just got me thinking about how development is typically approached by NHL teams.

The general consensus has been that aside from really high picks you put your young draftees in the AHL for a few seasons until they develop and are ready for the NHL.

But I think in general players will probably develop better in the NHL than any other league. So unless the NHL team is doing well and there simply aren't any roster spots open because the veterans are key contributors to that success I think teams really should just prioritize getting their young players into the NHL as soon as possible to fast-track their development and really see what they have. Washington did that with Tom Wilson to great success IMO. I think the case can be made the other draftees like Vrana, Stephenson, and Kuznetsov all saw their development proceed much more quickly while in the NHL than in the other leagues they played in. And I think that's true across the NHL in general.

So yeah, it's kind of a shame to see Protas and McMichael stuck in the AHL right now when some of the veterans are not performing well and the team isn't contending. This could have been the "take a step back" year to make the team better next year. Instead this is looking like a lost year with nothing really positive having come from it.

 

[BiPolar Caps]

The verbal flatulence on this board, especially of late

 

[CapitalsCupReality]

The verbal flatulence on this board, especially of late

Downtime = infighting


Lol…

 

[crazy8888]

I meant more in general. The current discussion re: Wilson and their prospects just got me thinking about how development is typically approached by NHL teams.

The general consensus has been that aside from really high picks you put your young draftees in the AHL for a few seasons until they develop and are ready for the NHL.

But I think in general players will probably develop better in the NHL than any other league. So unless the NHL team is doing well and there simply aren't any roster spots open because the veterans are key contributors to that success I think teams really should just prioritize getting their young players into the NHL as soon as possible to fast-track their development and really see what they have. Washington did that with Tom Wilson to great success IMO. I think the case can be made the other draftees like Vrana, Stephenson, and Kuznetsov all saw their development proceed much more quickly while in the NHL than in the other leagues they played in. And I think that's true across the NHL in general.

So yeah, it's kind of a shame to see Protas and McMichael stuck in the AHL right now when some of the veterans are not performing well and the team isn't contending. This could have been the "take a step back" year to make the team better next year. Instead this is looking like a lost year with nothing really positive having come from it.

While I do not disagree with anything you said I would like to add that player development strategy depends on many factors like roster spot availability, said players position and coaching strategies. I agree that some players benefit more from being with the big club but then again we all saw the case with McMichael where getting big minutes in Hershey is paying more dividend than him warming the bench with the big club. I know coach did not give him much opportunity this year but lets also not forget that he did not do much with the time he did get. Plus being a center meant that there was little room for him even with all the injuries. So a player like McMichael definitely benefits more by getting a chance to play big minutes on 1-2 line instead of playing 7 minutes per night on 3-4 lines.

Also keep in mind that Caps are still trying to contend. I cant blame the coach for trying to put the best possible lineup every night (ridiculous as it looks sometimes). A team like Coyotes can develop their kids in NHL because they are not really competing for anything. Caps needs to get points every night to stay in the chase. What im trying to say is that player development strategies also depend a lot on teams position in the standings and their expectations for the season. If Caps were bottom feeders right now i would imagine some vets would have already been moved to make room for younger guys to develop. Funny thing about all of this is for the past 2 years the team plays better with younger blood inserted into the lineup. But coaching and management seem to think its an anomaly and still prefer to slot in their trusted vets when possible.

 

[g00n]

The verbal flatulence on this board, especially of late

 

[Langway]

Mike Grier could slaughter it at the deadline if he plays his cards right. I'm still intrigued by the idea. It's complicated but the Caps are in YOLO territory anyway and this guy is having a Norris type season.

 

[twabby]

Mike Grier could slaughter it at the deadline if he plays his cards right. I'm still intrigued by the idea. It's complicated but the Caps are in YOLO territory anyway and this guy is having a Norris type season.

He’s a real needle mover and for a team struggling with 5v5 offense Karlsson would be a huge help.

But SJ probably won’t be in a rush to trade him by the deadline. They can probably get just as good if not a better return this offseason for Karlsson when more teams can clear cap space and make competitive offers for Karlsson.

 

[CapitalsCupReality]

He’s a real needle mover and for a team struggling with 5v5 offense Karlsson would be a huge help.

But SJ probably won’t be in a rush to trade him by the deadline. They can probably get just as good if not a better return this offseason for Karlsson when more teams can clear cap space and make competitive offers for Karlsson.

That’s a massive roll of the dice…..passing on deadline price gouging and hoping he doesn’t turn back into a pumpkin.