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

[Langway]

We'll see how it goes. But on top of everything else you just wonder if it's not in the cards this season. So many key players are banged up. The D is overtaxed. It's the slimmest of margins and they may need to play at something like a 100+ point pace the rest of the way to qualify. Maybe not. But I think Florida remains pretty legit. Not a powerhouse. They seem to fall asleep defensively but their top guys are more or less in their primes.

There's a lot more upside in selling under the circumstances. They'll try to battle for 8 and see to it that there are still battles left to fight when he returns. But it's going to be tough, mostly since they lack dominant at-will ability at this stage. It's going to have to be a lot of hunkering down and relying on Kuemper.

 

[max21]

The fact of the matter is we’re in a playoff spot, even with NYI and FLA having a game over us. Has any team ever sold while being in the playoff spot/hunt? We all know they should for certain players but they probably won’t

 

[BiPolar Caps]

We'll see how it goes. But on top of everything else you just wonder if it's not in the cards this season. So many key players are banged up. The D is overtaxed. It's the slimmest of margins and they may need to play at something like a 100+ point pace the rest of the way to qualify. Maybe not. But I think Florida remains pretty legit. Not a powerhouse. They seem to fall asleep defensively but their top guys are more or less in their primes.

There's a lot more upside in selling under the circumstances. They'll try to battle for 8 and see to it that there are still battles left to fight when he returns. But it's going to be tough, mostly since they lack dominant at-will ability at this stage. It's going to have to be a lot of hunkering down and relying on Kuemper.

Eller out - McMichael in
Johansson out - Snively in
Sheary out - Frank in (if they can sign him)
Hathaway out - Malenstyn/Protas in
Irwin out - AA in

8 games till TDL, , 27 till end of season

Good opportunity to see what you got under the hood at Hershey

 

[usiel]

PROTAS!!!

 

[BiPolar Caps]

I think everyone is missing the peradine that this is what will be with AO chasing the goal record.

Capitals don't move any UFAs most will walk July 1
A year from now the pending UFAs will be Wilson, Mantha and Snively
Two years from now the pending UFAs will be Backstrom, Kuznetsov, Oshie, Dowd and Lindgren

I'm all for Ovechkin breaking the record, but a lot of the current roster will not be in a Capitals uniform when it occurs. Folks need to wrap their heads around that.

Any tweaking to the current roster will be like putting spats on a pig. Might make some feel better that we did something but the bottom line it's still going to be that pig. The window has closed on this team regarding SC chances in the near future.

 

[bacchist]

A roster with too many walking (skating) wounded (e.g., Oshie), simply wounded (Willie, JC), declining (Eller), out for personal/family reasons (Ovie), underperforming (Kuz, Mantha), overused/back too soon (Orlov, Kuemper?), and fringe (Irwin) players does not inspire confidence. Management needs some amount of team success to have a marketable product. Many fans will accept a short-term lag in success if the future promises significant improvements. It's difficult to imagine long-term success with the team as it is at present. Perhaps even the prospect of achieving #895 will be called into question.

Edited to acknowledge reporting on Ovie's absence.

Would make a great movie if they somehow put together a magical cup run.

 

[Jags]

No rhyming required. A haiku has five syllables in the first and third stanzas and seven in the second. So for yours it might go like…

All posters are mad
Old, broken team plays real bad
Tough to watch, it is

More specifically, that is how Yoda would write that haiku.

 

[LesDiablesRouges]

Simmonds to WAS would make heads explode, but unfortunately, he doesn’t seem to have much, if anything, left in the tank.

Lavi is so bad with young talent for the most part. AA is becoming his new CMM and he’s stuck because we can’t send him down without exposing him to waivers. Frustrating part is that AA is actually really solid and Irwin plays hard, but is a grizzled vet and blows.

 

[twabby]

Again no surprises, but interesting to see how their core compares to others. Also of note: Oshie isn't included in the core. If they included Oshie instead of Orlov it would look much worse than the -9.3% shown in the article. But as defined their core is only less efficient against the salary cap than Philadelphia and Chicago.

There's only so much you can do with the depth pieces when the core is this inefficient. Unless Backstrom is LTIRed his contract will be on the books next year. That really leaves Mantha, Kuznetsov, and Oshie as the fat they need to cut in order to really have room to maneuver. They have a lot of pending UFAs but most of them are good values already (Jensen, Sheary, Hathaway, Johansson, TVR, Gustafsson). Maybe you replace Eller with Protas and save ~$2.5 million.

But there's little other space to be gained with all of the UFAs to be.

 

[YippieKaey]

When was the last time the Caps won without Ovi?

 

[Raikkonen]

When was the last time the Caps won without Ovi?

when Purretu scored 3 times

 

[Ovechkins Wodka]

Incoming losing streak, put a for sale sign on all our free agents and blow this shit up

Like for real we were never going to hold off the Panthers, even healthy. That was the president’s trophy team last year and finally getting back into form after some off-season changes.

 

[g00n]

It's gut check time. If they get 3 or 4 of 6 points out of this you have to start believing they have a chance.

If they look completely lost then yeah it might be time to cut bait.

 

[SecretaryofDefense5]

Alrighty. Congrats to Protas but Jesus the season is rough.

 

[Brian23]

Honestly, I've always felt the team responds well when something like this happens (Ovi being out for some reason or another) so I expect a good showing tonight. The next few games though...

And if they don't look good tonight? Yikes.

 

[AlexModvechkin8]

Honestly, I've always felt the team responds well when something like this happens (Ovi being out for some reason or another) so I expect a good showing tonight. The next few games though...

And if they don't look good tonight? Yikes.

The issue is who steps up? Their second highest goal scorer is MoJo is pacing for 19 goals on the season. I’ll say that again: the team’s second leading scorer 56 games into the season is not projected to score 20 goals. Having depth is nice but it looks a lot less attractive when the entire forward group looks like depth. I guess Kuznetsov could decide to play hockey again or someone else could shoot unsustainably high for a few games and catch fire but it’s so hard for them to manufacture consistent and quality scoring chances and taking the 8-car out of the lineup makes a team that already doesn’t look dangerous offensively suddenly look a lot more anemic.

 

[Ovechkins Wodka]

Any guess who is going to take over the office on the PP? I wouldn’t mind giving Mantha a look at it

 

[Cappy76]

Any guess who is going to take over the office on the PP? I wouldn’t mind giving Mantha a look at it

Oshie maybe or Snively

 

[CapitalsCupReality]

Honestly, I've always felt the team responds well when something like this happens (Ovi being out for some reason or another) so I expect a good showing tonight. The next few games though...

And if they don't look good tonight? Yikes.

23-25

 

[Brian23]

23-25

I didn't mean long periods, I meant how they responded the game after he's had to sit or been suspended.

 

[Ovechkins Wodka]

Side thought this is a perfect time to call up Ethan Frank

 

[Langway]

One potentially interesting wrinkle to selling is strategically using the opened up cap space either as a third-party broker or to take on contracts. You'd think defenders with term remaining could be appealing. Adding term would need to align with off-season planning but if nothing else it'd be wise to use a post-sale period to evaluate some upside plays. A Puljujarvi type or Kravtsov or an equivalent D like Boqvist perhaps. Some younger additions that could help down the stretch and next season to replenish org. depth and add to the asset base.

Were they to decide to shut down Carlson his $8M could be useful. I don't know how readily some clubs would look to dump players vs. waiting until the draft or buyout period but it's something to consider as a means toward restructuring. Beyond Washington's exact standings placement in the bigger picture there may be some wisdom in deciding to shut Oshie down. Maybe also Wilson all things considered in order to recover fully rather than running them into the ground. Tough calls--and still some way to go--but maybe for the best to take a step back and really shift toward getting younger. From a stamina standpoint it's hard to buy they'd have much of a run in them. They've got a heavy lifting issue even in the regular season. And were they to sell, of course, they should also consider moving others with term to further restructure.

 

[DWGie26]

I am not feeling a full sell off all UFA’s At TDL, But I do think moving one person out will be addition by subtraction, send a message to the room, and make room for someone. The two who i think would bring value are Eller or Mantha. I’d be OK with Hathaway or Sheary if they brought more value. We could retain salary too to drive up value. But moving out 1 will still leave us a punchers choice.

 

[DWGie26]

One potentially interesting wrinkle to selling is strategically using the opened up cap space either as a third-party broker or to take on contracts. You'd think defenders with term remaining could be appealing. Adding term would need to align with off-season planning but if nothing else it'd be wise to use a post-sale period to evaluate some upside plays. A Puljujarvi type or Kravtsov or an equivalent D like Boqvist perhaps. Some younger additions that could help down the stretch and next season to replenish org. depth and add to the asset base.

Were they to decide to shut down Carlson his $8M could be useful. I don't know how readily some clubs would look to dump players vs. waiting until the draft or buyout period but it's something to consider as a means toward restructuring. Beyond Washington's exact standings placement in the bigger picture there may be some wisdom in deciding to shut Oshie down. Maybe also Wilson all things considered in order to recover fully rather than running them into the ground. Tough calls--and still some way to go--but maybe for the best to take a step back and really shift toward getting younger. From a stamina standpoint it's hard to buy they'd have much of a run in them. They've got a heavy lifting issue even in the regular season. And were they to sell, of course, they should also consider moving others with term to further restructure.

It’s a reasonable thought, but I just don’t think that is where the Caps are at. They are in the playoff hunt. As I mentioned above, I think we can move one out and retain that punchers chance.

In the offseason, I have come around to two potential moves: First, Would Oshie be OK going to hometown Seattle to give them a player the fans can rally around. We could even get that done this year if Seattle really wants him - they could definitely use his leadership for a playoff run.

Secondly, we really need a top line talent. Not a middle 6 who COULD play up. Solid top 6 at least. Ideally someone 26-28 with wheels and heart who can be a 25-30 goal scorer. I don’t know who that is. Maybe Meier.

 

[Hivemind]

Side thought this is a perfect time to call up Ethan Frank

They can't. He doesn't have an NHL contract.