You're not defying time when your best two-way forward is Nic Dowd and you only have one goal-scorer. Sorry. They're done for the foreseeable future. How they address either of those deficits any time soon is anyone's guess, particularly at a time when they can ill-afford not to invest in a quality blueline. It's not like they haven't invested in those forward positions: Backstrom, Kuznetsov, Eller (even if expiring), now Strome, Mantha, Wilson, Oshie.
Carlson's absence has been huge. Make no mistake. But other teams will continue to improve and Washington is only likely to decline further as-is given the lack of obvious internal developing solutions. Buffalo & Ottawa aren't going anywhere. Ottawa has been without Josh Norris for all but eight games. Florida will have some cap flexibility to be deeper. The younger, developing cornerstone pieces the Caps need unavoidably will take time via the draft and we'll see if they've got the patience for the task. It sure doesn't seem like it unless forced into it. Maybe an off-season coaching change better aligns them toward IQ/development over sheer mindless hustle but MacLellan has also had issues being on the same page with every coach he's had. At some point it's a GM issue, not a coaching issue. That suspect alignment along with the potential for ownership influence makes their road back to contention littered with issues. What should be obvious seems like a last resort and you wonder when they'll finally be forced to admit this group no longer has it in them. I'm guessing in full it takes another season and potentially another unintentional tank sort of season.
Even if they sell all of their pending UFAs it's hard to see what comes next. Are they now prepared to move a core piece or two? Is the market there to do so without taking back another team's sludge? Can they afford to potentially downgrade defensively at a time when the forward group on the books is so poor? There are way more questions than answers. It's hard to have any expectation they're going to be more sorted out in the near-term...nor that they have the perspective and patience to be sufficiently disciplined over a longer period (resisting convenient albeit substandard fixes). When healthy and on their absolute best behavior they can make it work. They battle through it and find a way. But when they struggle--and increasingly the game isn't easy for them--you wonder if they're able to reel it back in. It won't take very many heavy lifter losses without adequate replacement for this team to be essentially non-competitive. The outlines are already there.
