Speculation: Caps Roster General Discussion (Coaching/FAs/Cap/Lines/etc) | 2023-24 Regular Season Edition

[Langway]

The sky isn't falling but this is more than likely going to be a very drawn out process which may drain the competitive juice out of Ovechkin before it's over. I mean, I wouldn't judge anyone that wants out of this mess if they can't get their act together in the coming weeks and months. Overall I doubt they resolve their amassed issues in one off-season. It's grown to be too long a list. So much Carbery has stepped into is deeply entrenched and the result years in the making among players either unable or unwilling to reinvent themselves. There's only so much that can be expected managing such talents.

Maybe if they sell Dowd, Jensen and some others they net some picks and bundle them to dump some of their costlier sludge on teams. That may be the quickest route to restructuring but without a quality relatively young developing core in place I doubt more of a quick rebuild with the Stromes of the world is adequate. For better or worse they probably need to suck this year and next while they let their various toxic assets expire. Net a couple of relatively high-end blue chip prospects to build around and then augment further with quality UFAs in '25. But wheher they can tolerate or risk fanbase erosion with perhaps another ~150 games of suck is another question.

One thing is for sure IMO: the whole idyllic, status-quo-until-895 approach isn't going to make it. If it does it will come at great overall cost. The task ahead of them isn't going to be getting any easier for a while.

 

[g00n]

The moment of - or reason for - morphing from magical puck wizard to frivolous puck goblin can be hard for us mortals to pinpoint (particularly since he sometimes morphs back), but the results are pretty apparent

In the old Spider Man cartoons the Green Goblin was capable of magic, which of course was used for evil.

Kuzy's Red Goblin magic can only be used for turning offense into defense.

 

[huerter]

The progressive coach has NO IDEA what PDO is. Sheesh.

 

[CapitalsCupReality]

It's to early to tell on most of GMBMs picks if you ask me.

Carlson drafted in 08 wasn't until 14/15 season he put up 1D numbers and arguably until 17/18 he was a stud

Orlov drafted in 09 and wasn't a fulltime cap until 15/16

Kuznetsov drafted in 10 and didn't put up stud numbers until 15/16 season

That's 6 seasons until those players became what were saying GMBM isn't able to find in his 10 years as GM. By this metric Alexyev has another year, McMichael and Protas have 2 years, Lappy and Trenyev 3 years, Iorio 4 years, Miro, Chelsey, and Sudz 5 years before they can be considered not acceptable picks

There’s no doubt a few poor draft years have really really hurt our pipeline, but we also traded a lot of picks/players….

Largely though, I agree, it’s too early on some VERY promising drafts classes….’19 and later are the range to possibly be extremely excited about.

 

[Roshi]

You can always say we arent finding enough ”hits” from the late rounds, but thats generally how it works. When looking at the actual drafts i like our body of work so far for -23, -22, -21 and -19.

 

[bacchist]

I think it's fair to say that drafting under BMac has not been a strength. 2016 and 2017 were complete write offs and that's the generation of players that should be contributing at the NHL level right now.

Situation is not helped by some of the trades. We'd all probably feel better about BMac's drafting if Vrana, Siegenthaler and Samsonov returned valuable assets or building blocks for the future. Instead they returned Mantha.

All in all, Caps do not have any (projected) elite level prospects or young players. This has something to do with the management team that has been in place for 10 years, though the biggest factor is the high competitive level of the team in that time span, IMO.

I'd give him a pass on 2017, since our first pick was late in the 4th round.

 

[HecticGlow]

I'd give him a pass on 2017, since our first pick was late in the 4th round.

The scouting staff get a pass on 2017, as they weren’t given much to work with. GMBM was responsible for our 2017 draft capital being so bare, of course, including trading the 1st rounder for Shattenkirk by mistakenly believing Nate Schmidt (3RD) rather than Carl Alzner (1LR) was our great issue going into the playoffs.

 

[traparatus]

I'd give him a pass on 2017, since our first pick was late in the 4th round.

Yes, for sure. We must take these factors into consideration. As I said, the leading cause behind the thin farm system is simply how competitive the team has been, IMO. Not the only cause, though.

I would describe my attitude toward BMac leading a rebuild as 'cautiously pessimistic'. Last off-season was a real disappointment for me, Wilson's contract in particular. That's a contract that you can MAYBE justify if your next core group is already in the system. Caps likely as not haven't even drafted any of the next core group yet.

It's all good trading away draft picks when you are contending but you have to make up for it and trade away aging players for picks/prospects when it's time to rebuild. At least give yourself a chance to draft that next top center.

 

[Roshi]

All sales are off! Its 1st for Mantha now.

 

[zappa4ever]

so at 6 gms in we've "generally" been improving in a straight line
1st 3 gms had few highs and some glaring bads and an anemic offense
2nd 3 gms the effort has been pretty good, the offensive chances pretty good, and gm6 finally breaking through with 6 goals

don't look now, but we can be .500 next game

found Strome's interview post-game about HC stressing puck possession (esp in D-zone breakouts) very interesting so there's some explanation why "process" growing pains are still very apparent

Curious to see how things look in another 5 gms as the players start to internalize the system more

 

[g00n]

Spencer Carbery’s second intermission speech in locker room helps spark Capitals’ comeback win over Devils

After having about as bad of a five-game start as possible, the Washington Capitals came out firing on all cylinders against the…

russianmachineneverbreaks.com

 

[um]

The scouting staff get a pass on 2017, as they weren’t given much to work with. GMBM was responsible for our 2017 draft capital being so bare, of course, including trading the 1st rounder for Shattenkirk by mistakenly believing Nate Schmidt (3RD) rather than Carl Alzner (1LR) was our great issue going into the playoffs.

I blame Trotz for scratching Schmidt over Alzner/Orpik. That or dressing 7D because he didn’t have the balls to scratch one of those guys.

Boy that was a frustrating playoffs. I was also mad at Ovie for sucking so hard. Our best team ever and Ovie’s worst year ever.

 

[SherVaughn30]

Who cares who gets the credit at the end of the day the GM is the one in charge. As for studs he drafted in later rounds I dunno some guy named Holtby. And the defense of GMBM is that he hasn’t had top 5 picks. But GMGM picked Green, Varlamov, Neuvirth, Carlson, MoJo, Orlov, Kuzy, Grubauer, Stephenson, Burakovsky, Perrault, all in late first round or after. All of those players are better than what GMBM has drafted in similar spots.

Mahoney was the architect of drafting those players. McPhee was just the manager with the final say. Also remember BMac was the Assistant GM in help picking these players.

 

[HTFN]

Spencer Carbery’s second intermission speech in locker room helps spark Capitals’ comeback win over Devils

After having about as bad of a five-game start as possible, the Washington Capitals came out firing on all cylinders against the…

russianmachineneverbreaks.com

I like the candor and feel for the room as usual, but I couldn't help rolling my eyes at that Oshie quote.

You guys can't still seriously playing the "yeah I guess we just thought it would come easy and we stopped trying" game.

 

[g00n]

I like the candor and feel for the room as usual, but I couldn't help rolling my eyes at that Oshie quote.

You guys can't still seriously playing the "yeah I guess we just thought it would come easy and we stopped trying" game.

Same. I like that SC nipped that shit in the bud at the first opportunity. No letting it play out and seeing what happens, then waiting for it to happen again, then just kind of accepting it. Nope. f*** that.

This has been the most frustrating part about watching the Caps over X number of years...the inability to play the same way for a full 60 minutes, and the way they seem to look for the first opportunity to coast with the lead.

 

[HTFN]

Same. I like that SC nipped that shit in the bud at the first opportunity. No letting it play out and seeing what happens, then waiting for it to happen again, then just kind of accepting it. Nope. f*** that.

This has been the most frustrating part about watching the Caps over X number of years...the inability to play the same way for a full 60 minutes, and the way they seem to look for the first opportunity to coast with the lead.

Him using words like "frustrating" already was a great sign, honestly. He didn't look around for answers, he knew this was going to happen before it even happened. I bet it was on a list of shit to fix in the offseason because everywhere else this guy has come in with a plan and a list of shit to look for and doesn't seem to wait more than a game or two before he slams the hammer down on the problem of the highest priority.

His adjustment pace and the clarity of them has been night and day better than recent years. If he doesn't just suddenly run out of gas and answers, I think the Caps are about to get a lot smarter in the next few years and some of the younger guys might become real interesting as a result.

 

[WanderingCapsFan]

Him using words like "frustrating" already was a great sign, honestly. He didn't look around for answers, he knew this was going to happen before it even happened. I bet it was on a list of shit to fix in the offseason because everywhere else this guy has come in with a plan and a list of shit to look for and doesn't seem to wait more than a game or two before he slams the hammer down on the problem of the highest priority.

His adjustment pace and the clarity of them has been night and day better than recent years. If he doesn't just suddenly run out of gas and answers, I think the Caps are about to get a lot smarter in the next few years and some of the younger guys might become real interesting as a result.

Hope so. But there's tons of "I'm stuck in my way and I don't give a s**t because I'm getting paid either way" on this team.

Best of luck to Spencer.

 

[Holtbyisms]

Hope so. But there's tons of "I'm stuck in my way and I don't give a s**t because I'm getting paid either way" on this team.

Best of luck to Spencer.

He's just gotta ride this out until the rebuild. I'm pretty sure he's got the keys to the kingdom for awhile, just gotta wait it out.

 

[HTFN]

Hope so. But there's tons of "I'm stuck in my way and I don't give a s**t because I'm getting paid either way" on this team.

Best of luck to Spencer.

Eh, you do what you can.

The fact that he was willing to start the season sitting Mantha tells me that there's room in the press box for just about anybody who wants to take a while learning lessons and it's going to come down to what you do, not how much you make.

Probably a handful of exceptions to that rule but doesn't seem like he's got many of them.

 

[Chokingdogs]

Not sure I follow but I think GMGM had maybe the best draft run out of any GM from 2004-2014. It’s actually insane when you look over how many studs he drafted in later rounds.

What? What later round studs did makfi draft? Been a long time…but my memory is he sucked with picks outside the first round. To that point, he had 1 or 2 drafts with stinkers from round 1 on down.

 

[YippieKaey]

I think it's fair to say that drafting under BMac has not been a strength. 2016 and 2017 were complete write offs and that's the generation of players that should be contributing at the NHL level right now.

Situation is not helped by some of the trades. We'd all probably feel better about BMac's drafting if Vrana, Siegenthaler and Samsonov returned valuable assets or building blocks for the future. Instead they returned Mantha.

All in all, Caps do not have any (projected) elite level prospects or young players. This has something to do with the management team that has been in place for 10 years, though the biggest factor is the high competitive level of the team in that time span, IMO.

Elite level prospects get drafted by teams in the bottom half of the standings, where the Caps hadn't been for over 10 years until last season.

 

[HecticGlow]

Elite level prospects get drafted by teams in the bottom half of the standings, where the Caps hadn't been for over 10 years until last season.

There are, of course, plenty of examples of top-of-the-lineup players who were drafted at or after where the caps were picking in the first round. In 2016, for example, we could have chosen:

Adam Fox (#66)
Tage Thompson (#26 - our pick until we traded down)
Alex Debricant (#39)
Jesper Bratt (#162)
Jordan Kyrou (#35)
Samuel Girard (#47)
Carter Hart (#48)
Brandon Hagel (#159)

Yes, scouting is an art not a science and plenty of teams initially passed on the above, sometimes multiple times. But it isn‘t true that good or elite players are unavailable to teams like the Caps, we just keep choosing Lucas Johansen-types in the first round.

As an organisation, we don’t seem to hit on picks like some other teams do. A team like Tampa has found gem after gem in the draft, including Point, Kucherov and Cirelli none of whom were first round picks.

 

[g00n]

It's confirmation bias. I've gone back and looked at several drafts in detail and we can cherrypick players who panned out that we passed on, or guys we reached for who failed, but EVERY team does that.

Every one.

And when you have a team with a pretty established core for so long, and very few high picks over that same period, it's hard to nab high upside players that aren't already being scraped from the draft board by other teams. And when you do get some there's little upward mobility. Guys like that get traded with picks for win-now veterans.

Suck shit for a few years and watch the guys we draft suddenly get a lot more playing time, and it will look like the McPhee early days again. Young draftees get more NHL games on bad teams.

 

[HecticGlow]

Mahoney was the architect of drafting those players. McPhee was just the manager with the final say. Also remember BMac was the Assistant GM in help picking these players.

Okay, but then why did the Caps become so poor at drafting? There doesn’t seem to have been any accountability on the scouting staff, if these were their picks.

 

[HecticGlow]

Guys like that get traded with picks for win-now veterans.

Suck shit for a few years and watch the guys we draft suddenly get a lot more playing time, and it will look like the McPhee early days again. Young draftees get more NHL games on bad teams.

That was our strategy, yes - and one that didn’t really work. The one year we got past the second round we were forced to play younger guys who usually were crowded out - Stephenson, Djoos, Boyd, Vrana, Burakovsky…

And yet we watched the Penguins win two years in a row by pairing their younger players with the Crosbys and Malkins. Tampa has had tremendous success giving guys like Point, Cirelli and Colton NHL playing time when they were promising, but incomplete, players.