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Speculation: Caps Roster General Discussion (Coaching/FAs/Cap/Lines/etc) | 2024-25 Summer Edition

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Miro we should see soon. Hopefully Cristall gets traded out of Kelona. That seems detrimental to his progress.
 
Wow it's almost like I predicted this days ago. I think I had Cristall getting a handful of games over Mac making the team and then Bear returning once he went back to Kelowna but these were all the obvious choices.

It's stupid from a developmental standpoint to take a future top 6 forward and have him play a game every couple weeks at 20 vs. giving him top 6 minutes in the best AHL organization in the league. Miro was always going to Hershey and V was always going to make the team. One thing you wanna do is make sure your leaders are happy and Vranas still got a handful of buddies in the leadership group in the locker room. Vrana can split time with Sonny and Miro is first man up if there's an injury.
 
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Sonny Milano deserves to start the season on the 3rd line without looking over his shoulder and it's best for Lappy's development too
 
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Hello I don't follow the caps to close as I'm on the west. Is Lindgren for sure considered the starter or does Thompson have a chance to take over?
 
stewy04 said:
Hello I don't follow the caps to close as I'm on the west. Is Lindgren for sure considered the starter or does Thompson have a chance to take over?
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before preseason it was assumed starter is Lindgren and Thompson has chance to become #1

now, it's looking even since LT looked better in his starts so far

likely it'll be the hot hand w/ each starting at least 30+ gms
 
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LesDiablesRouges said:
Both Miro and Cristall are already better than Vrana. Bummer.
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First of all, I disagree. But beyond that, it comes down to development. Vrana can play a handful out of 10 games and not stunt his development. If Cristall or Miro is up, then they need to be playing every day (and ideally not 8 minutes a game either). If they're not consistently holding their roster spot, then it is better to have them down in the minors (or juniors) where they can play top minutes every day.

It stinks that Cristall is forced to go back to the WHL due to the CHL transfer rule. He could easily step into Hershey's roster as a top 6 forward this year.
 
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Kazer said:
First of all, I disagree. But beyond that, it comes down to development. Vrana can play a handful out of 10 games and not stunt his development. If Cristall or Miro is up, then they need to be playing every day (and ideally not 8 minutes a game either). If they're not consistently holding their roster spot, then it is better to have them down in the minors (or juniors) where they can play top minutes every day.

It stinks that Cristall is forced to go back to the WHL due to the CHL transfer rule. He could easily step into Hershey's roster as a top 6 forward this year.
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I agree regarding Miro, but I don't get not rewarding Cristall with a month or two up with the big club, getting his feet wet in the NHL, and then sending him back down to juniors. That would be invaluable for his development, as well as a reward for coming into camp so polished. I was advocating for Vrana, but not at the expense of Cristall or Jimi. I don't get the rationale here...
 
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Kolzilla said:
I agree regarding Miro, but I don't get not rewarding Cristall with a month or two up with the big club, getting his feet wet in the NHL, and then sending him back down to juniors. That would be invaluable for his development, as well as a reward for coming into camp so polished. I was advocating for Vrana, but not at the expense of Cristall or Jimi. I don't get the rationale here...
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I agree with that. To me, what really squeezed Cristall out was keeping 8 D rather than 7. I thought they were going to give Cristall that 9 game cup of coffee with Milano/Vrana as 13F and 14F.
 
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Carbs did mention in last postgm presser that waivers may affect roster decisions
haven't looked at numbers closely,
but wonder if Miro and McIlrath's decisions were as much numbers/waiver exempt status as much as anything?
 
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The real surprise/winner to me in all of this is Alexeyev, who I think could've very easily been sent to Hershey (and probably would've if they didn't have to move Bear for the cap).

As always, the NHL/CHL agreement is pretty ridiculous and I hope with the change in NCAA rules it's something the league re-considers
 
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Misery74 said:
Congrats to McIlrath. It’s been a long road for him. Happy to watch him tune up Matt Rempe.
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Not sure why people expect an actual role for him aside from perhaps injury insurance and pure depth. Do we expect Sandin or TVR to sit? Or do they go 11/7? If so, wouldn't it be someone from Lapierre's line sitting rather than Dowd's? So unnecessary. Pugilism is just not that important, particularly for one player. If something escalates and there's a rematch maybe he's useful but he doesn't need to be taking up a roster spot purely for that sort of contingency.

Quality guy, great teammate, potentially an okay depth option. But...I assume he's simply depth and that if he does stay he won't play much barring injury. I'm sure they value his physicality and eagerness in some respects to gap up on dudes but dropping them in itself doesn't outweigh what's lost in playing him.
 
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Langway said:
Not sure why people expect an actual role for him aside from perhaps injury insurance and pure depth. Do we expect Sandin or TVR to sit? Or do they go 11/7? If so, wouldn't it be someone from Lapierre's line sitting rather than Dowd's? So unnecessary. Pugilism is just not that important, particularly for one player. If something escalates and there's a rematch maybe he's useful but he doesn't need to be taking up a roster spot purely for that sort of contingency.

Quality guy, great teammate, potentially an okay depth option. But...I assume he's simply depth and that if he does stay he won't play much barring injury. I'm sure they value his physicality and eagerness in some respects to gap up on dudes but dropping them in itself doesn't outweigh what's lost in playing him.
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I expect him to be the 7D and play if/when someone else gets injured. Even against the Rempes of the world I would be shocked if he dresses while the top 6 D and top 13 Fs are healthy. I also think the organization generally values having more depth defenseman around than depth forwards (which I probably agree with) and that helped tilt the decision to keep Alexeyev/McIlrath over Sgarbossa or Cristall on the roster
 
895 said:
seriously who cares about mcilrath

Terrible decision


If I were Cristal for my own development I would request a trade
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Oh relax. He's 19, and he's small. It would be best if he could be in Hershey, but he can't and that's not the Caps' fault. I would have liked him to get 9 games, but at the end of the day it would just have been 9 games, and he's definitely not ready for the grind of an NHL season.
 
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Would have really liked Cristall to get at least a shot (send Laps down to Hershey to start the season then call him up after 9 games) but it is what it is. I'm really happy for Vrana to get another shot at the NHL. Even though he blew big balls in his last season with St. Louis, the guy scored at a 40 goal rate in the three seasons prior. Obviously small sample sizes but I'm cautiously optimistic he can produce at a 20+ goal rate for the Caps if he stays healthy this season. He still has his speed so if he can still shoot it, we should have ourselves a very cheap but effective depth scorer.
 
DukeDog13 said:
Would have really liked Cristall to get at least a shot (send Laps down to Hershey to start the season then call him up after 9 games) but it is what it is. I'm really happy for Vrana to get another shot at the NHL. Even though he blew big balls in his last season with St. Louis, the guy scored at a 40 goal rate in the three seasons prior. Obviously small sample sizes but I'm cautiously optimistic he can produce at a 20+ goal rate for the Caps if he stays healthy this season. He still has his speed so if he can still shoot it, we should have ourselves a very cheap but effective depth scorer.
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Lapierre is an important Capital. His days in Hershey aren’t coming back.
 
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Misery74 said:
Lapierre is an important Capital. His days in Hershey aren’t coming back.
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I agree, it was just a pipedream I had so Cristall could get a taste of the NHL while Vrana still made the cut. Plus, Lapierre's rough preseason made me think it might actually happen but things worked out okay.
 
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