League News: NHL Talk - (News n' Scores n' Stuff) - 2022-23 season, Vol. 4, Off-season Edition

[traparatus]

Man imagine if both Siegenthaler and Hamilton were Washington Capitals instead of John Carlson and the ghost of Zdeno Chara.

That would be nice. Slap a little Eichel on there and we got ourselves a pretty good sandwich.

In a broader look, the whole Dillon, Schultz, Siegenthaler, Chara sequence of events did not pay off for the Caps. Nothing overly positive has come out of it.

 

[CapitalsCupReality]

God you’re so petulant about this. He asked to be traded because they couldn’t stop riding a corpse into battle instead of letting him play, and now we see why that’s not always such a solid or safer plan. How many times you want to see it before you maybe think “oh, I guess they’re not faultless geniuses”?

Whatever, he asked out. Never have once said the team hasn’t made mistakes. nobody other than a few fringe outliers were crying about those moves at the time.

 

[CapitalsCupReality]

Unfortunately, a big part of what we needed from that spot right then was price. There's price with future upside (Siegenthaler) and price with little future anything (Chara). Siegenthaler was ALWAYS better at LD than Djoos was on his off side. We blew dozens of development games on that bonehead move.

What we needed at that time was a good LD at a low price. We'd been sheltering our 3rd pair for a LONG time at that point. Siegs was a fit for what we needed and more.



I never said either of those things. Stop making shit up. I said he was an ideal fit at a low price. And that's true, given that our expectations from that spot were so low that we'd been filling it with a 60-pound righty and then filled it with a 7-foot geriatric scarecrow. Zero possible upside to either of those choices. Plenty of possible upside in Siegenthaler.



By you, maybe. That take is ridiculous on mobility alone. Holding up forum posts that are hyperbolic to the point of being nonsensical as the only support for your argument is an odd approach.



I never said that. Stop making shit up. I said there were no guarantees either guy would become much more than what they were. No one knew either would break out. But plenty of people saw the potential. I, personally, was as all-in on Stephenson. Those types of versatile, high-motor players are my favorites and he had all the promise of a very good one. Reirden shut him down.

I have less of a nose for defensive potential, but enough to know that Siegenthaler was head and shoulders above anything we had going on at LD in the pipe (despite drafting 40 of them). That's not necessarily saying much, but true nonetheless. And I never felt alone in that take. Letting him go didn't feel like the bonkers move Stephenson was, but losing him for very little and filling that spot with a corpse? THAT made it every bit as bonkers.



I felt that way. And look, my perspective on this is different from yours. I don't come here very often. I talk hockey mostly with my friends, and as much on reddit as here as far as online goes. So when I say "everyone" that's who I mean. I don't have my finger on the pulse of this particular community as much as someone with 60,000 posts does.

So my "everyone" had a lot of great things to say about Stephenson. That move was atrocious. Regardless of what he might become, he was better than Lars Eller at that moment. Maybe not quite the penalty killer, but clearly the better even strength forward. His talents were wasted by Reirden.

Making shit up….I’m more and more convinced you just like to read your own bloviated posts.

Your absurd circular logic leads me to not want to reply to your BS point by point.

you say “I think MOST PEOPLE thought Siege was an ideal fit for what we needed”.

I said “BS”, (if your logic says he was ideal by most people, show me most of the posts protesting against him being traded). They don’t exist.

You then go on to inaccurately say he was what was “needed”. Well cheap wasn’t the only thing needed. They wanted to upgrade the roster and he was just kinda new and average, and due a raise. They tried and failed.

you then try to define your alternate definition of the term “everyone“ to your definition to shoehorn your position? Dude just give it a rest.

I mean whatever…..fire the Coach fire the GM, I really don’t care other than the obsessiveness in the conversation around here.

Agree, disagree, feel the need to defend a dude that gets in a dust up 2 times a week with various people here ….whatever man. Talk about being a dick….it goes both ways. Stick to hockey and we’re all better for it. I’ll try to do the same.

 

[twabby]

A fun game would be to make a lineup of players that are currently active but who the Caps have given away or let walk and see if any of the five players on the Capitals exceed their collective GAR.

Forsberg-Stephenson-Vrana
Siegs-Schultz
Vanny

Scratches: Sammy, Sprong, Burakovsky, Boyd, Sanford

versus

Any combination of current Caps playing their correct position. How’s it turn out?

Burakovsky: 21.2 GAR
Stephenson: 21.7 GAR
Vrana: 8.8 GAR

Siegenthaler: 17.4 GAR
Schultz: -0.5 GAR

Those numbers are over the past 3 years.

The best current Capitals fivesome over the past 3 years playing in their natural positions:

Mantha: 11.1 GAR (yes, he rates better than Ovechkin)
Kuznetsov: 10.4 GAR
Wilson: 20.7 GAR

Orlov: 13.9 GAR
Jensen: 26.0 GAR

So they got rid of 68.6 GAR for basically Mantha and nothing else, and the best 5 current Capitals are only at 82.1 GAR. That’s not good!

Of course they were almost surely correct to move on from Schultz, but it’s hard to say in hindsight any of the other moves were the correct ones. Even the Vrana move where they actually got an asset in return is looking to be at best a wash and at worst a missed opportunity to get a more significant asset in return if they insisted on trading Vrana.

I think this has to fall on the GM for missing so badly on these players. I don’t think many expected Stephenson or Siegenthaler to become star players but your GM needs to have a better sense than us random internet posters. MacLellan makes millions of dollars a year to make these decisions and we don’t. I think it’s fair to hold him to a higher standard than @CapsFan69

 

[Vilica]

The Siegenthaler deal was not great asset management, but at the same time, I get why they moved on from him at that time. His defensive metrics are great, and he may be an elite defensive defenseman, but he's still never going to be more than a #4 - a support defenseman on a second pairing. He might be the best #4 in the league, but he's not going to move the needle beyond that. They had both Fehervary and Alexeyev coming, and they chose their upsides over the 3rd pair+PK role Siegenthaler had shown at the time.

Beyond that, the expansion draft was that summer, and he wasn't exempt. They ended up choosing TvR to protect beyond Carlson and Orlov, leaving Jensen, Dillon and Schultz unprotected on their D-core (man how much more screwed would we have been had Seattle chosen Jensen). They keep him and don't protect him, entirely possible they lose him for nothing to Seattle. That's also why I don't lament losing Schmidt in the expansion draft - you could've tried to move players for futures, but in the end they were losing either Burakovsky, Schmidt, or Grubauer.

 

[HTFN]

Whatever, he asked out. Never have once said the team hasn’t made mistakes. nobody other than a few fringe outliers were crying about those moves at the time.

Why did he ask out, do you remember? Was it "I hate living in Washington"? No?

"I don't like my teammates"? No, don't remember that. What was it? Oh yeah, that's right.

"They gave my spot to Chara and played the absolute shit out of him all year while I wasted away in the press box and had my career brought to a halt for a half-effective star on his dying legs".

What theme does that follow?

 

[Jags]

Making shit up….

Yeah. You misquoted me twice. You don't like the conversation devolving? Try just responding to what's posted instead of veering off topic whenever it suits you and being unnecessarily antagonistic.

I said “BS”, (if your logic says he was ideal by most people, show me most of the posts protesting against him being traded). They don’t exist.

Show me the posts lauding the Siegenthaler deal and the way we filled that spot. Again, revisionist history. People weren't thrilled. It's not something that rocked the forums one way or the other, but if you're saying the majority of people here think we handled that well, you've been sampling the Baghdad Eightball...

you then try to define your alternate definition of the term “everyone“ to your definition to shoehorn your position?

No. I said we had different perspectives because we talk to different people about hockey. My "everyone" and your "everyone" aren't the same people. There's a world outside the small bubble of this little corner of a forum. Your revisionist take on what the 30 or so regular posters here thought about Stephenson being disposable doesn't move me. People gravitate to their echo chamber of choice. Gonna need a bigger sample than that.

From what I recall, Hagelin was coming back from injury and we had to make a move. In the end, we traded Stephenson to avoid the risk of losing Boyd on waivers, though we didn't give him a QO at season's end.

So we had Hagelin, who is so universally beloved here, coming off an IR stint where he wasn't missed, and we had to give up a versatile depth forward to make room for him. You're saying this is a situation that "everyone" on this forum thought was peachy?

Agree, disagree, feel the need to defend a dude that gets in a dust up 2 times a week with various people here ….whatever man.

I don't know anything about the guy except that I agree with him most of the time. The conflicts you're referencing are typically with you or the folks that post like you do -- antagonistic, belittling, insulting for no reason whatsoever.

HTFN seems pretty polite and respectful, but replies in kind when people needlessly adopt that infantile tone.

I agree with you more often than not, but when people disagree you react like a middle school bully.

 

[trick9]

All i think reading about how players blossom elsewhere is that i wish we'd be better at developing players. The sad truth is that given our recent history of mis-managing player development there are teams eagerly waiting who we put on the trade block/waivers next.

 

[Alexander the Gr8]

All i think reading about how players blossom elsewhere is that i wish we'd be better at developing players. The sad truth is that given our recent history of mis-managing player development there are teams eagerly waiting who we put on the trade block/waivers next.

Fully agree with you here. Who is the last player developed internally that went on to have a measurable positive impact on the current team?

Fehervary and Protas would be the most recent ones. Before that, Wilson is the most recent player developed internally on the current roster.

Everyone else was either acquired via trade or FA, aside from the main core pieces that have been in place for over 10 years now.

We’ve had issues developing for a while now, at a time where we needed young guys to grow into their projected roles.

I’d like to see them shift the focus more towards player development this year, especially if we’re projected to miss the playoffs.

 

[Hivemind]

From 2009-2016 the Capitals drafted 15 skaters who have played 150+ NHL games and 3 goalies each with 89+ GP. Of those 18 players, just four are in the Capitals organization currently (and one of those is Marcus Johansson who obviously left and returned).

If you remove first rounders from that sample, it's literally just Dmitry Orlov playing for Washington.

Some of the guys they have let go are rather marginal (Carrick, Bowey, Sanford) but some are very much not (Forsberg, Stephenson, Seigenthaler, Vrana).

Caps are doing a pretty good job being the farm system for other NHL franchises right now.

 

[Peeri]

God you’re so petulant about this. He asked to be traded because they couldn’t stop riding a corpse into battle instead of letting him play, and now we see why that’s not always such a solid or safer plan. How many times you want to see it before you maybe think “oh, I guess they’re not faultless geniuses”?

Same thing is going to happen with McMichael sooner or later.

 

[Langway]

The Caps are the last team to beat the Devils. Holy smokes.

 

[twabby]

The Devils are currently 4-3-0 despite having a .849 team save percentage, by far the worst in the NHL and unsustainably bad. They are going to be a problem this year.

How does he do it?

 

[twabby]

Saved by the Sabres!

Also it's sad that I actually had to check and see that Buffalo had priority over Washington for waiver claims because I wasn't sure!

 

[traparatus]

Just an opinion but those new Florida reverse retro jerseys are freaking awesome. Between those and the beauties that Flames are wearing, the whole game is eye candy.

 

[VaCaps Fan]

Twabby going to the beach with the panthers reverse retro on?

 

[marcel snapshot]

Sure it’s the Pens (and worse, Malkin), but still . . .

 

[RedRocking]

NJD even running around the Oil. VV is looking pretty good with some key stops on 97, etc.. Tatar just had a nifty goal.

This game looks like an entirely different sport than what the Caps play.

 

[PlushMinus]

NJD even running around the Oil. VV is looking pretty good with some key stops on 97, etc.. Tatar just had a nifty goal.

This game looks like an entirely different sport than what the Caps play.

Yeah - Devils have won 13 games in a row, in part thanks to one of our castoffs. Nice to see VV having success elsewhere. I know people here have suggested it's our goaltending coach but I'm more inclined to think he's getting better support from the D in front of him?

I'm actually really surprised the Devils are playing this well with Lindy Ruff coaching them. I thought if any of the current batch of old coaches was washed up and past it, it would be him.

 

[trick9]

Results around the league, pick your boat:

The Playoff hopes boat:

Good:
- Flyers lost
- Bolts lost
- Canes lost

Bad:
- Canes got a point
- Leafs-Isles was a 3-point game
- Devils won, too far to catch

The Tank boat:

Good:
- Preds-Coyotes was a 3-point game
- Blues won
- Sharks won

Bad:
- Flyers lost
- Canucks lost

Morgan Rielly hurt for the Leafs... who were already down Muzzin and Brodie, yikes.

Capitals now sit 24th in points percentage with .425. Flyers, Flames at home and Devils away this week. 3 games in 4 days.

 

[Alexander the Gr8]

Sure it’s the Pens (and worse, Malkin), but still . . .

Woah, he definitely speaks better English than his old man lol. I'd be curious to see how well Ovi's kids speak English when they grow up.

 

[marcel snapshot]

Why does the Montreal power play look so much more dynamic than ours?

 

[YippieKaey]

Woah, he definitely speaks better English than his old man lol. I'd be curious to see how well Ovi's kids speak English when they grow up.

They'll likely be completely fluent since they're growing up in the US?

So weird watching the Sabres play Montreal. They stickhandle and deke and it actually leads to production. It's like watching Kuznetsovs moves actually working.

 

[notDkristich]

Why does the Montreal power play look so much more dynamic than ours?

Are they skating around the ice rather than standing still? Are they able to sustain the offensive zone? Do players hold on to the puck for mere moments at a time? Do they move their feet after a pass rather than admiring a rather mundane accomplishment? Does the PP unit have more shots for than shots against?

Congratulations...it's not the Caps PP.

 

[Ridley Simon]

Yeah - Devils have won 13 games in a row, in part thanks to one of our castoffs. Nice to see VV having success elsewhere. I know people here have suggested it's our goaltending coach but I'm more inclined to think he's getting better support from the D in front of him?

I'm actually really surprised the Devils are playing this well with Lindy Ruff coaching them. I thought if any of the current batch of old coaches was washed up and past it, it would be him.

Caps will end the Devils streak. Assuming it makes it that long.