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marcel snapshot

marcel snapshot

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AlexBrovechkin8 said:
Put another way: I very much appreciate Trotz for what he did and I very much do not give a shit about what he’s doing now.
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Yep I’m pretty much there too, except that I think what Trotz did for us and does now for the Islanders is under-appreciated within the Caps organization because of the star orientation at the top. I don’t think GMBM shares that orientation, and I’m also surprised we didn’t have more success with Lavy this year. At bottom, I believe that others can replicate what Trotz did, but it’s harder than it looks and under-valuing what he did is how you end up with Todd Reirden as head coach for 2 years.
 
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marcel snapshot said:
Yep I’m pretty much there too, except that I think what Trotz did for us and does now for the Islanders is under-appreciated within the Caps organization because of the star orientation at the top. I don’t think GMBM shares that orientation, and I’m also surprised we didn’t have more success with Lavy this year. At bottom, I believe that others can replicate what Trotz did, but it’s harder than it looks and under-valuing what he did is how you end up with Todd Reirden as head coach for 2 years.
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Trotz has had 3 seasons to work with his group and understand how they respond/change in the playoffs. Lavi has had a partial year and no real training camp or preseason, and no experience with these guys in the playoffs. If Lavi falls flat on his face next year then we can start being concerned.

Another thing to think about is how the "injury excuse" was different this time. In previous seasons where injuries were blamed the Caps would gag in the playoffs and a few weeks later we'd hear stories about how 2-3 of them were injured mysteriously, and McPhee would lean on that in order to buy another shot. This year we had almost the entire top 6, our top D-man, and our top 2 goaltenders out or otherwise compromised pretty much from the start. We knew going in who was hurt because we saw it happen in the games/weeks BEFORE the playoffs.

I don't recall a postseason in the Ovie era where so many key players were known to be hobbled/out before Game 1.
 
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Hivemind

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In a weird twist, the Lavi hiring makes the Trotz departure look worse for the Capitals in a way. The party line and logic has always been that Trotz wouldn’t last the full 5 years of his desired extension, and the Capitals would end up on the hook for his $4-5M salary in the 2020-23 seasons regardless if he was still employed by the team (at least until he was hired by a new organization). That’s a somewhat sound logic, especially considering the organizations historical reticence towards high coaching salaries. But now they’re on the hook for paying $4.9m towards Laviolette in those seasons anyway....
 
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HecticGlow

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What I don’t understand is why the Caps left Trotz a lame duck all season, damaging their relationship and somewhat jeopardising his authority in the team. If you’d reached the conclusion he wasn’t the right guy, make an in-season change — Mike Sullivan had just been a midseason coaching change and that brought them back-to-back Cups immediately. The problem for Trotz was they’d already decided he wasn’t their guy anymore, and he knew it too, but their indecision over firing him meant they waited until an arbitrary end-of-season point to make the change, by which point and he’d spectacularly proved them wrong. The relationships were clearly already soured, and Trotz and Reirden sticking together seems like it was untenable. But Mac put himself in a position where either he wasted another year of the ever-closing window by keeping a guy who couldn’t find success, or having to deal with the fallout of that coach winning and installing a rookie to replace him because things had soured too much.

Equally, if Reirden had let the culture and accountability get so bad, why was he only fired after the 2020 playoff exit? GMBM is not shy about moving players in and out as required - look at the Vrana/Mantha trade - so why not the same for coaches? If this coaching staff can’t now get stronger play out of their defense and goaltenders, for example, when is GMBM going to act? At the end of next season? When their contracts are up?

I think that’s what concerns me about the Trotz situation - that the Caps management and/or ownership continue to struggle with coaching and development staff. They remain too hesitant to make decisions at the right times.
 
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txpd

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Ted didn't want to fire him and pay 2 coaches. It's hard to fire a coach after 2 straight president's trophies too. Not firing was the right move in the end
 
g00n

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HecticGlow said:
What I don’t understand is why the Caps left Trotz a lame duck all season, damaging their relationship and somewhat jeopardising his authority in the team. If you’d reached the conclusion he wasn’t the right guy, make an in-season change — Mike Sullivan had just been a midseason coaching change and that brought them back-to-back Cups immediately. The problem for Trotz was they’d already decided he wasn’t their guy anymore, and he knew it too, but their indecision over firing him meant they waited until an arbitrary end-of-season point to make the change, by which point and he’d spectacularly proved them wrong. The relationships were clearly already soured, and Trotz and Reirden sticking together seems like it was untenable. But Mac put himself in a position where either he wasted another year of the ever-closing window by keeping a guy who couldn’t find success, or having to deal with the fallout of that coach winning and installing a rookie to replace him because things had soured too much.

Equally, if Reirden had let the culture and accountability get so bad, why was he only fired after the 2020 playoff exit? GMBM is not shy about moving players in and out as required - look at the Vrana/Mantha trade - so why not the same for coaches? If this coaching staff can’t now get stronger play out of their defense and goaltenders, for example, when is GMBM going to act? At the end of next season? When their contracts are up?

I think that’s what concerns me about the Trotz situation - that the Caps management and/or ownership continue to struggle with coaching and development staff. They remain too hesitant to make decisions at the right times.
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Possibly because Trotz had the locker room and canning him to install TR in February would've been an unsavory option that could've backfired. IIRC the Caps were still in a playoff spot, just struggling on the ice. Coaches in that position do get fired but if they're popular with the players it's always risky. You could miss the postseason entirely if morale takes a dive.

It's also bad optics for future hirings, though I'm not sure they were thinking along those lines The Caps had already run through several coaches. Cassidy, Hanlon, Boudreau and Oates were all fired. Hunter walked away. Trotz was the first experienced NHL coach the team had since....Wilson? Hard to lure good coaches that way.

As mentioned before I think TR was playing Wormtongue and badmouthing Trotz to Caps brass. I have nothing to back that up but the signs are there. So they were keeping him around as Plan B with the expectation that a deep playoff run for Trotz was a coin flip.

It's possible they believed he might take them deep enough to continue as coach and then settle for a cheap contract. Or they were just expecting him to flame out and walk away, at which point TR slithers in.

Instead the team rallied around Troz and won the Cup. That should tell us that firing him mid-season would likely have backfired horribly.

The thing people are missing is that MAY NOT BE REPEATABLE. Maybe the Caps won that year BECAUSE Trotz was about to leave. If not for that, they don't win, and he leaves anyway.
 
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kicksavedave

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Hivemind said:
In a weird twist, the Lavi hiring makes the Trotz departure look worse for the Capitals in a way. The party line and logic has always been that Trotz wouldn’t last the full 5 years of his desired extension, and the Capitals would end up on the hook for his $4-5M salary in the 2020-23 seasons regardless if he was still employed by the team (at least until he was hired by a new organization). That’s a somewhat sound logic, especially considering the organizations historical reticence towards high coaching salaries. But now they’re on the hook for paying $4.9m towards Laviolette in those seasons anyway....
Click to expand...

GMBM was pretty specific: He said NHL coaches no longer last 9-10 years and if he was to give Trotz the 5 years he was asking for it would have been 9 years total. So the logic of Lavi getting 5 years being equal to Trotz getting 5 more years isn't really valid. It wasn't about a 5 year deal, it was about the total length of time they saw as appropriate for any coach.

Maybe thats just posturing BS, but it was very specific in BMac's post Trotzit hubbub. Caps wanted to pay him the salary, but not for the term he was asking because 9 total years was too likely to end poorly, in their minds. I think a specific quote may have been "the voice gets stale" or something similar, and he was referring to "todays NHL" not previous era's.

Commence to question that rationale all we want, but that is different than hiring Lavi for 5 years. Plus they signed Reirden for 4 years anyway.
 
Hivemind

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kicksavedave said:
GMBM was pretty specific: He said NHL coaches no longer last 9-10 years and if he was to give Trotz the 5 years he was asking for it would have been 9 years total. So the logic of Lavi getting 5 years being equal to Trotz getting 5 more years isn't really valid. It wasn't about a 5 year deal, it was about the total length of time they saw as appropriate for any coach.

Maybe thats just posturing BS, but it was very specific in BMac's post Trotzit hubbub. Caps wanted to pay him the salary, but not for the term he was asking because 9 total years was too likely to end poorly, in their minds. I think a specific quote may have been "the voice gets stale" or something similar, and he was referring to "todays NHL" not previous era's.

Commence to question that rationale all we want, but that is different than hiring Lavi for 5 years. Plus they signed Reirden for 4 years anyway.
Click to expand...

I don’t think you quite understood what I was saying.

As you mentioned, coaches generally don’t last 8-9 years anymore. The fear of giving Trotz a 5 year extension is that they would be paying Trotz $4-5M in the final 2-3 years of that 5 year deal. Specifically, we’re talking about the 2020-21, 21-22, and 22-23 seasons. Coincidentally, those are same three seasons that the club are paying Laviolette $4.9M. They didn’t want to be on the hook for a major coaching salary in those seasons, yet now they’re in the hook for a major coaching salary anyway (for the first time in franchise history).

I also question how much they really would have been on the hook for, given that Trotz would have likely landed a new contract shortly after being fired.
 
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Hivemind said:
I don’t think you quite understood what I was saying.

As you mentioned, coaches generally don’t last 8-9 years anymore. The fear of giving Trotz a 5 year extension is that they would be paying Trotz $4-5M in the final 2-3 years of that 5 year deal. Specifically, we’re talking about the 2020-21, 21-22, and 22-23 seasons. Coincidentally, those are same three seasons that the club are paying Laviolette $4.9M. They didn’t want to be on the hook for a major coaching salary in those seasons, yet now they’re in the hook for a major coaching salary anyway (for the first time in franchise history).

I also question how much they really would have been on the hook for, given that Trotz would have likely landed a new contract shortly after being fired.
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I understand exactly what you mean by that but here's the difference between offering it to Trotz vs offering it to Lavi: With Trotz they EXPECTED him to not last the full 5 years and thus would be offering to pay him money they know he would not be providing his services for. With Lavi they EXPECT he will fulfill his entire 5 year term and this they anticipate paying him only for years he provides services for.

Its why the Caps offered Trotz the money he wanted but not the term he wanted. Giving him 5x5 (5 per yr) with an expectation he would only do 3 years, is really giving him 3x8.33.

Also I believe other teams could hire him and pay him $1.5M and the Caps would owe him the difference, so they're not truly off the hook.... I believe there are some examples but I may be confusing this with the NFL?
 
txpd

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kicksavedave said:
GMBM was pretty specific: He said NHL coaches no longer last 9-10 years and if he was to give Trotz the 5 years he was asking for it would have been 9 years total. So the logic of Lavi getting 5 years being equal to Trotz getting 5 more years isn't really valid. It wasn't about a 5 year deal, it was about the total length of time they saw as appropriate for any coach.

Maybe thats just posturing BS, but it was very specific in BMac's post Trotzit hubbub. Caps wanted to pay him the salary, but not for the term he was asking because 9 total years was too likely to end poorly, in their minds. I think a specific quote may have been "the voice gets stale" or something similar, and he was referring to "todays NHL" not previous era's.

Commence to question that rationale all we want, but that is different than hiring Lavi for 5 years. Plus they signed Reirden for 4 years anyway.
Click to expand...

Leonsis hires the coaches
 
kicksavedave

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txpd said:
Leonsis hires the coaches
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Not sure that's 100% the case, he's always done most everything by group discussion and consensus, and even if it were, what does it matter? BMac was simply providing the rationale for the decision, not claiming it was his decision alone. GMBM does way more media interviews than Ted, but there is a lengthy interview with Ted where he says basically all these same things as BMac is saying.
 
Hivemind

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kicksavedave said:
I understand exactly what you mean by that but here's the difference between offering it to Trotz vs offering it to Lavi: With Trotz they EXPECTED him to not last the full 5 years and thus would be offering to pay him money they know he would not be providing his services for. With Lavi they EXPECT he will fulfill his entire 5 year term and this they anticipate paying him only for years he provides services for.

Its why the Caps offered Trotz the money he wanted but not the term he wanted. Giving him 5x5 (5 per yr) with an expectation he would only do 3 years, is really giving him 3x8.33.

Also I believe other teams could hire him and pay him $1.5M and the Caps would owe him the difference, so they're not truly off the hook.... I believe there are some examples but I may be confusing this with the NFL?
Click to expand...


To keep this reply short:

Lavy only has a 3 year deal, but it covers the same years Trotz’s deal would have

This is the first time in Capitals history they’ve paid a premium for coaching. They’ve historically been very stingy, and sometimes had Patrick/Leonsis interfere in the coach selection process.

The specifics of how much an NHL team covers after another team hires their fired coach is not public information (as far as I know).
 
AlexModvechkin8

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Ridley Simon said:
Congrats bud. I have 3 myself. The little man was the last as well for me
8 (girl)
4 (girl … almost 5)
2 (boy)

the 3rd totally f***ed up our Apple cart. Didn’t know about that price until it happened. LOL.

GOOD LUCK!!!
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We’re at 6, 4, and 4 days. It’s only been a few days but this transition seems easier than when we went from one to two (2 years old and a newborn). Famous last words, I’m sure.

Of course, with having the other two kids I’ve already resigned myself to forfeiting all free time, sleep, and disposable income for the next two decades so what’s another little rug rat in the mix??
 
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