GDT: Offseason 2023 Thread - Now what do we do?

[Chrispy]

You’re the one latching onto this one event. See both bolded statements in your very same post lol. Florida got Tkachuk. We got Pacioretty, Burns. We were both thrilled with our offseasons (you, specifically, Svechhammer, were thrilled with our offseason). We both met in the Conference Finals. One team won. That’s hockey. You don’t get to go back now and say you would’ve done it differently now that you know that Florida went on an insane run. Learn the lesson, apply your learnings to future offseasons, move on, and calm down.

The truth is the expectation was Florida would take a step back between losing all their deadline acquisitions and Huberdeau and Weegar. Tkachuk was a great long-term add since they probably couldn't sign both Huberdeau and Weegar, but most expected a step back this season.

Most people also thought the Maurice hire was odd at best. They've done a great job force-feeding the league crow in the playoffs.

 

[hblueridgegal]

I get that mindset, but holy hell, what did you want them to do re: Tkachuk and/or Meier?

Every indication is that we were the front runners for Tkachuk, but Florida made an offer in the final minutes that was well above what Carolina or St. Louis offered. And when the deal came out, yeah, that was true. No matter who Carolina had on the table, it wasn't a 115-point player + a good, young defenseman. We were competitive and leading the pack for most of the trade process, but we couldn't compete if that was an offer available.

Meier was a bit different, because it seemed less about what Carolina offered and more about what Meier/San Jose wanted. Rumor had it that our offer for Meier was better than Jersey's, but either Meier or Grier preferred the Devils. Not much that can be done there. We made the best offer (allegedly) and still missed out.

So yeah, I get that it's frustrating to be the bridesmaid of some of these major deals, but I can't really see how the Borg is to blame for the results. It's not like they did anything wrong in either situation.

A lot of what is assumed about how these deals transpired is based on conjecture, rumor and PR so it's hard to know what really happened. Sadly, what is known, is the failure to make it happen by those who are held accountable - repeatedly.

While we think our team is a destination - that perspective may still not be pervasive. I know everyone wants a big difference maker and scorer but is our system and style of play attractive to those type of players? Those who want to deliver the big numbers and land the big payday - perhaps more so than winning results and playing defense.

 

[Anton Dubinchuk]

The truth is the expectation was Florida would take a step back between losing all their deadline acquisitions and Huberdeau and Weegar. Tkachuk was a great long-term add since they probably couldn't sign both Huberdeau and Weegar, but most expected a step back this season.

Most people also thought the Maurice hire was odd at best. They've done a great job force-feeding the league crow in the playoffs.

And also, the truth is that they did! Big time! This run literally doesn’t happen if the Penguins figure out a way to beat a Chicago team that is actively tanking with 2 games left in the season!

To me, part of the lesson of all this is indeed in staying the course and continuing to build sustainably. Dundon says he never wants to go all in for one year because it’s about maximizing your window rather than maximizing your chance during one run because of how random the playoffs are. Watching what the Panthers have done… is that really that insane an approach? Panthers were a Marchand breakaway conversion from being out in 5 in the first round. But because we lost to them (and full credit to them, they’re playing amazing), now the take on the front office is why we didn’t go out and blow up the franchise to top the Panthers’ incredibly competitive offer for the guy who ended up knocking us out? It’s emotional and illogical.

 

[Chrispy]

A lot of what is assumed about how these deals transpired is based on conjecture, rumor and PR so it's hard to know what really happened. Sadly, what is known, is the failure to make it happen by those who are held accountable - repeatedly.

While we think our team is a destination - that perspective may still not be pervasive. I know everyone wants a big difference maker and scorer but is our system and style of play attractive to those type of players? Those who want to deliver the big numbers and land the big payday - perhaps more so than winning results and playing defense.

The team raves about playing for Rod, and players in the All-Star game have talked up getting to play for him as well.

I don't think the style of play is the issue. Insistence of maximizing cap value to production will always result in missing out on UFAs or upcoming UFAs who have a choice in their destination.

The Borg appears to like mid-term contracts with known cost (Hamilton, Trocheck, Skjei, Burns) and I expect even with a need for flexibility for next off-season's decisions we should look for them to identify a player with 3-4 years left as an acquisition.

 

[Sigurd]

On a different note, one player that hasn't been talked about enough with our offseason/roster building is Fast.

Fast had an amazing playoffs, and we need playoff performers on our team. I'd like for Fast to be re-signed to a fair contract this summer. He didn't just score goals this postseason, he scored huge goals; including two OT winners.

Last night's goal by him tied it up late in the 3rd, but it's a shame the refs decided to penalized Carolina with barely any time left in the 3rd and they had just ignored a penalty against Florida literally right before as the announcers even pointed out. Naturally our PK is gonna underperform when Slavin was injured the whole game, and the rest was history.

 

[Boom Boom Apathy]

I would agree Burns is an improvement obviously but the way I see it is we replaced Tro with Kk and Nino with Martinook. Neither count as improved replacements, and KK was in a position where we couldve use improvement and really needed at least the same. Of course he improved but still pretty clearly is a Staal replacement.

We wanted to add a forward and we got Patches, but to me the overall net wasn’t an improvement even on paper. I’m fine with the argument the other way, I just didn’t see it. The hole created at 2C was a choice we made, and while I don’t see it as the one thing that sunk us I don’t think we would’ve went further even without injuries - and that spot is a big reason imo. I think our forward group is in flux and lacked the definition it had the previous couple of years.

I'll just say these two things.
1) Trocheck's season last year wasn't much better than KK's this year. As you know, I'm not a big KK fan and would agree that I'd like to see a 2C upgrade, but their 5v5 points were almost the same and Tro got 1st unit PP time which is why he scored more. I'm with you though that I would have liked to seen an upgrade and was pretty vocal about it from early on.

2) "On paper", I'd take this year's off-season lineup over last years without batting an eye.

Patches-Aho-Jarvis
Svech-KK-Necas
TT-Staal-Fast
Some combination of Kase, Martinook, Stepan, Drury, Noesen, Stastny

Slavin-Burns
Skjei-Pesce
CDH-Chatfield (even though I was unsure of this to start the season).

Give me that "on paper" over last year's line-up any day of the week.

Another year of tread off of our top four guys is something to be looking at next year. I think the third pair has to be solid.

Agree

I would shit or get off the pot about Rod’s style as well. Give him the type of player he needs instead of smaller offensive types or old dudes just willing to take orders. We go far with guys not necessarily playing the game they’re made for but they buy into the system. If we’re gonna grind - upgrade the grinders. They’ll excel at the system.

Yeah, kind of agree here as well. We either need skill with size or young guys that can go balls to the walls. I think the FO recognizes this though in who they went after initially. Tkachuk, Marchment, Meier.

I'm with you that this year is their window with Aho, Pesce, TT, Skjei all becoming UFAs. Going to be interesting to see what they do.

 

[hblueridgegal]

The team raves about playing for Rod, and players in the All-Star game have talked up getting to play for him as well.

I don't think the style of play is the issue. Insistence of maximizing cap value to production will always result in missing out on UFAs or upcoming UFAs who have a choice in their destination.

The Borg appears to like mid-term contracts with known cost (Hamilton, Trocheck, Skjei, Burns) and I expect even with a need for flexibility for next off-season's decisions we should look for them to identify a player with 3-4 years left as an acquisition.

Thanks for this explanation. I see what you're saying. Perhaps it's time for fans to face the reality of the situation and develop more realistic expectations. The possibilities game gets wild. And, maybe for management to occasionally under promise and over deliver - for less angst and disappointment.

He's good at seeding the market message:

 

[Joe McGrath]

Andrew Burnette this season with NJD, after Recchi was fired.

That’s a good one. Not sure how much of that is coaching or just having a healthy Hamilton but at least it’s an example.

 

[larueskee]

I thought the defense was great most all of the year. I will say Rod and staff might want to take some minutes off the top 4 and disperse to the bottom pairing. Pesce would be one guy that would benefit from this. Scoring once again was a issue. Patches is done for all intents and purposes but the good news is so is his cap hit. It is a shame that he blew up his ankle but the dude got paid over a million bucks a game. There should be some scorers with veteran status that are available but I would not want to pay over 5 million per season for them. Tough moves that I will enjoy not having any stake in the game. Yes it was the lack of critical scoring in the Florida series. I have often thought how great it would be to have Braden Point and Aho on the same team. Yeah I am in a pipe dream here.

 

[CanesUltimate11]

I mean, our “minimal” wingers going into the season were Svechnikov, Necas, Jarvis, Teravainen.

That’s a group that’s much closer to the top of the league than the bottom.

That's a fair point but how well do Jarvis and Teravainen and Svech (since Tkachuk likely supplants him with our new 1C KK) play and put up points with Staal/Drury/Statsny as their center this year? Are they still top of the league wingers?

 

[CanesUltimate11]

And again, you're latching onto one event here or there to prove a point when we're trying to argue that we're tired of watching the front office fail to land the big fish every single time. There's always an excuse. Always.

I'm tired of the excuses. I'm tired of watching us try to rationalize why we really did the right thing by not paying the price necessary to get the players we need to take the next step. Ok, Florida "panicked" and overpaid for Tkachuk. I don't think anyone gives a shit about that right now when he scores 3 game winners in the ECF en route to a series sweep over us.

Hypothetical for you then out of curiosity.

Throw out the results of this season as they don't matter to the question. Would you have been ok going into this season with this lineup.

Tkachuk - KK - Jarvis/Turbo/Necas
Svech - Statsny - Jarvis/Turbo/Necas
Martinook - Staal - Fast
Noesen - Drury(?) - Jarvis/Turbo/Fast

Because unless there was a missing 1/2 center out there we could have snagged that's our forward lineup. I love what Tkachuck brings but I don't see how that is better for us then what we had AT THE TIME.

 

[Svechhammer]

Hypothetical for you then out of curiosity.

Throw out the results of this season as they don't matter to the question. Would you have been ok going into this season with this lineup.

Tkachuk - KK - Jarvis/Turbo/Necas
Svech - Statsny - Jarvis/Turbo/Necas
Martinook - Staal - Fast
Noesen - Drury(?) - Jarvis/Turbo/Fast

Because unless there was a missing 1/2 center out there we could have snagged that's our forward lineup. I love what Tkachuck brings but I don't see how that is better for us then what we had AT THE TIME.

Honestly, in this scenario, I'd gamble on converting Necas to 1C, and hope that the addition of Tkachuk helps open up enough space for him to do well. By no means ideal, but he was vocal about wanting to play center last summer. I know he had a rough year, and I was vocal about wanting to dump him at the time, but even we were going back and forth about giving him a shot at it if it got him engaged again and brought him back to where he was the previous year.

Maybe start the year with Jordo taking 1C with intent to slowly convert Necas to it by the middle of the year if he's capable.

 

[bleedgreen]

On a different note, one player that hasn't been talked about enough with our offseason/roster building is Fast.

Fast had an amazing playoffs, and we need playoff performers on our team. I'd like for Fast to be re-signed to a fair contract this summer. He didn't just score goals this postseason, he scored huge goals; including two OT winners.

Last night's goal by him tied it up late in the 3rd, but it's a shame the refs decided to penalized Carolina with barely any time left in the 3rd and they had just ignored a penalty against Florida literally right before as the announcers even pointed out. Naturally our PK is gonna underperform when Slavin was injured the whole game, and the rest was history.

We don’t talk enough about how clutch Fast has been. He does the same exact thing all year, and in the playoffs it works.

 

[Blueline Bomber]

Honestly, in this scenario, I'd gamble on converting Necas to 1C, and hope that the addition of Tkachuk helps open up enough space for him to do well. By no means ideal, but he was vocal about wanting to play center last summer. I know he had a rough year, and I was vocal about wanting to dump him at the time, but even we were going back and forth about giving him a shot at it if it got him engaged again and brought him back to where he was the previous year.

Maybe start the year with Jordo taking 1C with intent to slowly convert Necas to it by the middle of the year if he's capable.

So instead of Aho + Patches, you would have gone with Necas + Tkachuk. And in your scenario, we're also down Pesce, meaning Coghlan/CDH would be getting full time minutes.

Sorry, I'm just not seeing the improvement there.

 

[DaveG]

Necas is such an enigma. Because we know he was trade bait the past offseason, and for good reason. Then he plays 2/3rds of this season like a star player, before reverting back to “trade bait Necas” for the last 30 games or so.

And you know it’s likely just inconsistency you have to expect from a young player, but at the same time, you can’t help but wonder if we could do better.

Necas seemed to be the perfect setup guy for Svech, but when Svech went down it became apparent just how much of the heavy lifting he was doing on that line. We don't have anyone else on the roster capable of that, not even Aho. If we can keep that pair healthy and together then we're in a great place going forward, but that's the key for them.

Now if Washington were to go into "sell" mode and try to rent out Tom Wilson, that's the other kind of guy he could really click with IMO.

 

[ThaiTanicDK]

As everyone was saying after last years playoffs run.

We need a sniper. Its all we need. We got all the other pieces.

Its almost like as if hard for teams to find one and we sound like a broken record.

 

[DaveG]

Is there any evidence of a team hiring a new assistant coach to run a power play and drastically improving it, ever?

Maybe there is I just have no idea.

Caps went from one spot off bottom 3rd of the league (16.73%, t19th) to over 26% (1st by a mile) in year one and over 23% (close 2nd) in year 2 when they picked up Adam Oates in 2012-13 to be their HC. Closest I can find

 

[CanesUltimate11]

Honestly, in this scenario, I'd gamble on converting Necas to 1C, and hope that the addition of Tkachuk helps open up enough space for him to do well. By no means ideal, but he was vocal about wanting to play center last summer. I know he had a rough year, and I was vocal about wanting to dump him at the time, but even we were going back and forth about giving him a shot at it if it got him engaged again and brought him back to where he was the previous year.

Maybe start the year with Jordo taking 1C with intent to slowly convert Necas to it by the middle of the year if he's capable.

Good point on converting Necas, I had forgotten about how that got thrown around a bit. Does make things look better as it keeps Martinook/Staal/Fast together and avoids having Jarvis/Turbo on a shutdown/grind line.

 

[Daeavorn]

Necas seemed to be the perfect setup guy for Svech, but when Svech went down it became apparent just how much of the heavy lifting he was doing on that line. We don't have anyone else on the roster capable of that, not even Aho. If we can keep that pair healthy and together then we're in a great place going forward, but that's the key for them.

Now if Washington were to go into "sell" mode and try to rent out Tom Wilson, that's the other kind of guy he could really click with IMO.

So maybe that is why Svech's scoring dried up, he was just exhausted by being the sole driving force on that line. Id like to see him be put in a goalscoring position more than a grinding power forward role. He has the talent to excel there.

 

[LakeLivin]

At the very least upgrade the grinders to heavy hitters. Florida hit us hard enough over the series to make us stop playing our style long enough to sweep us. We need to have the players physical enough to see Brindy's style to its fullest.

One other thing we need is are guys who can pick a corner and consistently shoot for it. Florida was noticeably going top corner every time they had an open look all playoff long against Freddie and beat him enough times to win. On the other hand seemingly every time we had an open look we pumped a shot into the pads or into the chest logo. You go back and watch the series again and it's noticeable that they had an offensive strategy against our goalie and we didn't against theirs.

Really? The primary reason we lost this series was because of Florida's physicality? Not BOB going god-mode? Or ending up with the short end of the ref stick time after time? Or just poor puck luck (Slavin's stick in Burn's skate, I heard we led the league in hit posts this playoff, etc.)? And the Isles series? They were even more physical, how was it possible for us to win that one? One thing I learned as I got older is that when bad things happen most people need to assign a reason, even if the reason isn't always rational.

I completely agree with you about getting some guys in who can hit a corner. I saw a glimpse of that from Necas on the PP this year but unfortunately it didn't project long term.

 

[Sigurd]

So maybe that is why Svech's scoring dried up, he was just exhausted by being the sole driving force on that line. Id like to see him be put in a goalscoring position more than a grinding power forward role. He has the talent to excel there.

Interesting point. Since Svech was on the 2nd line so much, that's more reason to get a more offensively consistent 2C than KK since obviously Rod has liked Svech and Necas being together.

 

[Finlandia WOAT]

Watched the first two games. Pesce looked cooked out there. I think they trade him rather than let him play out his final year. Sorry Skjei.

Though the loss isn't Pesce's fault. It's no ones fault. Hurricanes were an average offense with Svechnikov. They acquired Pacioretty to fix that. They got hurt. Then they ran into an insanely hot Bob. Sucks cause this is probably the best chance they'll get with this core, all the previous roadblocks had been cleared in the first round.

 

[Svechhammer]

Really? The primary reason we lost this series was because of Florida's physicality? Not BOB going god-mode? Or ending up with the short end of the ref stick time after time? Or just poor puck luck (Slavin's stick in Burn's skate, I heard we led the league in hit posts this playoff, etc.)? And the Isles series? They were even more physical, how was it possible for us to win that one? One thing I learned as I got older is that when bad things happen most people need to assign a reason, even if the reason isn't always rational.

I completely agree with you about getting some guys in who can hit a corner. I saw a glimpse of that from Necas on the PP this year but unfortunately it didn't project long term.

Florida bodied us and took us off our game and caused us to abandon crashing the net until Game 4. For the majority of Game 1, 2, and 3 our offense was throwing distance shots on net without anyone around to really clean up a rebound. We rarely mucked things up around the crease and generally made things relatively easy on Bob.

Its ok to say our own play helped cause this loss. We don't have to whitewash it all away as just be ho hum unlucky to go up against a good goalie. All of these things can be true. Bob was great, Florida bodied us, our offense wasn't good enough, and Florida still benefitted from unreal puck luck.

 

[Ole Gil]

You don’t trade a young 70 pt scorer you have signed for another year. You just don’t count on him to be your grindy playoff point getter. Stop asking the fork to be a spoon….even if you’d accept him being a spork.

He’s not a physical player, and at this point he needs space to make things happen. He’s hardly the guy to blame though.

TT moving on makes the most sense. Might be time for KK to become Staal.

We’ve got one more swing at this with the group as we know it. On paper they didn’t improve last off season, we have room to correct that this season. I questioned management last summer and to me the spotlight is officially on them. I don’t think anyone wants to hear about how we made a really really great offer and should’ve gotten that guy but we didn’t and management is mad…..seething even at the other team for not giving us the player after making SUCH an amazing offer.

Depends on who you're trading him for.

I don't think they expected him to be a grindy playoff point getter. He was a disaster trying to carry the puck, which is what he's supposed to be good at. Everything he did well this season, he did not do well in the playoffs.

That being said, he's making 3 mill next year? Worst case scenario, he plays like you'd expect a 3 mill a year player to play, which is an inconsistent .5 ppg guy.

BUT if you can get someone you can rely on and he's the cost, you hop on the chance. No 3v3 in the playoffs.

 

[Unsustainable]

We should try to get Brady Tkachuk out of Ottawa.