Post-Game Talk: 10-13-1. "A bunch of donkeys on skates"

[MW6]

I think the biggest mistake was not selling at the deadline last year. It had been a rocky season, were not in serious contention and had a lot of veteran UFA-to-be's.

Wideman
Semin
Voukon
Knuble

All of them would've gotten 2nd round picks or higher, to kickstart a rebuild.

One of GMGM's problems IMO has been that he doesn't know when to cut his losses, maybe he has too much pride to acknowledge it himself. Varlamov was one of the few times he got i right, even though Varly might become a great starting goaltender for the Avs.
He has to be able to see what's best for the team, especially if he wants a team able to compete for the Cup every year.

 

[RandyHolt]

Good post as usual MW6

Looking back at last years deadline, coupled with Dale's style, we didn't need any of those 4 to win games. Maybe keep Knuble, but he was a regular scratch at the time.

While at the time I did not want him to sell, I did not know how defensive Dale would get. I actually thought come playoff time, Dale would unleash the offense. He did the opposite. I was dead wrong.

GMGM needs to work hand in hand with his coaches. Yet after Dale left, GM reveals he was clueless that Dale would be a collapsing D first coach. Isn't it his job to know, and sell or buy players that fit what his coaches are doing?

Its impressive how out of touch he is with his own team. Sure Dale ignored players, but maybe it filtered down from the top.

 

[brs03]

I think the biggest mistake was not selling at the deadline last year. It had been a rocky season, were not in serious contention and had a lot of veteran UFA-to-be's.

Wideman
Semin
Voukon
Knuble

All of them would've gotten 2nd round picks or higher, to kickstart a rebuild.

One of GMGM's problems IMO has been that he doesn't know when to cut his losses, maybe he has too much pride to acknowledge it himself. Varlamov was one of the few times he got i right, even though Varly might become a great starting goaltender for the Avs.
He has to be able to see what's best for the team, especially if he wants a team able to compete for the Cup every year.

I was an advocate of selling Wideman. The market for D was crazy, and it seemed clear to me at least that his 1st half was not going to be repeated in the 2nd half. Heck, ship him out and bring in someone else if you need more insurance for Green.

That said, I get not selling the others. Knuble had no value, and wasn't Vokoun injured at that point? With Semin, I figured they had no right to not at least *try* to make the playoffs. They were on the bubble and he was playing well under DH. It's really tough to just toss away the revenue that comes with playoff games, even if you don't see yourself as a real contender. Of course, I'm not privy to what GMGM might have gotten for him, and if he had his socks knocked off I probably would change my tune.

 

[SlappaDaBass]

I love how everyone is saying the Cats will be an "easy two wins" when we are the last team in the league after losing to the ****ing leafs twice. There will be no easy wins this season for our measly group of hockey players. With our talent, or lack thereof, we're going to have to earn every point we get this season.

 

[MW6]

This era, the young guns era, was built the wrong way and from making to many bad draft choiches.

1st round picks since 2002 (the young guns):

2002:
Eminger (D) 12th
Semin (LW) 13th
Gordon (RW) 17th
2003:
Fehr (RW) 18th
2004:
Ovechkin (LW) 1st
Schultz (D) 27th
Green (D) 29th
(Bourque LW 33rd)
2005:
Pokulok (D) 14th
Finley (D) 27th
2006:
Backstrom (C) 4th
Varlamov (G) 23rd
(Neuvirth G 34th)

Drafted by positions:
Goalies: 1 (+ Neuvirth) An OK amount, but since it takes longer for goalies to develop he should've picked one in the earliest part of the re-build.
Defensemen: 5. One currently a regular in the NHL
Centers: 1. When you build a team, you start down the middle, picking one center, 4 years into your rebuild, is just lunacy
Wingers: 4 (+ Bourque) GM's 5 first 1st round picks were 1 D and 4 wingers.

And these are the players this team is/was supposed to be built around. They were given time and oppurtunities to develop and form the core of this team and it failed.

Lately GMGM's drafting has been better, Carlson, Alzner, Kuznetsov, Johansson all coming in the first round and only Godfrey (34th) and Gustafsson 21st busting.
Unfortunately The Caps have only drafted 3 times in the 1st or 2nd round the last three years, which means there's a gap in young NHL'ers coming in, thus is why I'm for the sell off and bringing in young pieces and picks.

 

[brs03]

About the "not drafting a goalie early enough," remember that they had some very highly rated prospects (Max O especially) that just completely busted. That set them back. Rebuild looks different, at least a little, if he's there to smooth the transition from Olie to the next generation.

No doubt the drafting early on left a lot to be desired though. Sigh.

 

[txpd]

Good post as usual MW6

Looking back at last years deadline, coupled with Dale's style, we didn't need any of those 4 to win games..

if selling and missing the playoffs was what you wanted, fine.
if you wanted to make the playoffs and do anything in them, not so much.

semin had 10pts in the caps final 9 games to get them in the playoffs.
he scored goals in 3 straight games in the boston series including the one goal wins of games 4 and 5.

wideman was dale's favorite defenseman.

so, if you want to criticize mcphee for not selling because making the playoffs was a waste of time, then fine. dont delude yourself that trading those players wouldnt have changed anything.

 

[Brave Sir Robin]

This era, the young guns era, was built the wrong way and from making to many bad draft choiches.

1st round picks since 2002 (the young guns):

2002:
Eminger (D) 12th
Semin (LW) 13th
Gordon (RW) 17th
2003:
Fehr (RW) 18th
2004:
Ovechkin (LW) 1st
Schultz (D) 27th
Green (D) 29th
(Bourque LW 33rd)
2005:
Pokulok (D) 14th
Finley (D) 27th
2006:
Backstrom (C) 4th
Varlamov (G) 23rd
(Neuvirth G 34th)

Drafted by positions:
Goalies: 1 (+ Neuvirth) An OK amount, but since it takes longer for goalies to develop he should've picked one in the earliest part of the re-build.
Defensemen: 5. One currently a regular in the NHL
Centers: 1. When you build a team, you start down the middle, picking one center, 4 years into your rebuild, is just lunacy
Wingers: 4 (+ Bourque) GM's 5 first 1st round picks were 1 D and 4 wingers.

And these are the players this team is/was supposed to be built around. They were given time and oppurtunities to develop and form the core of this team and it failed.

Lately GMGM's drafting has been better, Carlson, Alzner, Kuznetsov, Johansson all coming in the first round and only Godfrey (34th) and Gustafsson 21st busting.
Unfortunately The Caps have only drafted 3 times in the 1st or 2nd round the last three years, which means there's a gap in young NHL'ers coming in, thus is why I'm for the sell off and bringing in young pieces and picks.

You make a good point about GMGM not drafting enough centers, although I'm pretty sure Gordon was considered a center prospect. However, examined individually his draft choices are pretty solid.

All of Ovi, Semin, Backstrom and Green were all great draft choices. Ovi and Nick speak for themselves. Semin is the 2nd best forward of his class who in his prime was probably the best of his class. Green turned out pretty well for his draft position. Furthermore, neither draft class of 2002 or 2005 ultimately offered us much in the way of centers. Maybe Stastny in 2005, but I don't think he as ranked that high as a prospect. The draft where McPhee really crapped the bed is 2003, when he picked Fehr.

In other words, yes, McPhee didn't pick enough centers, but most of his picks were justified, and in hindsight we didn't miss much, apart from the class of 2003.

 

[MW6]

And getting Ribeiro this summer was IMO a desperate move. It should've been done 2-3 years ago to partner up with Semin, now it just made it more of the same, with one player on the 2nd line being an offensive threat.
Eakin showed promise last year and would surely have made a good 3C in the future. Heck, he's already leaving his mark in Dallas. Ribs is leading the team in points and god knows how bad the Caps would've sucked without him, but it isn't enough this year.

 

[tycoonheart]

How much is Toronto paying for JVR? Thats the type of move McPhee should've been making.

 

[NobodyBeatsTheWiz]

This era, the young guns era, was built the wrong way and from making to many bad draft choiches.

1st round picks since 2002 (the young guns):

2002:
Eminger (D) 12th
Semin (LW) 13th
Gordon (RW) 17th
2003:
Fehr (RW) 18th
2004:
Ovechkin (LW) 1st
Schultz (D) 27th
Green (D) 29th
(Bourque LW 33rd)
2005:
Pokulok (D) 14th
Finley (D) 27th
2006:
Backstrom (C) 4th
Varlamov (G) 23rd
(Neuvirth G 34th)

Drafted by positions:
Goalies: 1 (+ Neuvirth) An OK amount, but since it takes longer for goalies to develop he should've picked one in the earliest part of the re-build.
Defensemen: 5. One currently a regular in the NHL
Centers: 1. When you build a team, you start down the middle, picking one center, 4 years into your rebuild, is just lunacy
Wingers: 4 (+ Bourque) GM's 5 first 1st round picks were 1 D and 4 wingers.

And these are the players this team is/was supposed to be built around. They were given time and oppurtunities to develop and form the core of this team and it failed.

Lately GMGM's drafting has been better, Carlson, Alzner, Kuznetsov, Johansson all coming in the first round and only Godfrey (34th) and Gustafsson 21st busting.
Unfortunately The Caps have only drafted 3 times in the 1st or 2nd round the last three years, which means there's a gap in young NHL'ers coming in, thus is why I'm for the sell off and bringing in young pieces and picks.

The drafting has been fine. The issue has been turning that drafted talent into an NHL team with the capability of competing for multiple Cups. That means selling some of the drafted talent to get NHL players to fill your needs.

 

[MW6]

The drafting has been fine. The issue has been turning that drafted talent into an NHL team with the capability of competing for multiple Cups. That means selling some of the drafted talent to get NHL players to fill your needs.

I don't think the drafting has been as you stated, fine. Too many busts i the first round (Gordon, Fehr, Eminger, Schultz, Pokulok, Finley, Gustafsson, Godfrey, Bourque). But I agree with you, if your tactic is picking the best player available, sometimes you need to make hockeytrades (not deadline-moves to bolster the roster for the playoffs) if the pieces aren't fitting. When was the last time GMGM traded for a young roster player in expense of a young drafted rosterplayer?

 

[marcel snapshot]

It's spooky - we are running the 94-95 lockout playbook, almost to the tee. We started like crap then, and still made the playoffs.
Jan 21 1–1 @ Hartford Whalers 0–0–1
Jan 24 1–5 @ Quebec Nordiques 0–1–1
Jan 25 0–2 @ Montreal Canadiens 0–2–1
Jan 27 5–2 New York Islanders 1–2–1
Jan 29 1–4 Pittsburgh Penguins 1–3–1
Feb 2 0–1 Buffalo Sabres 1–4–1
Feb 4 3–2 Florida Panthers 2–4–1
Feb7 1–2 @ Buffalo Sabres 2–5–1
Feb 8 4–5 @ New York Rangers 2–6–1
Feb11 1–1 @ Boston Bruins 2–6–2
Feb 13 3–5 @ Philadelphia Flyers 2–7–2
Feb 15 2–4 @ New Jersey Devils 2–8–2
Feb 18 4–2 Quebec Nordiques 3–8–2
Feb 20 0–2 New Jersey Devils 3–9–2
Feb 23, 5–5 @ Ottawa Senators 3–9–3
Feb 25 3–3 @ New Jersey Devils 3–9–4
Feb 26 1–1 Tampa Bay Lightning 3–9–5
Feb 28 2–4 @ Philadelphia Flyers 3–10–5

We have been terrible so far, and yet are only 4 points out of the 8th spot. The team is playing without any confidence or belief - you can see it drain before your eyes as the game goes on, to the point that by the 2nd period they seem to be asking themselves how are we going to lose this one. Ovie, in particular, is like a brooding doom and gloomer from, well, a Russian novel.

The lack of belief exacerbates our weaknesses - not enough speed, soft board play, lack of net presence, absence of scoring touch. All these things are symptoms right themseleves with a little belief and confidence.

 

[Brave Sir Robin]

I don't think the drafting has been as you stated, fine. Too many busts i the first round (Gordon, Fehr, Eminger, Schultz, Pokulok, Finley, Gustafsson, Godfrey, Bourque). But I agree with you, if your tactic is picking the best player available, sometimes you need to make hockeytrades (not deadline-moves to bolster the roster for the playoffs) if the pieces aren't fitting. When was the last time GMGM traded for a young roster player in expense of a young drafted rosterplayer?

You have unrealistic expectations when it comes to drafting. Only something like 2/3 of all 1st rounders go on to have NHL carrers, and a lot of our picks were late 1st rounders. Can you name 5 teams that has drafted significantly better than us?

 

[NobodyBeatsTheWiz]

I don't think the drafting has been as you stated, fine. Too many busts i the first round (Gordon, Fehr, Eminger, Schultz, Pokulok, Finley, Gustafsson, Godfrey, Bourque). But I agree with you, if your tactic is picking the best player available, sometimes you need to make hockeytrades (not deadline-moves to bolster the roster for the playoffs) if the pieces aren't fitting. When was the last time GMGM traded for a young roster player in expense of a young drafted rosterplayer?

It's been fine. Look at other team's drafting records over the same period. People always assume 'OMGZ! too many bust' without actually looking to see that every team has first round busts, and plenty of them.

And I really don't know why you cut off the analysis at 2006.

 

[txpd]

I don't think the drafting has been as you stated, fine. Too many busts i the first round (Gordon, Fehr, Eminger, Schultz, Pokulok, Finley, Gustafsson, Godfrey, Bourque). But I agree with you, if your tactic is picking the best player available, sometimes you need to make hockeytrades (not deadline-moves to bolster the roster for the playoffs) if the pieces aren't fitting. When was the last time GMGM traded for a young roster player in expense of a young drafted rosterplayer?

Gordon is a solid nhl player. He carries a bigger role in pheonix which has been a better team than the capitals during his stay. Fehr broke down to injury. Eminger is still an nhl players, rangers right? The caps traded him for the pick they used to get Carlson. McPhee could have chose Fistric instead of Schultz. Dallas wanted one of the two and McPhee took the one he wanted. Fistric is now an every other game healthy scratch 7th defenseman in Edmonton now.

I am local to the Hurricanes. Here's a list of their first round picks. would you say the caps are as bad or worse?
1997: Nikos Tselios (22nd overall)
1998: Jeff Heerema (11th overall)
1999: David Tanabe (16th overall)
2000: none
2001: Igor Knyazev (15th overall)
2002: Cam Ward (25th overall)
2003: Eric Staal (2nd overall)
2004: Andrew Ladd (4th overall)
2005: Jack Johnson (3rd overall)
2006: none
2007: Brandon Sutter (11th overall)
2008: Zach Boychuk (14th overall)
2009: Philippe Paradis (27th overall)
2010: Jeff Skinner (7th overall)
2011: Ryan Murphy (12th overall)
2012: none

Here's the Bruins during the same period.
1998: None
1999: Nick Boynton (21st overall)
2000: Lars Jonsson (7th overall) and Martin Samuelsson (27th overall)
2001: Shaone Morrisonn (19th overall)
2002: Hannu Toivonen (29th overall)
2003: Mark Stuart (21st overall)
2004: None
2005: Matt Lashoff (22nd overall)
2006: Phil Kessel (5th overall)
2007: Zach Hamill (8th overall)
2008: Joe Colborne (16th overall)
2009: Jordan Caron (25th overall)
2010: Tyler Seguin (2nd overall)
2011: Dougie Hamilton (9th overall)
2012: Malcolm Subban (24th overall)

 

[RandyHolt]

if selling and missing the playoffs was what you wanted, fine.
if you wanted to make the playoffs and do anything in them, not so much.

semin had 10pts in the caps final 9 games to get them in the playoffs.
he scored goals in 3 straight games in the boston series including the one goal wins of games 4 and 5.

wideman was dale's favorite defenseman.

so, if you want to criticize mcphee for not selling because making the playoffs was a waste of time, then fine. dont delude yourself that trading those players wouldnt have changed anything.

Maybe Dale goes defensive sooner if George sells off all his UFA's and retains a better eye for the future. Semin scoring 9 points, not really needed.

All speculation my friend.

I did laugh when Green got yanked off PP1, and Carlson showed us exactly the things I wanted to see from Green. All in about 10 seconds.

 

[tycoonheart]

Randy, Green wasn't yanked off PP1. Oates decided to trot out PP2 for that power play. It was Carlson, Kundy, MJ, Ward and Nicky. Nicky was the only PP1 personnel who was on that power play.

 

[NobodyBeatsTheWiz]

Yeah, I don't get the talk of Green or Ovechkin being yanked off PP1 last night.

Ovechkin just had a long shift immediately prior to the PP that scored. I believe Green was on the ice as well.

It was just getting fresh personnel out there for the PP.

 

[Ajax1995]

I think the biggest mistake was not selling at the deadline last year. It had been a rocky season, were not in serious contention and had a lot of veteran UFA-to-be's.

Wideman
Semin
Voukon
Knuble

All of them would've gotten 2nd round picks or higher, to kickstart a rebuild.

One of GMGM's problems IMO has been that he doesn't know when to cut his losses, maybe he has too much pride to acknowledge it himself. Varlamov was one of the few times he got i right, even though Varly might become a great starting goaltender for the Avs.
He has to be able to see what's best for the team, especially if he wants a team able to compete for the Cup every year.

This team was looking to make the playoffs and teams in that mindset do not trade away players for futures for the most part.

Sometimes teams don't think they are likely to make the playoffs, sell off players for futures, and then get better and make the playoffs but teams who actually think they are going to make the playoffs rarely trade away roster players without getting roster players back.

And once they made the playoffs Hunter's coin flips were one flip away from getting to the 3rd round. Sure that means squat now but still...

 

[CapitalsCupReality]

I sincerely doubt the Capitals will win the Cup while Ted Leonsis owns the team. He doesn't love hockey. You shouldn't pretend to love something because you thought you were going to die in a plane and then didn't. It was a mistake for him to buy a hockey team on a whim. You buy and operate a hockey team because you love the game. No other reason.

We are in purgatory, folks.

I have the same issues as most in regards to Ted, but you're dead wrong on this one. He loves hockey.

 

[tycoonheart]

I have questions about Ted's ability to fire his GM. But I don't get why people here have been constantly attacking him the past few days. As an owner, he's kinda done what an owner needs to do. He handed the team over to his GM, sat back and watched. Now is the time for him to make tough decision - what he decides to do with GMGM.

 

[RandyHolt]

Randy, Green wasn't yanked off PP1. Oates decided to trot out PP2 for that power play. It was Carlson, Kundy, MJ, Ward and Nicky. Nicky was the only PP1 personnel who was on that power play.

Maybe yanked is a strong word, but I will live it.

You say it was Oates deciding to roll out PP2.

No matter what we call it, it can be agreed by all, it was a very rare time in Ovi's career he was not out for PP1.

Hats off to Oates on a ballsy move. I hope PP1 guys learned something. Move the puck sooner, and faster. Shoot when a chance arises, as it breaks down the PKers. Basic stuff I saw PP1 lacking.

 

[BobbyCarpenter]

A new GM needs to be brought in real soon.

I suspect that the Caps could be sellers, and I do not know if George knows how to sell. History says he does not and won't.

 

[Bethesda]

This season you need to either have a bottom 5 record or you need to make the playoffs. Being in the middle in no-mans-land is the worst possible outcome.