Speculation: Acq./Rost. Bldg./Cap/Lines etc. Part LXXXIII -- Summer Free Agency 2017

Status
Not open for further replies.

Corby78

65 - 10 - 20
Jan 14, 2014
11,702
7,868
Ramstein Germany
I'm talking about a few months ago when people were saying mojo needs to be gone, he can't do anything in playoffs. Or winnik and the 4th line. Or how alzner and shattenkirk stink etc

People even wanted to trade ovechkin

People here still do want to trade Ovie. I expect some growing pains with kids this year, and for this board to be very hard to read.
 

Corby78

65 - 10 - 20
Jan 14, 2014
11,702
7,868
Ramstein Germany
I wonder if Yakupov's choice to play his junior hockey in the US stifles his KHL offers at all. I honestly think he's a guy who with proper development could have been solid. Edmonton just threw all of their draft picks into their lineups immediately for no reason.

He got a second chance in stlouis and bombed. He seriously lasted like 6 weeks and he was done.
 

Roughing

Registered User
Oct 11, 2010
1,942
303
Frederick, MD
There it is...not even considered...."had a good year last year"

I've been saying that for a while. We just moved on from Alzner, KSK, and Schmidt. There is zero chance Orpik goes unless they manage to find another vet Dman somehow, which seems very unlikely. I can see it happening next off season if they want to sign Carlson AND if they find some success with young Dman this year.

Also, I'm good with the youth movement. It had to happen and I wanted it. That's why I would jettison OV. Also, IMO, the biggest problem is Trotz and we've done nothing to address that so I have little hope for this season unless we get hot under Blaine in February.
 
Last edited:

trick9

Registered User
Jun 2, 2013
12,076
4,949
Wrong. People complain that there's no vision or strategy. What changes did they make to improve the team? The changes they made were because they had a **** poor plan to handle the situation they were in. All they have to show for this offseason is more expensive versions of the same players they had last year. They've lost two top six forwards and a top four defenseman for next to nothing in return and they're still in bad shape salary cap wise. What exactly about that scenario are people supposed to be pleased with?

This goes back to the trade deadline. It's why it's called ''going all-in'' with rental players. No idea how people are shocked that they can't find a good offers for their players. Stacked team needs to clear cap space, so the price is at premium. No GM in the league wants to do them a favor by taking Orpik for example, unless GMBM pays a significant price for that. They'll rather pick up the top players for cheap prices knowing that the other side has to make it for the team to stay within the cap.
 

AlexBrovechkin8

At least there was 2018.
Sponsor
Feb 18, 2012
26,743
24,940
District of Champions
I'm talking about a few months ago when people were saying mojo needs to be gone, he can't do anything in playoffs. Or winnik and the 4th line. Or how alzner and shattenkirk stink etc

People even wanted to trade ovechkin

People wanted MoJo gone because they felt he'd be redundant with Vrana and Burakovsky (and they were woefully incorrect in their assessment of his play, but that's a different story) and that he could be used to shore up the defense or replenish the prospect pipeline. There's a huge difference in trading Johansson for value and getting something useful in return as opposed to the panic-stricken move to offload him for peanuts to a division rival that we just saw. And I'm not seeing anyone complaining about Alzner or Shattenkirk being gone.

For me, and for many others, it goes back to having a plan. It's not that complicated. I've been saying for a while that this franchise just operates on the flavor of the week and it's getting tiresome. First two years of Trotz they wanted to be the Kings and play a heavy game. Last year it was a speed game to be like the Pens. Now it's left us with an overly expensive and underachieving roster constructed by a GM who says his organization is suffering from a championship hangover without the championship led by a lame duck coach. Some of this was inevitable but most of it was just **** poor planning and execution.
 

AlexBrovechkin8

At least there was 2018.
Sponsor
Feb 18, 2012
26,743
24,940
District of Champions
This goes back to the trade deadline. It's why it's called ''going all-in'' with rental players. No idea how people are shocked that they can't find a good offers for their players. Stacked team needs to clear cap space, so the price is at premium. No GM in the league wants to do them a favor by taking Orpik for example, unless GMBM pays a significant price for that. They'll rather pick up the top players for cheap prices knowing that the other side has to make it for the team to stay within the cap.

They needed to clear cap space because they made poor choices. That's the long and short of it. They underestimated how much Kuzy would cost, they underestimated the market for Grubauer, they did nothing leading up to the expansion draft. This wasn't something that popped up on them a few days in advance. They've known about this situation for months and did nothing to prevent it.
 

Corby78

65 - 10 - 20
Jan 14, 2014
11,702
7,868
Ramstein Germany
This goes back to the trade deadline. It's why it's called ''going all-in'' with rental players. No idea how people are shocked that they can't find a good offers for their players. Stacked team needs to clear cap space, so the price is at premium. No GM in the league wants to do them a favor by taking Orpik for example, unless GMBM pays a significant price for that. They'll rather pick up the top players for cheap prices knowing that the other side has to make it for the team to stay within the cap.

Agree, if we were watching the team parade around with a cup, we would be fine with this and chalk it up to a cost for winning. The roster was there but because we can't beat the pens everyone hates the GM now.
 

Skrudland2Lomakin

Registered User
Jan 1, 2011
7,676
5,658
349c236e79352202d94a9005f09f0d529c7520a6094ccaf686d5cbfe750ff174.jpg
 

trick9

Registered User
Jun 2, 2013
12,076
4,949
They needed to clear cap space because they made poor choices. That's the long and short of it. They underestimated how much Kuzy would cost, they underestimated the market for Grubauer, they did nothing leading up to the expansion draft. This wasn't something that popped up on them a few days in advance. They've known about this situation for months and did nothing to prevent it.

This is just silly to discuss without knowing any facts. We don't know what the asking price was for Vegas to take Grubauer instead of Schmidt. We don't know what options they explored through trades.

Would people seriously be happy if GMBM paid either Vrana, Bowey, or next years first round pick for Vegas to select Grubauer rather than Schmidt? That would have been even more brutal seeing as Grubauer propably already has more value around the league than Nate Schmidt.
 

twabby

Registered User
Mar 9, 2010
13,623
14,439
Agree, if we were watching the team parade around with a cup, we would be fine with this and chalk it up to a cost for winning. The roster was there but because we can't beat the pens everyone hates the GM now.

This is 100% wrong. His moves this offseason have been unforced errors. He should have known what Kuznetsov, Orlov, and Oshie's contract demands were going to be well before he was forced to dump Johansson for spare change. If he did, he could have traded Johansson before the expansion draft and possibly/probably got a better return for him on top of keeping Schmidt using a 4-4-1 protection scheme.

These mistakes had nothing to do with going all in last season.
 

AlexBrovechkin8

At least there was 2018.
Sponsor
Feb 18, 2012
26,743
24,940
District of Champions
This is just silly to discuss without knowing any facts. We don't know what the asking price was for Vegas to take Grubauer instead of Schmidt. We don't know what options they explored through trades.

Would people seriously be happy if GMBM paid either Vrana, Bowey, or next years first round pick for Vegas to select Grubauer rather than Schmidt? That would have been even more brutal seeing as Grubauer propably already has more value around the league than Nate Schmidt.

It's not that silly and we know more than you're letting on. We know that GMBM planned on doing nothing except signing Oshie and resigning the RFAs. We know he thought he would lose Grubauer in the ED or that he could trade him to recoup value if Gruby wasn't taken. We know he didn't anticipate Kuz's cap hit being so high (which is hard to believe since resigning him was one his top priorities). We know that he values Orpik's ability to "mentor" young defenseman more than the cap space he would he cleared by trading him or buying him out.

So no, I don't buy that this was all inevitable. GMBM got caught asleep at the wheel and the Caps are paying the price for it.
 

BiPolar Caps

Registered User
Feb 9, 2010
9,568
2,745
NOVA
The next elephant in the room is John Carlson. He's due a substantial raise after this season and I don't see how the Caps fit his $6+mm cap hit on this roster given the contracts they've handed out this summer. CapFriendly has them w/ $54mm locked up in only 9 contracts for next season, excluding Carlson.

6 mil should be coming off the books in the likes of Eller, Beagle and Chorney. If 3 of that 6 goes towards Carlson's resigning it can be done.

As far as next year's cap, with some Canadian teams making significant investments in players for the 2018 season, i.e. Price and McDavid, I wouldn't be surprised if the cap moves more north than it did this year, my conspiracy theory mind you, but the league has to help those Canadian market teams.
 

Langway

In den Wolken
Jul 7, 2006
32,263
8,890
They needed to clear cap space because they made poor choices. That's the long and short of it. They underestimated how much Kuzy would cost, they underestimated the market for Grubauer, they did nothing leading up to the expansion draft. This wasn't something that popped up on them a few days in advance. They've known about this situation for months and did nothing to prevent it.
That's really the long and short of it. Not only did they apparently not see it coming but when these events occur they appear to have panicked and rushed toward what they deemed was the only solution. All of these decisions appear to have been gambles they for some reason believed they would come out well on that consistently went against them. Why?

IMO it's symptomatic of their short-cut style of thinking that they hoped they could squeeze it all on somehow rather than making a tough decision beforehand when they potentially may have been able to get more value. Maybe not before the expansion draft but what about at the entry draft? They couldn't have netted NJ's early second and additional third? Even in a weaker draft there's value to be had in those selections having an additional year of development given their window.

The timing all-around just seems hurried and reactionary. I still go back to if they did gamble and win on Vegas taking Grubauer, how would they have fit Schmidt in? Even their hopeful plan didn't seem to make sense. The math didn't add up and they had to know that KHL leverage was something that absolutely had to be factored into projections.
 

BiPolar Caps

Registered User
Feb 9, 2010
9,568
2,745
NOVA
There were some other actions or non actions over the last month that I didn't understand and that look even more bewildering now. The acquisition of Graovac from the Wild for a fifth round pick in '18, was so that they wouldn't have to expose two of Eller, Beagle and Wilson. Looking at Makfi's approach to the expansion draft this was an unnecessary move and even if its a fifth round draft pick, it's not like the Caps have been blessed with a large amount of picks of late. If Caps happen to lose Eller in the expansion draft, that would have been 3.5 off the books and obviously helpful with signing the RFAs, so why go through the trade with the Wild. Then there was the sighting of BMAC and Bergevin yaking at the prospect draft. BMAC had to know that Montreal had been interested in signing Alzner for a while and prior to the prospect draft, so why not make an effort early on in trading Alzner to Montreal for a late pick.

Just seems that where some other GMs appear to be playing chess, BMAC of late seems to be playing checkers.
 

AlexBrovechkin8

At least there was 2018.
Sponsor
Feb 18, 2012
26,743
24,940
District of Champions
6 mil should be coming off the books in the likes of Eller, Beagle and Chorney. If 3 of that 6 goes towards Carlson's resigning it can be done.

As far as next year's cap, with some Canadian teams making significant investments in players for the 2018 season, i.e. Price and McDavid, I wouldn't be surprised if the cap moves more north than it did this year, my conspiracy theory mind you, but the league has to help those Canadian market teams.

Sure, but then you have no 3C or 4C and even more limited cap room. It'll really then be a top-heavy team of have's and have not's.
 

Ridley Simon

Registered User
Feb 27, 2002
18,123
9,066
Marin County — SF Bay Area, CA
Burakovsky-Backstrom-Oshie
Ovechkin-Kuznetsov-Wilson
Vrana-Eller-Connolly
SomePKBody-Beagle-Smith-Pelly

I'd like to see Kuznetsov own his own line. See if his inner Crosby/Malkin can come out.

I'd also like them to trade Grubauer and spend their reamaining $$$ on a Vet D-man. Like bringing back Oduya. To that end, I'd do this to start season

Burakovsky-Backstrom-Oshie
Vrana-Kuznetsov-Connolly
Ovechkin-Eller-Wilson
Walker-Beagle-Stephenson/Barber
Smith-Pelly-Stephenson/Barber

Orlov-Niskanen
Oduya-Carlson
Orpik-Bowey
Chorney

Holtby
Copley

I think that team easily makes the playoffs, and possibly contends for home ice.
 

Ridley Simon

Registered User
Feb 27, 2002
18,123
9,066
Marin County — SF Bay Area, CA
People here still do want to trade Ovie. I expect some growing pains with kids this year, and for this board to be very hard to read.

I'm excited for the kids to play. I am excited for a team with a lot lower expectations, as that will be good for them.

As i said before, I think this is where Trotz "system" will allow the team to probably win more games than the overall talent level portrays (unless the kids mature fast, then perhaps the talent level is better than anticipated?). I dont think they will win 50 games again, but I see 45-47 as in the cards. Unless they get totally drilled by injuries. Which is possible.
 

Langway

In den Wolken
Jul 7, 2006
32,263
8,890
Colorado signs Yakupov.
As i said before, I think this is where Trotz "system" will allow the team to probably win more games than the overall talent level portrays (unless the kids mature fast, then perhaps the talent level is better than anticipated?). I dont think they will win 50 games again, but I see 45-47 as in the cards. Unless they get totally drilled by injuries. Which is possible.
The biggest question IMO is whether they can cobble together enough of an adequate shutdown presence and that's where on paper they still have the most work to do. I agree they could use a vet LD like Oduya, Campbell or Beauchemin on the cheap. They may have just enough if those guys are willing to sign for $1-1.5M.

They need to be careful about 'experimenting' with who plays with Carlson. He needs reliability so that he can activate and chip in offensively or else it's just wasteful. He doesn't need someone to babysit or a stopgap like Chorney or Ness whose hope is to basically survive for as long as possible. In that regard, if they don't add a veteran I'd like to see Siegenthaler when he's ready for it. I'm not sure he will be--his Hershey stint at the end of the season suggested not--but he carries much of the reliability and smoothness that will be needed to pair with Carlson. JS needs to work on his stickhandling and quick puck movement when forechecked but the rest seems fairly close defensively (particularly if he's slimmed down and has better endurance). Unless Djoos or Johansen show uncanny offensive hockey IQ against NHLers I think Siegenthaler is the best internal option for the short-term. It's more a matter of when.
 

MrGone

Registered User
Nov 18, 2009
2,259
78
6 mil should be coming off the books in the likes of Eller, Beagle and Chorney. If 3 of that 6 goes towards Carlson's resigning it can be done.

As far as next year's cap, with some Canadian teams making significant investments in players for the 2018 season, i.e. Price and McDavid, I wouldn't be surprised if the cap moves more north than it did this year, my conspiracy theory mind you, but the league has to help those Canadian market teams.

Giving guys a big raises does not make them better players. The team will never be more talented then it was the past two years. Cutting pieces out to keep the broken core in place will not help.
 

Corby78

65 - 10 - 20
Jan 14, 2014
11,702
7,868
Ramstein Germany
This is 100% wrong. His moves this offseason have been unforced errors. He should have known what Kuznetsov, Orlov, and Oshie's contract demands were going to be well before he was forced to dump Johansson for spare change. If he did, he could have traded Johansson before the expansion draft and possibly/probably got a better return for him on top of keeping Schmidt using a 4-4-1 protection scheme.

These mistakes had nothing to do with going all in last season.

Going all in, did play a part with the cap issue and not setting up the next couple years better. And unless you were there you have no idea what was said between agents and the GM prior to the draft. You also have no idea how long we tried to shop mojo and what was available. Don't let your rage blind your rational thought.
 

twabby

Registered User
Mar 9, 2010
13,623
14,439
Going all in, did play a part with the cap issue and not setting up the next couple years better. And unless you were there you have no idea what was said between agents and the GM prior to the draft. You also have no idea how long we tried to shop mojo and what was available. Don't let your rage blind your rational thought.

What line of rational thinking leads to the current situation?

No matter what the market was for Johansson or Grubauer there is no reason they should have lost both Johansson and Schmidt. GMBM could have simply exposed Johansson and protected Schmidt.

I'm not seeing any angle where this offseason has been dealt with rationally.
 

Corby78

65 - 10 - 20
Jan 14, 2014
11,702
7,868
Ramstein Germany
What line of rational thinking leads to the current situation?

No matter what the market was for Johansson or Grubauer there is no reason they should have lost both Johansson and Schmidt. GMBM could have simply exposed Johansson and protected Schmidt.

I'm not seeing any angle where this offseason has been dealt with rationally.

I'm not saying these are brilliant mastermind moves, and I would have liked things to have turned out better in regards to the roster. But I'm not buying the "zero thought, asleep at the wheel, no plan" argument.
 

twabby

Registered User
Mar 9, 2010
13,623
14,439
I'm not saying these are brilliant mastermind moves, and I would have liked things to have turned out better in regards to the roster. But I'm not buying the "zero thought, asleep at the wheel, no plan" argument.

How else are we supposed to interpret the events that have transpired given that there are several alternatives that us armchair GMs have devised that would have led to a better situation?

MacLellan and management are well-paid professionals and it's reasonable to expect a good performance out of them as fans. His recent press conference did nothing to enlighten us about his thought process and in fact made it seem like he was caught off-guard by Kuznetsov's contract demands. That's unacceptable.

I'm not saying the team is doomed but they took a much bigger step back than they had to and that's on management.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Ad

Upcoming events

Ad

Ad

-->