They claim to be trying to compete, but they aren't doing much of anything to actually compete. Essentially it seems like they're just afraid to sell off because they don't want to anger Ovechkin
This is just patently and abjectly false. Have you seen the market right now? There are two obvious features that stand out; veterans with term and $$ are outlandishly expensive to move, so far in Free Agency mostly mediocre players have signed and they’ve largely been overpaid.
Given these two considerations I’m frankly completely satisfied that the Capitals haven’t jumped into either market. They could potentially trade Mantha or Kuznetsov to “actually compete.” It’s likely they’d lose those trades in a significant way. They could have signed some FAs and overpaid, I’m glad they didn’t. There are some trade targets out there (ex. DeBrincat) but if trading teams are asking for future 1sts I’d prefer the Caps stay far, far away.
The Caps have a veteran team and can still compete and win games. Caps fans have been imploring the team to play the young players they’ve drafted. They brought in Spencer Carbery to do just that. I’d rather the team and management take a measured Wait-And-See approach rather than making brash moves in trades or FA when the market is pretty clearly stacked against you. The Caps don’t have a ton of tradeable value assets, best to just let the ones the do have marinate and see what the rest of the roster can do in a season where perhaps most of the team can be healthy.
Depends on if you view him as a 2nd pairing or a 3rd pairing D
He’s clearly a 2nd Pairing DMan, even allowing the theory he’s a 5-6D is in stark contrast to his career-to-date and is particularly poorly informed. The key is getting coaching to play him that way and partner him with someone to take advantage of his strengths and not put laser focus on his weaknesses.