Confirmed with Link: Big Z (Zdeno Chara) signed to 1 year, $795,000 deal

[hockeykicker]

He still has a rocket of a shot

 

[Calicaps]

Caps were already old, now with Lundquist and Chara, we're ancient.

Um... Lundquist ain't gonna be on the team.

 

[txpd]

What tha?????

 

[g00n]

What tha?????

This is why I rarely speculate about roster targets anymore. The Caps FO are just too cagey and off the board.

 

[txpd]

I wonder if this impacts forward depth decisions given Chara's PK ability.

I would think that Chara gets Siegenthaler's mins. I am thinking Siegenthaler gets to play regular with Chara getting regular days off with all the back to backs. LaDue lost his chance to play. TVR wont play much.

Ov, Backstrom, Wilson, Oshie, Eller, Hathaway, Dowd, Dillon, Carlson, Orlov, Chara. Damn that is a big team

 

[marcel snapshot]

I am certainly entertained by this. My concern is that good NHL teams skate fast. Relentlessly. On both sides of the ice. All the time. We don’t really do that, and haven’t made moves to get better at doing that

 

[Futures Passed]

The hell if we know. The Capitals already had a lot of NHL-capable bodies on the back end, and now it's even more crowded. They're collecting every #5 defenseman in the NHL.

I foresee:

Dillon - Carlson
Orlov - Shultz
Chara - Jensen

Bench/back-to-backs, etc.:

Siegenthaler - Riemsdyk

AHL/practice squad:

Fehervary - Paul LaDue
Alexeyev

Damn. That defense must be one of the deepest in the league. I wouldn’t mind sitting guys; at least on back to backs to keep them fresh and get Siegenthaler and Riemsdyk minutes.

 

[Langway]

I am certainly entertained by this. My concern is that good NHL teams skate fast. Relentlessly. On both sides of the ice. All the time. We don’t really do that, and haven’t made moves to get better at doing that

On the other hand, this division isn't all that fast or loaded. The Rangers and Penguins may be somewhat fast if they can defend well enough. The Bruins will largely continued to be structured, albeit thinner on the back-end. The Islanders will be the same disciplined team. The Flyers should remain pretty decent. The Sabres and Devils are still playing for respect.

The path out of the division goes through the Island and they need the fortitude to get through them. That rightfully should be the thinking behind their moves. MacLellan is going back to intangibles and I like it. Chara can not only help the PK and with general hard defensive minutes but also be a great sounding board and mentor for Carlson & Orlov. This is the Orpik move x2. Such a competitor.

If the Caps are getting stretched out they're going to have issues regardless. It's the intensity factor, physicality and experience that will need to win out. I get going for balance but leaning into strengths is also sound practice.

 

[Futures Passed]

I am certainly entertained by this. My concern is that good NHL teams skate fast. Relentlessly. On both sides of the ice. All the time. We don’t really do that, and haven’t made moves to get better at doing that

I don’t know. Chara will play almost exclusively in the defensive zone 5 on 5 and play a lot on the PK. He is paired with a fast skater in Jensen. We added more speed in Sheary on the third line. I think the roster has decently balanced speed on the whole. Every line has at least one high level speed skater. Vrana, Wilson, Sheary, Hagelin, and on D we still have a good balance of skaters in Jensen, Orlov, Dillon, and Carlson. The way I see it is every line, potentially, has at least one physical player who hits and every line, at least potentially, has at least one quality skater- to varying degrees, but I see balance on the whole.

The only line that might not have a big, physical presence is the third line if they end up slotting Panik on the fourth but, if they do, then the fourth line has three guys who hit. Incidentally, Panik and a number of other players on the team have decent, if not high level, speed and skating as well.

 

[Carlzner]

I foresee:

Dillon - Carlson
Orlov - Shultz
Chara - Jensen

Bench/back-to-backs, etc.:

Siegenthaler - Riemsdyk

AHL/practice squad:

Fehervary - Paul LaDue
Alexeyev

Damn. That defense must be one of the deepest in the league. I wouldn’t mind sitting guys; at least on back to backs to keep them fresh and get Siegenthaler and Riemsdyk minutes.

Sure it’s deep but... I’m still not really sure how good it is. It kind of all depends on how Schultz fits to be honest.

If him and Orlov can find some chemistry... I think everything else falls into place.

 

[Futures Passed]

Sure it’s deep but... I’m still not really sure how good it is. It kind of all depends on how Schultz fits to be honest.

If him and Orlov can find some chemistry... I think everything else falls into place.

Yeah, I agree that the Orlov-Schultz pairing is the big question mark. Or Shultz performance in that paring anyway. I have full confidence in Orlov.

I was uncertain about Shultz at first, but I thought Shultz stats on zone exits and his overall possession stats have been pretty redeeming though. Lastly, I think it’s clear he was handpicked for Laviolette’s system, so that makes me think he will be a good fit for the specific role they use him in. None the less, I agree that his performance is the big question mark. I’ll go ahead and add his health as another factor. The Caps depth will help with that, but I think it wouldn’t be bad to sit Shultz for a large number of back to backs as well. We shall see.

 

[pylon17]

Wow!

 

[marcel snapshot]

We couldn’t match the Canes motor rate in 2018-19, and the Isles blew our f***ing doors off in 2019-20. Yes, there are other ways to play besides the model of being relentlessly up-tempo and ruthlessly responsible defensively. We’ve tried to play a different style from that the last two years and haven’t been successful.

Our coaching should definitely improve this year - so maybe an alternative model can have more success. But unless our guys up the tempo throughout the lineup game after game (for a full 60 instead of a select 10), we will be at risk of being out-skated on most nights.

 

[Langway]

Interestingly, Tarik posited Orlov-Carlson, Dillon-Schultz and Chara-TVR/Jensen. Speculation on his part but if Orlov can hack it then worth a shot. Schultz needs to be a net positive either way and is probably the biggest question mark. With all of the D depth it'll be on McCarthy to maximize it and adjust as needed.

...we will be at risk of being out-skated on most nights.

IMO that's more on the forwards.

 

[Carlzner]

Orlov-Carlson has always worked fantastically over the past two seasons, but I’m not a fan of that mock second pairing.

I think you have to keep the two of them separate so at least one of them is on the ice for 3/4 of the game.

 

[Ovechkins Wodka]

With Ovie Carly and Chara do we have the 3 hardest slap shots in the league now?

 

[lawrence]

With Marchand out for the year, krug not signed, chara gone, this is a tank year for Boston. If it’s a time to tank this will be the type of year you tank.

 

[RandyHolt]

I am certainly entertained by this. My concern is that good NHL teams skate fast. Relentlessly. On both sides of the ice. All the time. We don’t really do that, and haven’t made moves to get better at doing that

As we are built we have to hit relentlessly and keep up our ace PP. Our cup securement showed how we need to win games.

We need him to be our Orpik.

 

[John Price]

I was looking through World Juniors scores yesterday for Team Canada and I caught an article about the remaining UFA on TSN.ca. I was surfing through them and noticed Chara up near the top. I was like "He's going back to Boston. Didn't know he was UFA."

The next day Caps sign

welcome

 

[Calicaps]

With Ovie Carly and Chara do we have the 3 hardest slap shots in the league now?

Weber...

 

[tenken00]

We couldn’t match the Canes motor rate in 2018-19, and the Isles blew our f***ing doors off in 2019-20. Yes, there are other ways to play besides the model of being relentlessly up-tempo and ruthlessly responsible defensively. We’ve tried to play a different style from that the last two years and haven’t been successful.

Our coaching should definitely improve this year - so maybe an alternative model can have more success. But unless our guys up the tempo throughout the lineup game after game (for a full 60 instead of a select 10), we will be at risk of being out-skated on most nights.

Orpik played great in the early games of that Canes series, as fast as those guys were. He was fighting and wearing them down like a bulldog. Even scored that GWG in Game 2. He just ran out of steam like the rest of the D like Nisky, Carlson, and everyone else in a 7 game series.

So a shortened season plus the loads of depth that we have now could theoretically give us more fresh legs during the playoffs.

I'm not even going to comment on that disaster of last season's playoffs.

 

[txpd]

Weber...

Thats true and only the all star selections get tested. I imagine there are other players that shoot it harder but are not quite all star caliber

 

[RandyHolt]

Siggy overall did OK i guess, but I wonder if they had higher expectations of him. I get it, if Chara is available you get him but at what level of age related drop in his play should we pass. Can anyone quantify a rough guess of how much his game has regressed from his peak?

He better not play softer than Sarge.

 

[tenken00]

Caps were already old, now with Lundquist and Chara, we're ancient.

Our average age might have gone up some but so did our average height to above 8 feet tall!

 

[Midnight Judges]

Gonna take a few days for this to sink in...