GDT: Caps @ Flightless birds - 3/11/14 7:30 PM

[Langway]

There is no requirement for a team to announce the GM has renewed his contract, GM is tight-lipped as it is, and when was the last time this season that any local media asked GM or Ted if Ted and him had been discussing contract renewal, or whether there had been contract renewal talks or any were planned. None as far as I can recall.

Svrluga touched upon it last week:

So the machinations behind and results of any organizational red-letter day — the draft, the trade deadline, the opening of free agency — by now fall back on McPhee. He is in the last year of his contract. His detractors would point out, quite loudly, that all those seasons have not yielded a Cup. Since he took over the Capitals, 11 franchises have won one. The Capitals reached the finals for the only time in franchise history in his first season, and haven’t advanced to the conference finals since.

Asking McPhee about his future is simply futile. When the spotlight falls to him, he squints, holds his hand over his eyes and heads to the corner, searching for shadows. A sample answer to that question Friday: “Uh, well . . .†But get him talking about how he sees the trade deadline, for instance, and there are clues.

“First of all, it’s always organization first,†McPhee said. “It’s what’s best for the organization. Has to be. It can’t be about you. It can’t be about an individual.â€

If there’s a measure of McPhee’s security in the only general manager job he’s ever held, it is right there. Clearly, he believes the trades he made improved the Capitals for the here and now. But these moves also were made for the organization’s future. They freed salary cap space for summer’s free agency....

This doesn’t appear to be a guy making moves to save his job.

It could have been an ownership-mandated imperative at the deadline so it's hard to necessarily conclude much about their moves.

 

[Calicaps]

Svrluga touched upon it last week:

It could have been an ownership-mandated imperative at the deadline so it's hard to necessarily conclude much about their moves.

Not making moves to save his job isn't the same thing as job security. Last year's spastic disaster (Forsberg for Erat) failed horribly and has been ridiculed across the hockey world. Perhaps GMGM thought better of a flashy move this year having made a spectacle of his desperation before.