Man, Ovechkin's under-performance is bringing out some idiocy here.
Maybe it's because I just read 100 pages of a management textbook, but Ovechkin can be fixed. But that process should have started after the Montreal series and it should be ongoing. The biggest opportunity this franchise has isn't trading Green or Johansson or signing Ribeiro. It's reclaiming Ovechkin and it's pretty obvious that no effort is being made on that front.
Ovie isn't the problem. He's not a superstar right now but he's skating with Beagle and Wolski. He must be wondering if he's in a beer league some shifts.
The Caps are weak all over. Ovie is the captain of a dilapidated ship.
You can draw a straight line from their lack of skill development and long-term adherence to the process to the broken franchise player. Take the player out of the dysfunction and into a healthy, stable environment and in short order he'll rise again. Not that he's above blame but he's a symptom not a cause.Maybe it's because I just read 100 pages of a management textbook, but Ovechkin can be fixed. But that process should have started after the Montreal series and it should be ongoing. The biggest opportunity this franchise has isn't trading Green or Johansson or signing Ribeiro. It's reclaiming Ovechkin and it's pretty obvious that no effort is being made on that front.
Actually, I guess it could have been done, in two easy steps.
Step 1: Not let Varlamov go.
Step 2: Not let Semin go.
Whoops.
Maybe it's because I just read 100 pages of a management textbook, but Ovechkin can be fixed. But that process should have started after the Montreal series and it should be ongoing. The biggest opportunity this franchise has isn't trading Green or Johansson or signing Ribeiro. It's reclaiming Ovechkin and it's pretty obvious that no effort is being made on that front.
I'd like to see what he and Ribeiro look like separated for a decent amount of time. The two together just get absolutely destroyed at even strength... would be nice to get a picture of which is the bigger culprit, if nothing else.
Harrison's goal (their 2nd): awful.
And still ... no emotion in their faces. You'd think we were the ones who had an 8-10 point lead.
Those two together are a defensive liability. I mean offensively they've worked well, yes. And that is one of the reasons why I've wanted to see Ovi back with Nicky. Nicky is a very responsible center. Play Ribs with Brouwer and Ward, those two will cover for his lack of defensive responsibility.
Wait until the third Canes goal.
What period does that happen in?
Anyone.. please.
Close to the end of the second............I think.
All I can say is the Caps better find a different phone booth and change into their Superman suits... cause the playoffs will not be easy. And we'll be lucky to win a game.
You're not gonna 'reclaim' Ovechkin on a team the number one priority of whose constrution was developing Jeff Schultz.
The first and only step towards reclaiming Ovechkin is putting together a team that's not chock full of holes and that needs Ovechkin to continuously go balls to the wall to sniff the second round on a good day.
Of course we could get a shrink to convince him that he needs to play like a bat out of hell on a crappy team built to fail in all sorts of ways. I'm sure that'll work.