Revisiting the Schmidt “Decision”

[Carlzner]

Imagine witnessing the greatest Caps team of all time and still feel the need to argue about tiny lineup decisions from a year ago.

 

[Sam Spade]

Imagine witnessing the greatest Caps team of all time and still feel the need to argue about tiny lineup decisions from a year ago.

I never cared too much about losing Schmidt, no disrespect, but his age and the fact that he is a 3/4 dman made me care very little. Great personality and very well liked but meh, he clearly wasn't a difference maker and in these playoffs Orpik is much more valuable style wise.

The fact that people here are so passionate about him always has me a bit dumbfounded.

 

[TRASHCAT]

Theres a 17 page thread on the hawks board about kempny just for perspective

 

[ALLCAPSALLTHETIME]

Perfectly happy the way it all turned out. If they would have kept Nate, perhaps they wouldn’t be in the Finals, 3 victories away from a Cup win.

I regret nothing.

 

[Hivemind]

Imagine witnessing the greatest Caps team of all time and still feel the need to argue about tiny lineup decisions from a year ago.

I've mostly been just enjoying the ride and not commenting much, but people felt the need to not only necro this thread, but explicitly tag me in it.

 

[Ridley Simon]

You think the Devils really needed Mirco Mueller? If they had that specific a desire for Mueller to fill a hole on their roster, they would have qualified him. Mueller lost a numebrs game in San Jose, and the Devils saw an opportunity to take a chance on him. He wasn't a specific need filler. He ended up only playing 28 games for NJ this season (some missed due to injury, but a lot more due to being a healthy scratch).

It wasn't Mueller OR Johansson for New Jersey, it ende dup being Mueller AND Johansson. The Devils were in an interesting position in that they had roster flexibility beyond the expansion draft rules, and could actually afford to protect extra players. There was actually a lot of speculation on Devils blogs and hockey blogs about what players NJ might target from other teams to help shelter them from the expansion draft.

If you read some of the quotes from Shero after the Johansson trade, you'll see references to him using the expansion draft to improve his team, about monitoring Washington's cap situation in advance, and about still needing to help his defense even after the Mueller trade.


How Ray Shero swooped in and brought Marcus Johansson to the Devils



It dumbfounds me that you cannot see the difference between process-oriented thinking and result-oriented thinking. We're all speaking in hypotheticals here, so using result-oriented thinking about these hypotheticals is rather foolish. Eller absolutely stepped up when Backstrom got hurt, there's no question about that. But there's also no guarantee that Vegas take Eller, especially with Grubauer, Wilson, and Burakovsky dangling out there as younger players that fit the Golden Knight's identity much better than Eller does (especially given that they were already getting a bunch of 3C types in Karlsson, Tuch, and Eakin, albeit with an offensive explosion out of Karlsson this season). There's also no way to forsee that Backstrom would block a shot and break his hand in the playoffs, nor any way to forsee that Orlov wouldn't be hurt in the playoffs (imagine how screwed this team would be if Orlov went down right now).

Further still, have Schmidt around means their left defense depth in the past off-season is substantially better. Which means they aren't painted into a corner regarding Brooks Orpik's $5.5M salary, and may be able to trade him or buy him out. Suddenly they have a lot more cap space to play with to replace whatever winger or 3C or back-up goalie they lose in the expansion draft.

Do you think Wilson could carry a line offensively on his own? He's quite obviously the complimentary winger to Ovechkin and Kuznetsov. I didn't think anyone would take exception to that....

Seems maybe that you are more focused on “process” than you are on “results”.

Guys you are throwing some shade at are making huge differences — Right now. Wilson, Orpik, etc.

Would you rather be “right” and have Nate win the Cup? Or be “wrong” and have the Caps win, on the continued back of the guys we should have exposed or let go?

I honestly cannot tell.

 

[Ridley Simon]

I've mostly been just enjoying the ride and not commenting much, but people felt the need to not only necro this thread, but explicitly tag me in it.

Any idea why that is? I’m expecting a smug retort....but maybe you will surprise me.

 

[usiel]

Without Schmidt they slayed the flightless fowl demons and got past the 2nd round and are 3 games from winning the cup. Seems like this thread has no purpose at this point.

 

[Calicaps]

@usiel has a point. Closing this. Feel free to carry on the convo in the roster thread.