I don't post much here, but read it a lot. Here's my take on this season.
Firstly, I haven't viewed this team as a contender or really a playoff team since the Lightning swept us and Boudreau left. I'm not shocked that this team is playing like this and really the people who think this team can be decent and be a playoff team is kidding themselves. There is far too much Oates bashing on this board, yes he has made some decision that have made me go WTF, but every coach does (Ovi with Beagle). I don't think that he warrants that much hate, considering the roster he has. GMGM needs to go and it has been this way forever and every caps fan concurs on this.
The people who keep trashing Ovechkin need to grow up, there isn't much more he can do. He has carried this team many times during his career and it won't change until significant roster changes are made. He's the only player that we can count on to score goals and bring some energy to the lineup on a consistent basis, there's too many fans who see him have an off game or 2 and then reference those games for the rest of the season and then build it into there synopsis of the season. As for his +/-, yeah it doesn't look good but honestly I don't care because it's a flawed stat. His so called lack of defense isn't the reason this team is losing either, it's just plain incompetency of our so called mix and match D core.
Honestly, outside of Ovechkin, Backstrom, Kuznetsov, Ward & Wilson, everyone else needs to go. Brouwer can put some decent numbers up but he's too slow and talks too much. I'm not sure how our lineup became so unskilled. We were far better off with Steckel, Fleischmann, Bradley & Semin than Johansson, Chimera, Grabovski & Brouwer. We lost the ability to be dangerous at 5on5 because we lost all our skill and footspeed.
Our defense has always been a joke. Alzner & Carlson have been good but for sure not great. Green needs to go, he doesn't do one thing for this roster other than slide OV one timer passes and ride his moped. Orlov is great and needs to continue to develop. As for the goaltending situation, it's one of the worst managed assets this team had. Why Varlamov was traded is beyond me, he was our best prospect and goaltender and was let go for nothing. The signing of middle road goalies out of panick is lame too, Halak, Theodore & Vokoun should never have worn caps sweaters.
The list of players gone that shouldn't have left is so long I don't even want to touch on it. GMGM folded hard after that Montreal series which was the worst thing to do. We ran into a goalie playing insane and happened to lose despite dominating that series for the most part. That was the team that was going to run a cup if we ever do in the near future. GMGM is wasting a generational talent who could probably put up 70 if he played with better players. And don't say Backstrom, because he isn't the same since Bourque.
Unless we clean house and by that, I mean General Manager, coaches, and majority of the roster I don't see a bright future for this team.
