OT: CAPTASTROPHE

[Wizards2Lottery]

Looking at the cap figures from cap geek this is gonna be tough. we have $20m in cap space but only 13 fully signed players.

estimating $15m for neuvirth, alzner, backstrom, schultz, fehr, flash and bradley

giving us:
ovechkin/backstrom/knuble
laich/????/semin
chimera/bradley/fehr
steckl/gordon/flash
green/schultz
alzner/carlson
poti/erskine
sloan
varly/neuvirth

with $5m in cap room but an almost $5m albatross nylander unaccounted for. eek. not looking good. the expiring contracts basically just give us enough to sign our restricted free agents. trading poti, nylander and flash seems absolutely necessary.

Mathew Perrault will most likely be the 2nd line center.

[mohammed10]

I am a local fan, i support all the local teams...I was watching the caps really rooting for them, and im upset they lost BUT the only silver lining I can take from this is that I can now shut the fans up who talk **** about the wiz and say how much greater the caps are than the wiz.

I remember one day i was walking through the streets and these two guys had on caps jerseys making fun of the wiz....why cant you root for both? Why so many haters?

HATERZ

Misery loves company, Donk. I think DC has cornered the market...LOVE the title of the thread, too

BTW - McPhee states that Boudreau ain't goin' nowhere

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 02106.html

[fishercob]

Feh.

The progress continuum is seldom a straight diagonal line pointing upwards on the right. There are bumps in the road along the way.

Yes, this loss was devastatingly disappointing. That said, the main source of improvement from the Caps is going to be the simple passage of time. Look at the ages of our main guys!

Ovechkin 24
Backstrom 22
Laich 26
Semin 26
Flash 25
Fehr 25
Gordon 26
Steckel 28
Green 24
Schultz 24
Carlson 19
Alzner 21
Varly 22

There's a nice "veteran core" of Knuble, Bradley, Chimera, Poti and Belanger.

Yes, there will some some tweaks and trades along the way, but the bottom line this team has a decade, easy, of being good every year. At some point, they'll win a Cup.

Also keep in mind that GMGM shrewdly did not lock up Semin up long term. His money could be going to someone else at this time next year.

Yes it sucked, but all this nonsense about a certain style of play not working, "will over skill," etc., is just noise. Caps weren't ready, and looking at the ages of their main guys, it's not hard to see why. They'll get there.

[mohammed10]

Feh.

The progress continuum is seldom a straight diagonal line pointing upwards on the right. There are bumps in the road along the way.

Yes, this loss was devastatingly disappointing. That said, the main source of improvement from the Caps is going to be the simple passage of time. Look at the ages of our main guys!

Ovechkin 24
Backstrom 22
Laich 26
Semin 26
Flash 25
Fehr 25
Gordon 26
Steckel 28
Green 24
Schultz 24
Carlson 19
Alzner 21
Varly 22

There's a nice "veteran core" of Knuble, Bradley, Chimera, Poti and Belanger.

Yes, there will some some tweaks and trades along the way, but the bottom line this team has a decade, easy, of being good every year. At some point, they'll win a Cup.

Also keep in mind that GMGM shrewdly did not lock up Semin up long term. His money could be going to someone else at this time next year.

Yes it sucked, but all this nonsense about a certain style of play not working, "will over skill," etc., is just noise. Caps weren't ready, and looking at the ages of their main guys, it's not hard to see why. They'll get there.

Good observation, fish. Did not realize that the Caps are so young. Nice, highly offensively explosive core (too bad we can't say that about our Skins, but I digress). I think Varly is the answer as #1 goalie. Need to dump Theodore...seems like he chokes in big games. Varly and Neuvirth are the future.

I like our guys, but perhaps we need some aggressive front line defenders.

Agree with giving BB another year to get us to the Cup round.

[Wizards2Lottery]

This age excuse is old now. This teams core has had 28 playoff games together now. That's more than enough experience. The problem is and will always be that McPhee has no eye for defensive coaching or talent. That coupled with the fact that Boudreau seems to be a stubborn mule who will not modify his system to adjust to playoff hockey is why we are 1-3 in Game 7's the last three seasons.

This team has no excuse for choking this badly. Age does not matter when the core of this team has had three full seasons in tact. We have the league MVP of the last two seasons and a 100 point center yet we've won 1 playoff series in three seasons. They choked in the playoffs because north-south hockey only works in the regular season. Even the regular season had cause for concern because we were struggling late in the season in OT games against some bad teams. Cute tape to tape passing, point and outside circle shots, none of this works in the playoffs. We were lucky to make it to a game 7, had it not been for an epic collapse on Montreals part in Game 2.

Take a look at our rival Pittsburgh and watch them forecheck the crap out of Montreal's small lineup. Our offensive chances come from the rush, not from a disciplined forecheck and puck cycling. That is what Boudreau should have done. Instead we tried to play a cute north-south game and failed repeatedly (story of the last 4 playoff series).

Boudreau has a lot of strengths as a coach and I think he has room to get better. That's why I'm fine with him getting one more year but his lack of adjustment in the playoffs is something to worry about. In the end, it all came down to:

1. Failure to adjust to playoff hockey style
2. Separating Ovechkin and Backstrom in game 6.
3. Not having a true 1-2 defensive pairing. Mike Green-Jeff Schultz is not a good top defensive pairing. Don't care about their +/- regular season stats. Both of them will never get it done together as a teams top tandem and Alzner and Carlson won't make big enough leaps to help that out. This team needs to bring in Pavel Kubina or Anton Volchenkov.

[Wizards2Lottery]

and just like that Pitt drops to Montreal as they out shoot them 39-18 but still lose. I don't think they'll lose to Montreal but if they do, it'll be somewhat redeeming for our squad.

[fishercob]

Really good piece on "Fixing the Caps"

http://www.cbc.ca/sports/blogs/elliotte ... itals.html

[mohammed10]

Really good piece on "Fixing the Caps"

http://www.cbc.ca/sports/blogs/elliotte ... itals.html

Thanks, fish. Good find. Good read.

[WizStorm]

Make it any better now that the Canadians beat the defending champs Pens in 7 games as well?

[Benjammin]

Yeah, I would say it makes better in the sense that at least the Penguins took the same bitter medicine. But that shouldn't keep the Caps from doing a thorough review of what it takes to win the playoffs versus the regular season.

[Rafael122]

Crosby still has a ring last I checked.

[Severn Hoos]

The Kid and the Queen eliminated on back-to-back nights? Has there been a better week in the past decade?

[Tyrone Messby]

Nope. Pretty damn great back to back days.

[BanndNDC]

The Kid and the Queen eliminated on back-to-back nights? Has there been a better week in the past decade?

after this year i'll glady take this bit of schadenfreude in place of a championship.

[Wizards2Lottery]

Crosby still has a ring last I checked.

and that's probably the only one he'll have considering his teams cap situation and lack of junior league talent.

[lupin]

there was a decent column in Canada's National Post talking about the comparisons between Ovie and Crosby and how everyone was so quick to bury the rivalry just a couple of weeks ago. The guy pointed out that yes, crosby has the ring/medal, but he wasn't even the best player on any of those winning teams. Malkin was the playoff MVP and Crosby was practically a no-show in the Olympics until his GW goal and wasn't selected to the all-Olympic team. Also, Ovie has a better PPG number than Crosby in the playoffs. Basically, hockey isn't really a one-man sport. You can find the link in the dcsportsbog at the Washington Post.

[Severn Hoos]

The Kid and the Queen eliminated on back-to-back nights? Has there been a better week in the past decade?

after this year i'll glady take this bit of schadenfreude in place of a championship.

At the risk of Jinxing it, a top-3 spot in the Lottery would really finish it off nice.

[Rafael122]

Backstrom signs a 10 yr/$67 million deal.

I doubt Semin is here long term.

[lupin]

Probably not, but it probably will boil down to how well they/he do/does next year.