GDT #22 Caps at Coyotes @ 9pm

[Mickstix]

We don't have any talent. It's all over the hill, injured or scratched. We don't have a single "top line" talent on the team. Let that sink in. Yet, we pay out 40 million in salary to Ovi, Nicky, Oshie, Carlson, Kuzy. On second thought, don't let it sink in. It's fucking depressing.

[Surreylily]

He may need to retire even before the season ends.  Just fake an injury and then retire during the offseason.  #2 alltime in goals is nothing to sneeze at and he did it in a much less scoring friendly era.  To keep going like this indefinitely is just embarrassing.

I'm pretty sure everybody knows how much I adore Ovi.   

I'm hoping against hope that he's just in a funk and will snap out of it.  If not, I too would rather he cashed his chips in.
Watching him at the moment is truly heartbreaking.   

[capsfanpdx]

We don't have any talent. It's all over the hill, injured or scratched. We don't have a single "top line" talent on the team. Let that sink in. Yet, we pay out 40 million in salary to Ovi, Nicky, Oshie, Carlson, Kuzy. On second thought, don't let it sink in. It's fucking depressing.

....but we have been winning.   So, there is good there.  The next two years the contract s will clear up and we will be buffalo or Detroit for a couple of years

[richkrt99]

Ovi isn't quite done.  He certainly will never score 50 goals again, but he's getting scoring chances.  He is definitely older and slower, but speed hasn't been his game for years.  As someone pointed out earlier, he IS getting scoring chances.  His shot doesn't look like he's lost it.  He is slower on back check, but he's be a coaster for long time in both O-zone and D-zone.

[richkrt99]

We don't have any talent. It's all over the hill, injured or scratched. We don't have a single "top line" talent on the team. Let that sink in. Yet, we pay out 40 million in salary to Ovi, Nicky, Oshie, Carlson, Kuzy. On second thought, don't let it sink in. It's fucking depressing.

Yes the contracts are a drag, but I'm not sure I'd say we don't have any talent.  I'm curious about Hershey...they've been the best franchise in AHL history, and have won ALOT.  Now, they are having their best season ever (so far).
I don't follow the younger squads much, but is their success due to the fact they we have a lot of talent in the pipeline, or that we have a bunch of AHL talent that will never become great NHL talent?  I would hope that years of AHL success would lend us to actually get some of the success as those younger guys move up.
Hoping Mirshnichenko blossoms into something great.  I think Iorio has showed some real promise also.
And I'd say Tom Wilson is legit top level talent.  His skills don't always produce goals, but he is probably the best true power forward left in the league.  NHL appears to hate on him, but I'd bed every single NHL club would love to have him on their squad.

The team definitely chose to ride the Ovi train to the end, and unfortunately, some of those wheels are just falling off (backy, oshie, etc).  We should have bit the bullet and started the rebuild, but we didn't.  We are now reeping what we sowed.
Face it....we are mediocre.  We will not have playoff success with this team.  Is that a surprise to anyone? ..prolly not.  It's not as bad as the Arizona game makes it look, but then It ain't near as good as the Kings game made it look either.


Go Caps

[Mickstix]

I think Miro and possibly Frank are the only "skill" guys we have in the pipeline. Not even sure about Frank, he's just fast as fuck. We don't draft high enough to get legit top 6r's. err 3r's.

[Beaglefan2]

Rich, I agree that we are a mediocre team that has a AHL farm team that may yield a few bottom 6 guys.  The problem is going to be that we won't get top 10 picks, except last year, for a while and will be stuck in the dreaded middle - good enough to stay close enough to making the playoffs, but bad enough to not have a chance to compete for a Cup.


Our best hope is that our two last 1st round picks. Miro and Leonard, turn out to be really, really good and that a few other recent picks overachieve and give us a new young group of 5 or 6 guys that we can build around.   Ideally, we would have tanked this year and gotten a top 10 pick, but that is looking doubtful.

[richkrt99]

...  Ideally, we would have tanked this year and gotten a top 10 pick, but that is looking doubtful.

Oh not to worry...There's still plenty of time...

[Mickstix]

I think we have a chance to at least compete, if we can use Nicky's salary to lure in a legit top center. Was kinda hoping Oshie would "decide to step away" as well, but we'll see how that turns out. Nicky isn't coming back, it's just a shame they have to pretend he might, so he can keep getting paid. Leonsis just needs to suck it up and spend that extra $9m.

[alta]

There isn’t an extra $9M though. Half of it was already used when guys came off IR, and they still need $2M for Pacs. I’d rather not see the team max out the payroll again, it gave them damn near zero options for the past 6 years.

[Mickstix]

Who came off IR since Nicky retired? 

[alta]

Edmundson @ $1.75M. The season started with Pacs and Edmundson on IR. The team needed about $4M to activate them. With a couple other moves, the team only has about $4-$4.5M cap space because Backy stepped down. If Backy didn’t step down the team was going to have cut someone, probably making about $5.7M…

[alta]

According to this, there is currently $7.25M in cap space. When Pacs comes back it will be $5.25. Management has breathing room for the first time in what seems like 10 years.


https://www.capfriendly.com/teams/capitals#google_vignette

[Mickstix]

Paci.. Esssh. I can hardly wait to see what that brings us. He and Oshie should race to see who sits. (I have no clue how good/bad he'll be but a 35 year old with double achillies repair sounds like another forward with broken wheels.) Gonna be like last year when Oshie, Nicky and Willy all got "healthy" at the same time. That was the start of the fall through the rankings. Though, we've already started to look wobbly. We shall see....