2024 pre season games thread

[Surreylily]

Dagnammit!

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[Caps17201]

A fleury of a finish. Opps, wrong team.

[Surreylily]

Lol!

That was a bit more encouraging, however  I don't think we're going to see Vrana again.

Really liking ThomCat.  Very quick, very alert.   He did something earlier that I noticed.  He took some water and sprayed it up and focused on one drop, exactly like the Goalie Whisperer taught Holtby to do.   This is a good sign to me.

One win does not a goalie make, but this kid has promise I think.  I definitely want to see more of him.

[richkrt99]

More fun when they win.
Strome looking good...did he have any wingers playing with him? 

Dowd line looked good.  Not sure if its a good sign if one of your best lines so far this preseason is your 4th liners, but considering the overall lineup....i guess you'd expect the cagey vets to look good.
++also...Dowds line played more minutes than any other line - they were 18/19 minutes...Ovi line 15m, Vrana line 15m, Sutter line <10m

I thought the Sgarbossa/Limoges/Vrana line looked very good - they were in the play quite a bit, but it was mostly Limoges name i kept hearing
Vrana was noticeable last night, but i dunno if its enough to get him a shot?  He got the wheels and did drive a couple plays, but he still looks like a one way player.  He stands around waiting for someone to pass him the puck.  He did muck it up more and made some plays, but I'm just not sure that's in his nature....he more of a hover around the blue line and wait for someone to dig it out and pass him the puck to burn up the ice with.

Logan Thompson (Goalie) was flipping fantastic.  He gives me a glimmer of hope.  Yes its only one game, but he got some skills for sure.  He's a big rig too I think.  Appears to be anyway.  I checked his career stats and he's 56w, 32L in his 4 years with Vegas (mostly the last 2 years).  SV% .912 is good, GAA 2.67 not so great.  We got him for two 3rd round picks (2024, 2025) which seems cheap for his pedigree.  27 years old is pretty early prime for a goalie.  How is this dude only making $766k a year?  He is a UFA next year.

[richkrt99]

Ovi - Strome - Mangi
Milano - Duby - Willy
McMike - Protas -
Duhaime - Dowd - Raddysh

I think all above have a spot, which leaves room for basically one guy in regular lines, plus a spare or two (assuming a 23 man roster with 7 D and 2 G)  If they carry 8D on the active roster, then you have room for 13 forwards.  I thought Lappi was a lock as well, but maybe not.
Lappi, Limoges, Rybinski, Dube, Miro and Cristall all appear to be ahead of Vrana in my book, just from the little we saw in the preseason games.  All these guys certainly at least appear hungrier for it than Vrana.  We only get a small glimpse so who knows how they perform in practice, etc.
Miro and Cristall are both young so maybe they play Hershey another year, but both look better than Vrana to me.
Signing Vrana to a one year budget deal maybe, but I think he'd have to go to Hershey at some point which means clearing waivers..

When is the next round of cuts?

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When is the next round of cuts?

Who the fuck knows. I just spent far too long trying to find out using every variation of training camp roster cuts I could think of trying to find the cut dates and I got nothing. It shouldn’t be that difficult, but this is the bettman nhl.

[Mickstix]

I saw where Coach said Cristall "took a step back" vs Boston, even though he scored? I think that's foreign for "You playin' in Hershey another year" 


Haven't heard Leonard's name? Guess he didn't come to camp? Thought maybe he'd rethink that college thing.


*Just saw Cristall is only 19 (too young for AHL), so it's either the Caps or back to the minors for another year..

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Preseason game #4
Caps vs Blue Jackets @ 7pm
Monumental Sports, Caps Radio 24/7

anticipated lines:
Ovechkin - Strome - Mangiapane
Vrana - McMichael - Frank
Milano - Rybinski - Miroshnichenko
Cristall - Sgarbossa - Dubé

Chychrun - Carlson
Alexeyev - Iorio
Leivermann - Bear

Lindgren
Stevenson

[richkrt99]

Wow that's basically one NHL line and 3 rookie/ahl lines.
Vrana better light it up..for his sake

Im liking Chychrun so far...he seems like a good addition

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Caps vs Blue Jackets has been delayed about an hour. Blue Jackets had travel issues, I assume related to the hurricane.

[Surreylily]

Caps vs Blue Jackets has been delayed about an hour. Blue Jackets had travel issues, I assume related to the hurricane.

Thanks for the heads up.   

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update, TV coverage is to begin at 8:30pm ET. I’m guessing puck drop will be a few minutes later. This is why the Blue Jackets flight was delayed, remnants of hurricane Helene moving to the west..

[Caps17201]

I was wondering why I couldn’t find it. I’ll try 846 or 1251 with Comcast at 8:30. Right now they have something on about the Wizards.

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Nashville was supposed to play in Tampa tonight, that was canceled.

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OV


 

[Surreylily]

 

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[Caps17201]

A score!

[Surreylily]

Good for him.