The ‘25-‘26 boredom thread..

[waynerivers]

Yea, if they were -constantly- irresponsible on D or something it may make some sense. But all 4 of those guys, Lappi, McMike, Frank and Leno are decent defensively, imo. And they all hustle! You can't punish guys every time they make a mistake. Chychrun, Carlson, Ovi etc. don't get their minutes reduced for fucking up. Hell, last night Leno entered the O zone (on 4th line) and 3 guys went to him. lol He may learn to protect or play better D, but he damn sure aint gonna score many that way. And we aint winning many games on 2 goals a night.    
Im reserving hope that after the Olympics we'll finally get "healthy" and go on a tear.. 

Lapierre is currently at 83 consecutive games without a goal.  Only 3 forwards in NHL history have gone longer and they were all enforcer types.  This is a total embarrassment and to be wasting one of our 12 forward roster spots on him, is ludicrous.

[BlackIce]

Lapierre is currently at 83 consecutive games without a goal.  Only 3 forwards in NHL history have gone longer and they were all enforcer types.  This is a total embarrassment and to be wasting one of our 12 forward roster spots on him, is ludicrous.

And this is why losing Dubois hurts so much.  We don't have a true 2C now.  Sourdif has played pretty well in that role, but he's just getting acclimated.  Dowd has been dragged up a line for most of the season, where he doesn't belong.  McMichael was better last year on the wing, even though he seems to prefer playing center.  AND the Caps have been forced to use LaPierre when he just hasn't been able to give them much of anything.  The effect of not having an effective DuBois cascades down through the entire forward lineup.


Promisingly enough, even though Hershey isn't all that great this season (the career AHL'ers they signed to fill out the roster this year haven't been as good as they've had in years past), the two best forwards have been the youngsters, Cristall and Protas.  But Cristall is not a Center, and Protas, though he's been very good as a center at Hershey, is only 19 and probably needs the full year of seasoning at least.

[Mickstix]

Lapierre is currently at 83 consecutive games without a goal.  Only 3 forwards in NHL history have gone longer and they were all enforcer types.  This is a total embarrassment and to be wasting one of our 12 forward roster spots on him, is ludicrous.

Yea, that's some voodoo witchcraft jinx shit he's got himself into. lol Getting a sweater out of necessity at the moment, Im sure.

[alta]

He needs to sacrifice a chicken.

[alta]

The whole team needs to sacrifice a chicken.

[Mickstix]

Bro is definitely touching the tiki idol.. IYKYK. 

[waynerivers]

And this is why losing Dubois hurts so much.  We don't have a true 2C now.  Sourdif has played pretty well in that role, but he's just getting acclimated.  Dowd has been dragged up a line for most of the season, where he doesn't belong.  McMichael was better last year on the wing, even though he seems to prefer playing center.  AND the Caps have been forced to use LaPierre when he just hasn't been able to give them much of anything.  The effect of not having an effective DuBois cascades down through the entire forward lineup.


Promisingly enough, even though Hershey isn't all that great this season (the career AHL'ers they signed to fill out the roster this year haven't been as good as they've had in years past), the two best forwards have been the youngsters, Cristall and Protas.  But Cristall is not a Center, and Protas, though he's been very good as a center at Hershey, is only 19 and probably needs the full year of seasoning at least.

Protas, Jr. has to be better than Lapierre and probably a bunch of other guys.  Let him get seasoning up here.

[Beaglefan2]

I think the Sharks had 3 guys that were 19 and under.  Heck, at this point, put in big Mac at center!

[richkrt99]

Caps continue to fall in the standings...virtually every other team is climbing.
13 of the 15 other teams in the east have a better record over the last 10 games, with only Philthy having the same record as the Caps, and the Rags 1 point worse off.
Caps now 11th out of 16 teams in the East, but 4/5 below them have 1 or 2 games in hand and trail by 1, 2, 3, 3, 6 pts.
Caps are 13 points out of 1st place and 6 pts above dead last (currently the Rangers), and certainly not trending in the right direction.
Not sure a 6 game road trip is gonna help, but the boys need to sack up.  Starting in Colorado is kind of a kick is the junk way to start a long road trip.

Vancouver is struggling also, and lost their 11th game in a row.  Maybe the Caps can extend that, but that losing streak has to end as some point.  Who is more desperate for a win?

[Beaglefan2]

Our age and lack of speed has been exposed more and more these last 5 games or so. We are just an average team and need to hit the reset button.  Even with PLD and Willy back, this team is not close to a Cup contender.


I'm just hoping that management realizes the situation and doesn't think we are one good offensive player away from contending - and do some stupid stuff at the trade deadline. We need to be sellers if anything.


I'm not far off from rooting for losses to better our draft position......

[Mickstix]

Definitely not 1 piece away. Our D is horrible. Our goalies carry us most games.

Carlson/TVR are too slow, Sandin too small, something is off/wrong with Fever. Chychrun and Roy are about the only ones I think are fairly solid at the moment.

[richkrt99]

Mick you right about Fever - he used to be my favorite, most stable, hard hitting D we had.  He hasn't been the same this year, and I surely hope its not the injury last year that he's just not ever going to be the same.  He still seem to have the speed (that I never realized he had) so not sure what it is.  Hope he can return to the form he once was.  Maybe it's his pairings and he has to try and do too much to cover for TVR or Carlson, or Sandin or whoever, and he gets himself out of position trying to cover instead of just having to worry about himself?

[richkrt99]

Caps are more than one player away for sure. Well, currently they are two of our own players away; Wilson and PLD, and both with make a huge difference, but not enough.
Willy makes a difference on the ice every game, and every player on both teams knows it.  PLD will make a big impact (assuming we get the good PLD back) in that you won't have mediocre inadequate guys playing spots and minutes they aren't worthy of.  Sourdiff has been great, but he's not a 2C, neither is McMike or Lappy or Dowd or anyone else we've tried.  PLD at 2C and Willy back puts the mediocre guys back in places they should be and fills out our top two lines much better, but even at that, we DO have a team full of mediocre guys and we need a real top line goal scorer.
I like many of these guys, but if you filled my team with a bunch of strangers and they made us a reasonable contender, I'd learn to like them too.

In Rich's Fantasy Land, I'm keeping for next season:
Willy, Ovi, Protus, PLD, Leonard, Sourdiff, Strome, McMike
Chychrun, Roy, Fever
Thompson for sure, fine with Lindy as well

I would entertain a  trade for McMike, PLD, even Strome if there were serious active interest.  Ovi is basically untradeable, and I think will play one more year which I can tolerate given what he has done for this franchise.  He is untradeable, but also limits what we can do with him in the lineup.
I would actively seek a trade for Carlson this year - he could be decent trade bait for a contender; possible help in a SC run, yet no contract to worry over.  Same for TVR except I don't see him as an asset to anyone wanting to strengthen their playoff run.
Sandin I would gladly part with as well if someone wanted him for some sort of return.
Frank, Beauvy, Duhaime all work really hard, but wouldn't be heartbroken if they were traded.  I'd certainly give Frank a shot next year at a reasonable contract if he's not traded.  He's a decent 3rd line guy with some scoring potential. Duhaime is a utility guy with lots of grit, and love him but he has little impact.

Carlson, TVR, Dowd, Milano, Lappy - I don't want to see any of these guys in a Caps sweater next season.

The REALITY is....ALL these scrubs will be back next year except for maybe the few UFA's; Milano, Frank, Duhaime, TVR
Carlson is a UFA but the Caps are going to overpay him for a ridiculous long albatross contract.  (Please please prove me wrong)
Frank has played well enough someone will pick him up this summer.  Milano might get a job with someone.  TVR - I just don't know.  He might be good enough for some teams bottom pairing, but I don't want it to be the Caps
McMike and Lappy are RFA's.  McMike will certainly get an offer somewhere if we don't keep him, but Lappy - oof, someone will offer him a contract.

The Caps have never been a big trade kind of team.  Never seen them really do a rebuild.  Probably the biggest moves I can ever really recall are when they went after PLD and Chicky.  PLD was better than expected, and we offloaded a bad (for us) goalie at the same time.  Chicky was a great acquisition.
I hesitate to recall the Jagr experiment which was a failure, but at least was an effort at a top echelon talent.
With so many teams still in the hunt, I would think it would be a sellers market so let's take advantage of that NOW.

Wait...who got me started down this rabbit hole...filled with nothing but fantasy and future disappointment?

[alta]

Yesterday I noticed Miroshnichenko is not on the roster at the team website. He wasn’t listed at Hershey either so I assume he’s still with the Caps. Same for this morning. Did anyone notice if the Caps ever added him to the website? They have a strong and recent history of not adding callups to the team website, though they did add Leason.


Miro needs to be sent down to activate Wilson.

[Beaglefan2]

Rich - I agree with all of your comments.


It's funny, I was thinking the same thing on Fever. He was my favorite and has just been off this year. Still playing ok, but has been out of position a lot and something is just not right.


I like the idea of trading Carlson at the deadline.  The only way that happens though is if the Caps are clearly out of the playoffs and they can sell it like they are doing Carlson a favor and trading him to a team that has a shot at the Cup. Very doubtful that will happen and I fear they will sign him to a 3 year deal for $8M per year.


I actually, don't think we have many guys that are tradeable that would bring much of a return, so I'm not banking on that.  We just need to tank and get a top 10 draft pick.

[richkrt99]

Beags,


You are right about Carlson and only way to trade him is to sell it like that, but the other thing is he HAS a NMC so he would have to agree to the trade...not sure I see that happening.
We both know its fantasy anyway, and he will be here dragging us down for YEARS to come. 

And yes, the only real tradeable guys we have are the very few which we wouldn't want to trade, but that's probably true of most teams.

[alta]

Miroshnichenko has been been sent to Hershey. Wilson is in tonight.

[Beaglefan2]

If the Caps trade for Panarin, they are out of their minds.


The tank scenario should be officially underway!

[alta]

If the Caps trade for Panarin, they are out of their minds.

Management appears willing to resign Carlson…

[alta]

green flag is Saturday at 1:40pm eastern…