Speculation: Caps Roster General Discussion (Coaching/FAs/Cap/Lines/etc) | 2023-24 Regular Season Edition

[Todd Lazarchick]

Are you shifting this to a debate over who was the best GM at their peak, or are we talking about who we'd want running the Caps right now? Because I wouldn't want any of those guys anywhere near the reins in DC.

• Bowman built his dynasty using cap shenanigans that are either no longer legal (back-diving contracts) or will probably be banned in the next couple years (LTIR manipulation). He's also currently blacklisted for covering up the rape of one of his players, so he's not even a real option.
• Rutherford took a Pens team that was in roughly the same place as the Caps at the start of the 18-19 season, made none of the flashy moves people here wish MacLellan would make while whiffing on pretty much all his medium-sized moves (trading for four straight 1sts for Zucker, Brassard, Kapanen, and Reaves, dumping Horqvist for Matheson, signing and then having to buy out Jack Johnson), and dug that team into a hole it'll take them years to climb out of.
• Lombardi's Kings won 1 total playoff game in the three years after their second Cup before he was fired and hasn't been given a GM gig since.

Also, as an exercise in framing, let's take a look at Joe Sakic. He took over about a month before the 2013 draft where they got MacKinnon. Missed the playoffs 3 of his first 4 years in Colorado, didn't win a playoff series until year 6, hasn't made it out of the second round any year but cup run in 22, has only had two draft picks outside the top 16 pick become a full-time NHLer in ten years running the Avs: AJ Greer in 2015 (39th overall pick who Sakic traded away for nothing and is now a 4th liner in Calgary) and Will Butcher in 2013 (5th rounder who went to college, didn't sign with the Avs, had some early success with the Devils but has already washed out to the AHL). Clearly a terrible GM, right? Can't draft with later picks, can't build for the playoffs besides that one year, can't figure out the goaltending situation, can't work around inconsequential issues like major injuries and players having substance abuse issues... what a hack.

Those names were the ones presented in the defense of GMBM. Not my choosing.

The Caps 2010s is the 4th best decade for a team in the history of the NHL. Since BMac took over in May 2014, the Caps have the third most wins in the NHL over that time frame (and a Cup). That doesn’t happen if you’re a bad GM. Sure, McPhee was the GM who found some of the players but this organization was lost from the Halak series through McPhee’s ouster. Three head coaches in three years, Ovi’s steep scoring decline, multiple different playing styles…

2011-2013 was a waste of time for this organization and MacLellan took over at a time when things had gone sideways. If you’re going to give McPhee all the credit for drafting the star players on the team then the blame for wasting the prime of those star players also falls squarely on him and MacLellan should get the credit for putting Humpty Dumpty back together. You can’t have it both ways.

Those f***ing Penguins… talk about terrible timing. The Caps had nearly the same level of dominance as the 1970s Canadiens and Bruins but just so happened to be playing at the same time as the one team who exceeded their historic run. Just absolute shit luck. Without the Pens being that good this Caps core probably has 3-4 Cups by now.

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He also inherited the greatest goal scorer in the history of the game. Surely that has a tiny bit to do with the regular season win total no? Playoffs and cup runs are due in major part of the team built around them. Hence the reason why EDM and TOR always flame out very early despite the all world goal scorers on those teams.

 

[Vivaldi]

I've wasted way too much time in here already today so I'm not going to respond to your whole comment, but I do want to point out that it seems really weird to criticize MacLellan's drafting and then turn around and use McPhee's drafting as an example of doing it better, considering MacLellan was the second-in-command during the McPhee years and Ross Mahoney was running the draft for both regimes. Do you think MacLellan's been ignoring Mahoney's genius recommendations for a decade and Don's sticking around cause he doesn't mind?

As I said in an earlier post, finding talent late in the draft is overwhelmingly based on luck. If McPhee and Mahoney really had some inkling that Holtby was gonna be the best goalie in that draft, they wouldn't have passed on him with consecutive picks in the 2nd round. They had a minor hunch at best and it happened to pay off. Tampa had a run where they looked incredible, then they suddenly went ice cold. The Caps had the same thing happen. Dallas will probably hit a rough patch soon as they regress back to the mean. All you'll do by obsessing over the diamonds in the rough we missed out on is drive yourself crazy.

Do you know the exact role MacLellan had as second in command as pertaining to drafting? Because this all just sounds like complete conjecture while I am flat out resting my case on a huge sample size of results over a very long time span. Why is their record so insanely different when everything is the same drafting wise apparently? I am not talking about a small or even median drop off. I am talking about whipping boy Marcus Johansson having looked better over his career than any GMBM pick since he took over. As GM, he gets to set organizational draft priorities, hire and fire scouts, take into consideration analytics/etc. Many organizations have drafting abruptly improve or go to shit after switching GMs.

Whens the last time the Penguins, Hawks, or Kings won a playoff series after their last cup wins? Ill wait... It was the Penguins in 2018 when we knocked them out (thanks Kuz).

But all the cup winners from that era did not do much after the last cup.

What about after their first cup tho? Why don't you list Tampa in there too, since they haven't won a playoff round after a measly 2 consecutive cups and SCF final. Its basically the same thing as the Caps right. That seems to be a bit more intellectually honest question to ask. People wouldn't have as much of a problem with the Caps' bottom falling out if they showed half of what those teams did during their entire contending windows. Even one other conference finals appearance would have showed that there was more to it in terms of GMing than a team of destiny going yolo. If you take out one single year the Caps have lost significantly more playoff rounds than they won over Ovechkin's GOAT level career most of which was augmented by Backstrom's, Kuznetsov's, Carlson's, Orlov's, Holtby's, Oshie's etc primes. Even with 2018 that's still the case.

BMac became the GM in 2014. Since then they have won 2 presidents trophies, 1 Cup and 7 total playoff series. They failed to qualify for the playoffs only once, last year.

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Bmac is also the 4th longest tenured GM with the same team.

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If you look at McPhee's teams post 2007 (after they pretty much formally stopped rebuilding when they hired Boudreau and added Huet and Fedorov at the 2008 deadline) you will also see them at or near the top of the league 2008-2013. Remember how set the league on fire in 2010 which is what made them getting Halak'd so memorable. That's with those "deeply flawed" McPhee teams that still didn't have Carlson or Orlov or Kuznetsov or Wilson being remotely the players that they were for most of McLellan's tenure. So I guess we can give credit to BMac for not punting prime Ovechkin, Backstrom, Carlson and Kuznetsov into some other team since that's primarily what that record is reflective of.

Also, McPhee's org (or I guess pre-GM BMac since we are bizarrely giving him credit for those drafts but criticizing not the ones he ran) still somehow found Carlson, Orlov, Kuznetsov, Holtby, Johansson, Forsberg, Wilson (even Burakovsky and Stephenson) AFTER they became a contending team going for it, which apparently you're not supposed to do since at that point you either trade or your picks or draft "organizational depth" like Ilya Samsonov or Lucas Johansen.

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what the f*** are you complaining about? Don't you look at where the Capitals are compared to, say, Pittsburgh and think "glad we're not them" in terms of who is better poised to be good over the next 10 years? The wheels are about to start falling off big time in Boston too.

You're ignoring a ton of variables like cap landscape and core age/construction in your list and basically just screaming into the wind that it's just "not good enough" because it maybe could have been better (even though we don't know that) and then refusing to back that up.

What do we have on Pittsburgh in the upcoming 10 years? Ryan Leonard over Brendan Yager? We have Dylan Strome looking pretty good and several more young Johansson/Burakovsky ish players but largely the same holes Pittsburgh will have to fill when they're looking to contend. And they've already sold off for 2 seasons while Pittsburgh hasn't sold off once yet. You can say we're ahead on the youth movement but we have just as many replacements in the system for Ovechkin, Backstrom, Carlson as they have for Crosby, Malkin, Letang. Not sure that makes up for 3 cups, a final and a conference final vs one Cup. And while Dubas's record at getting those types of players isn't stellar so far either at least he has bagged 1 Tavares in 6 years to 0 any comparable level of player BMac has gotten in 10 years on F, D or G. I don't deny we're ahead of them in a rebuild now but its way too early to make bets on whose goes better. Both us and Pittsburgh will have to contend with numerous teams that have one or more star projecting prospects already,

Hindsight is always the best drafting GM.

Now let's see the receipts from when those past drafts were actually held. Go dig up your posts about who you thought then that we should have drafted at our spot and how many of those players turned into star players. If you find star players consistently i'd definitely recommend you to our scouting staff.

I don't think that's particularly hard over the last 10 years especially given that we're fans and he's a GM with a multi layered full time staff and millions of dollars sunk into drafting and development. But I don't think I was the only one bullish on DeBrincat in 2016 and had a big WTF when they drafted LuJo of all people. I remember being super high on Orlov (actually thought his career would be better than what it was) in 2009 and pretty high on Kuz in 2010. Don't have every move I ever thought of logged and its not like I (or anyone else) scouted players like Kaprizov or Bratt to be what they are and most of my preferred guys would be misses as well. Was pretty pissed when Gulyayev was still on the table last year when the pick we gave to Toronto for Ryan Ellis minus the shot and insane PP abilities was called. We will see how that pans out.

Also, at this point literally hitting on one game changing player over 10 years is an improvement on what GMBM has been able to do. Not being hindsight hero and calling several steals a year lol. That's the whole point. Other teams add depth supporting players of their own in Zack Hymans or Sam Reinharts and still manage to get them to pop off on occasion beyond the expected lunchpail contribution.

 

[Kalopsia]

1. There’s not a single team that would rather our roster/prospects/structure etc etc over the likes of Colorado or Vegas or Boston or Tampa Bay lol. You can’t even say that with a straight face.

2. Thank you for proving that after the likes of TB or BOS not meeting expectations they should have both of their GMs were let go.

1. No argument on Colorado and Vegas, but Boston and TB? Those teams are clearly not good enough as constructed, all their core pieces are already in their prime and can't really be expected to improve going forward, and they have literally no near-term assets to improve externally. Boston has the 3rd worst prospect pool in the NHL according to the Athletic, they own no picks in the first round of this year's draft and the Caps own their 2025 2nd. Tampa has the 4th worst prospect pool and no 1st or 2nd round picks in either of the next two drafts. I think they can't trade their 2026 1st either because their 2025 1st is top ten protected, which means it could switch to that pick. Boston probably has to break up the goalie tandem that's been carrying them to try to add to their abysmal forward depth. Tampa has 5M in cap space to re-sign Stamkos, so they either dump someone or he's gone. That's gonna repeat next year when Hedman's contract is up Those teams might be better than the Caps for the next year or two, but they're on a fixed trajectory downwards.

2. Yzerman left on his own, he wasn't fired. He wanted to take go back to Detroit.

 

[Vivaldi]

The offensive players we had in "that tier" are one-dimensional guys that were difficult to build around. I love Ovi as much as anyone does, but for the entirety of his tenure, our top line has been 100% "Get it to Ovi." Kane, Toews, Crosby, Malkin... Dynamic, versatile, mostly three-dimensional players that could anchor multiple lines.

Ovechkin is a cannon. Insert cannon ball, fire. Having Ovi made Backstrom far less versatile than he'd have been otherwise. One line with a singular focus. How do you win a Cup like that?

You need Oshies and Ellers and Connollys and Smith-Pellys and Kuznetsovs and Burakovskys and Beagles and Chiassons and Wilsons and Kempnys and Orpiks and Niskanens... And when the chips are down and your top C busts his hand up and your enforcer who just figured out how to score gets suspended, you need Boyds and Vranas and Stephensons and Djooses (Djeese?) and Walkers to step in and really contribute something.

You can talk all day about how thinly that team was built or which other Cup winners it compares to, but BMac put the guys on the roster that got us over the hump. Yes, some key McPhee guys were in there, but Mac was there for those picks and acquisitions. Look at how many of those guys were shrewd MacLellan pickups. The draft? Pffft. We were drafting late every year. NO ONE routinely hits dingers with draft positions like ours during those years. No one.

Maybe Mac got lucky, but even if he did he sure got very lucky a lot that year, because his "bottom half of the roster" acquisitions f***ing crushed it when it mattered most.

You want sexier acquisitions post-Cup? Who was trading for the guys we needed to move out? He could have read the tea leaves better on Kuznetsov or Vrana, and he could have fought his coaches to play a couple of the young guys he ended up having to move. He ain't perfect, for sure.

And all of the hindsight hand-wringing you're doing, playing the age-old game of, "Look at that trade! We could have given more for that guy! We failed!" What @Kalopsia has been saying about the draft is also true with other types of moves -- the guys you listed that were undervalued by teams that we didn't predict would break out huge? No one else predicted it either. Some of them just kinda happened, and the rest we could have been in on for all you know but couldn't get the deal done. The sheer volume of moves a GM wants to make but can't (or can't beat out the other 30 teams for) has to be staggering. DC isn't the destination or "hockey town" that other places are.

You wrote a really great post, but I think a lot of it is built on hindsight. Criticism is never easier than it is in retrospect. Being THAT retrospective is folly in this sport. BMac's been very good that last couple years, in my opinion. Recent history, the now, and the near future. The team's in the midst of a tough transition, and he's navigating it pretty damn well, all things considered.

We should have some flexibility this offseason, so it'll be interesting to see what he does.

Malkin and Kane were not particularly versatile lol. Dynamic, sure, but even the much maligned Ovi was more versatile than either of them. Malkin was always notoriously inconsistent and Kane never had any significant physicality or defense to his game. Just as no one would ever think Phil Kessel was versatile or multi dimensional even though he was an excellent playoff performer.

People fetishize well rounded supporting players because the teams that need them already have their top stars taken care of, even if they are inconsistent or one dimensional. Teams that only have supporting players aren't even in any conversation no matter how great those supporting players are on paper. All the Ryan Callahan's, Brandon Dubinsky's, Marc Staals, Dan Girardis, Derek Stepans were only relevant when Henrik Lundqvist played the best hockey of any goalie since Roy and that one Tim Thomas playoff run. Remember the waves the Blue Jackets made when they were filled to the brim with Brandon Dubinsky, Artem Anisimov, Brandon Saad, Boone Jenner, and every other dream gritty coaches dream two way Lars Eller type guy? Neither do I. As much as the Leafs are getting crapped on for their playoffs they have those expectations in the first place because they have multiple game changing star players to begin with.

You need Oshies and Ellers and Connollys and Smith-Pellys and Kuznetsovs and Burakovskys and Beagles and Chiassons and Wilsons and Kempnys and Orpiks and Niskanens... And when the chips are down and your top C busts his hand up and your enforcer who just figured out how to score gets suspended, you need Boyds and Vranas and Stephensons and Djooses (Djeese?) and Walkers to step in and really contribute something.

Its funny that you mention them, because the year we won the cup was the year we shed a crapton of those "GMBM gud supporting depth" players (Williams, Johansson, Winnik, Alzner, Schmidt, Shattenkirk) and replaced all of them internally or through dumpster dives that would make GMGM blush (DSP? He was on the way out of the NHL when we signed him lol). What exactly do DSP, Connolly, Kempny, 2018 Stephenson, Chiasson etc. have on Mike Knuble or Brooks Laich or Joel Ward or Scott Walker or Jason Chimera, other than being able to psychically will the puck to hit the post in Game 3 OT being down 2-0 against Columbus while the previous guys couldn't do that? No one thought of Connolly, Kempny, Djoos, DSP, Chiasson as key cup guys or glue guys and that was pretty much the only time they amounted to anything in any year in the league.

 

[Todd Lazarchick]

1. No argument on Colorado and Vegas, but Boston and TB? Those teams are clearly not good enough as constructed, all their core pieces are already in their prime and can't really be expected to improve going forward, and they have literally no near-term assets to improve externally. Boston has the 3rd worst prospect pool in the NHL according to the Athletic, they own no picks in the first round of this year's draft and the Caps own their 2025 2nd. Tampa has the 4th worst prospect pool and no 1st or 2nd round picks in either of the next two drafts. I think they can't trade their 2026 1st either because their 2025 1st is top ten protected, which means it could switch to that pick. Boston probably has to break up the goalie tandem that's been carrying them to try to add to their abysmal forward depth. Tampa has 5M in cap space to re-sign Stamkos, so they either dump someone or he's gone. That's gonna repeat next year when Hedman's contract is up Those teams might be better than the Caps for the next year or two, but they're on a fixed trajectory downwards.

2. Yzerman left on his own, he wasn't fired. He wanted to take go back to Detroit.

I couldn’t care less about someone’s prospect pool. I care about contending. I care about winning. Whether that’s done with prospects, current roster, trades, UFA…whatever. And when it comes down to that the Caps are not at all in a better spot than any of them today.

 

[Kalopsia]

I couldn’t care less about someone’s prospect pool. I care about contending. I care about winning. Whether that’s done with prospects, current roster, trades, UFA…whatever. And when it comes down to that the Caps are not at all in a better spot than any of them today.

So you'd rather have a team that's demonstrably not good enough to win a cup, probably gets worse in the offseason due to attrition, and has no assets to improve... than a team that's currently a bit worse, but has cap room to improve this offseason and assets they can use to improve. That about sums it up?

 

[hb12xchamps]

I couldn’t care less about someone’s prospect pool. I care about contending. I care about winning. Whether that’s done with prospects, current roster, trades, UFA…whatever. And when it comes down to that the Caps are not at all in a better spot than any of them today.

You’re just spewing nonsense now. How in the world are the Caps not in a better spot right now than both Boston and Tampa? Tampa is going to have to shed good players to stay cap compliant. Boston is going to shed players to stay cap compliant. They also are going to lose guys in free agency. Both teams have zero draft capital and shit prospects pools. They have minimal assets to move out. Tampa won multiple cups so for them it’s worth it. Boston hasn’t won jack shit since a cup in 2011. Yes they’ve gone farther than the Caps the last few years. They also choked one of the greatest regular seasons ever by losing in the first round and were lucky to escape the dysfunctional Leafs in round one this year. Both of those teams are easily projecting downward with their top players aging.

And to add, Washington’s roster is completely different in the next few offseasons as a lot of those older players everyone bitches about have their contracts run out

 

[Ovechkins Wodka]

I cant tell if we are getting trolled at this point

 

[Vivaldi]

I am just legitimately curious what they would have to lose if they had someone other than GMBM spearhead the rebuild (or even retool if its still that) given his history as GM, assuming you don't replace him with Mike Milbury. If it were McPhee, you could say we risk losing a guy with a proven excellent draft record, even if he's a huge dick who has every desirable FA avoid us by a country mile or put us next to Edmonton and Winnipeg on their NTCs for the latter half of his career. If its Jim Nill or Steve Yzerman, we lose a guy who can't get his team over the hump but is able to uncover gem players pretty regularly. Even if its someone terrible like Dim Jim Benning, you could say we lose a guy who is able to add a player like Boeser, Demko, Pettersson, Hughes or JT Miller seemingly every other year despite being terrible at almost everything else. Here we lose... a guy whose primary contribution was rounding out rosters with firmly locked in star cores with Lars Ellers and Anthony Manthas and Trevor Van Riemsdyks of the world, with the bright spot of getting an Oshie level forward or a Niskanen level D once a decade? Has a place on a team looking to get over the hump like Edmonton for sure but maybe not on a team has lost half of Ovechkin, Backstrom, Kuznetsov and Carlson and is about to lose the rest.

 

[Todd Lazarchick]

So you'd rather have a team that's demonstrably not good enough to win a cup, probably gets worse in the offseason due to attrition, and has no assets to improve... than a team that's currently a bit worse, but has cap room to improve this offseason and assets they can use to improve. That about sums it up?

Taking Stamkos off TB they are STILL a better team than we are. Maybe they can give us a banner for a better prospect pool? If you think GMBM is just going to go out and throw money and picks around to improve this team then you really have no clue how the dude works. No guys this year I swear I’m going to get a top 6 talent. Only to be told “there wasn’t any takers, money wasn’t right, we have things in the works” blah blah blah to only trot out Max effing Pacioretty lol

You’re just spewing nonsense now. How in the world are the Caps not in a better spot right now than both Boston and Tampa? Tampa is going to have to shed good players to stay cap compliant. Boston is going to shed players to stay cap compliant. They also are going to lose guys in free agency. Both teams have zero draft capital and shit prospects pools. They have minimal assets to move out. Tampa won multiple cups so for them it’s worth it. Boston hasn’t won jack shit since a cup in 2011. Yes they’ve gone farther than the Caps the last few years. They also choked one of the greatest regular seasons ever by losing in the first round and were lucky to escape the dysfunctional Leafs in round one this year. Both of those teams are easily projecting downward with their top players aging.

And to add, Washington’s roster is completely different in the next few offseasons as a lot of those older players everyone bitches about have their contracts run out

You are banking on GMBM overhauling this roster. I’m not. He’s yet to show the balls to do so. I’m just not asinine as most to believe that this year or next or next is any different than the last 3 we heard they need to make changes. I have more faith in TB or BOS to retool and make moves like they do to stay competitive.

 

[Ovechkins Wodka]

Please remember Ted owns and runs the team. Look how bad the Wizards are under him never hits a draft pick and gives out the worst contracts in league history. Atleast Ted spends to the cap every season.

 

[Kalopsia]

Do you know the exact role MacLellan had as second in command as pertaining to drafting? Because this all just sounds like complete conjecture while I am flat out resting my case on a huge sample size of results over a very long time span. Why is their record so insanely different when everything is the same. I am not talking about a small or even median drop off. I am talking about whipping boy Marcus Johansson having been better than any GMBM pick since he took over. As GM, he gets to set organizational draft priorities, hire and fire scouts, take into consideration analytics/etc. Many organizations have drafting abruptly improve or go to shit after switching GMs.

So you're just gonna gloss right over the fact that they both had the same guy running their drafts? Seriously, what's your explanation here? Do you think McPhee was the real mastermind? Vegas hasn't drafted a significant player outside a top 20 pick while he's been there. The only full time NHLer in the bunch in Nicholas Hague, who's a bigger but worse Fehervary. Do you think MacLellan's been overriding Mahoney's picks for a decade and Mahoney stays because he just doesn't mind? The simple explanation is they probably just got a bit lucky in the later McPhee years and a little unlucky in the early MacLellan years. I brought up the Tampa example where they looked like geniuses for about 6 years and then went even more ice cold than the Caps for almost a decade. Teams go through hot and cold spells, it happens.

What do we have on Pittsburgh in the upcoming 10 years? Ryan Leonard over Brendan Yager? We have Dylan Strome looking pretty good and several more young Johansson ish players but largely the same holes Pittsburgh will have to fill when they're looking to contend. And they've already sold off for 2 seasons while Pittsburgh hasn't sold off once yet. You can say we're ahead on the youth movement but we have just as many replacements in the system for Ovechkin, Backstrom, Carlson as they have for Crosby, Malkin, Letang. Not sure that makes up for 3 cups, a final and a conference final vs one Cup. And while Dubas's record at getting those types of players isn't stellar so far either at least he has bagged 1 Tavares in 6 years to 0 any comparable level of player BMac has gotten in 10 years on F, D or G. I don't deny we're ahead of them in a rebuild now but its way too early to make bets on whose goes better. Both us and Pittsburgh will have to contend with numerous teams that have one more star projecting prospects already,

Not my part of the debate, but that's a pretty easy question to answer. One extra 1st round pick, two extra 2nd round picks, three extra 3rd round picks, and the 20th ranked prospect pool to their 27th. Significantly more cap flexibility. The Caps also *don't* have a 10M dollar defenseman whose production dropped in half immediately after being acquired.

Also, c'mon, does Dubas really get credit for bringing Tavares to Toronto? Tavares signed there because he wanted to play for his childhood team. He would've signed for any GM there.

 

[Vivaldi]

So you're just gonna gloss right over the fact that they both had the same guy running their drafts? Seriously, what's your explanation here? Do you think McPhee was the real mastermind? Vegas hasn't drafted a significant player outside a top 20 pick while he's been there. The only full time NHLer in the bunch in Nicholas Hague, who's a bigger but worse Fehervary. Do you think MacLellan's been overriding Mahoney's picks for a decade and Mahoney stays because he just doesn't mind? The simple explanation is they probably just got a bit lucky in the later McPhee years and a little unlucky in the early MacLellan years. I brought up the Tampa example where they looked like geniuses for about 6 years and then went even more ice cold than the Caps for almost a decade. Teams go through hot and cold spells, it happens.

Not my part of the debate, but that's a pretty easy question to answer. One extra 1st round pick, two extra 2nd round picks, three extra 3rd round picks, and the 20th ranked prospect pool to their 27th. Significantly more cap flexibility. The Caps also *don't* have a 10M dollar defenseman whose production dropped in half immediately after being acquired.

Also, c'mon, does Dubas really get credit for bringing Tavares to Toronto? Tavares signed there because he wanted to play for his childhood team. He would've signed for any GM there.

So your explanation for going from a collective of Carlson, Orlov, Kuznetsov, Johansson, Holtby, Forsberg, Wilson, Burakovsky, Stephenson over a 5 year period to... whatever BMac put together over 10 is just random fluctuation? Is there even a bad drafting GM out there then? Maybe he's just having a random fluctuation of bad over a 10 period too. Or maybe its up to the GM to put together a drafting system that works, and tinker with the old one if it stops working?

Vegas drafted Suzuki btw, who would also be better than anyone we have drafted since probably Forsberg. And they pretty quickly pivoted to an actual f- the draft buy everything model, which in their case has allowed them to acquire numerous actual star players (Pietrangelo, Stone, Eichel and potentially Hertl and Hanifin being better than anyone GMBM ever signed or traded for). If BMac could do that I would care less about the draft since that would be another proven avenue of bringing in talent.

Like I said, we are ahead of Pittsburgh in the "youth movement" department (20th to their 27th as you put it) but we have just as much to go into as far as bringing in players that can replace the ones that will really hurt when they depart. And if your youth movement just amounts to depth there's other ways teams can supplement that, just look at Florida who hasn't had any major prospects they drafted contribute in like the past 8 years other than Lundell yet are as deep and robust as anyone. We have more to work with (though Pittsburgh still has Poulin, Pickering, Yager, Puustinen and a bunch of young depth players) but both orgs are missing the replacements for their main franchise guys.

And there was a pretty extensive full court pitch from Dubas to get Tavares to Toronto vs staying in NYI or taking more money in San Jose. Unless you think all the information about his signing is flat out lying it was very much bending a very reluctant player into going there that no other Canadian team has been able to do with any comparable UFA. Even if there is a hometown team angle you still frequently need to sell it. Every second or third star player has a home town in Canada. How many go home in FA?

 

[Kalopsia]

Taking Stamkos off TB they are STILL a better team than we are. Maybe they can give us a banner for a better prospect pool? If you think GMBM is just going to go out and throw money and picks around to improve this team then you really have no clue how the dude works. No guys this year I swear I’m going to get a top 6 talent. Only to be told “there wasn’t any takers, money wasn’t right, we have things in the works” blah blah blah to only trot out Max effing Pacioretty lol


You are banking on GMBM overhauling this roster. I’m not. He’s yet to show the balls to do so. I’m just not asinine as most to believe that this year or next or next is any different than the last 3 we heard they need to make changes. I have more faith in TB or BOS to retool and make moves like they do to stay competitive.

Is that what you want? Are you looking someone to burn through the entire prospect pool and all the picks to make the Caps as much of a contender as possible right this second, and damn the future? I mean, if that's what you want, you have to at least give MacLellan for refilling the system, because that's the only way improvements can even be possible. I don't know why you have faith in Boston and TB to retool because they literally have nothing to retool with. What are they gonna get for crummy prospects and 1st rounders 3-4 years down the road, and how are they gonna fit any new players when they're in cap hell? Those teams went for it for years and drafted way worse than MacLellan and now they're paying the price.