Playoff Toughness Is All About Wins, Not PIMs
by David Getz on Mar 31, 2009 5:15 AM EDT
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Amidst their recent stretch of inconsistent and often mediocre play a number of charges have been leveled at the Capitals, some of which are fair (that Bruce Boudreau could stand to hold player more accountable; that the team has lacked enthusiasm at times) and some of which may not be (that George McPhee should have made a bigger splash at the trade deadline). One that falls into the latter category is that the Capitals "aren't tough enough to play playoff games" and are destined for an early exit come this spring.
On the surface it's easy to assume the Capitals lack toughness. The team is, after all, near the bottom of the league when it comes to fighting majors, only has a couple of players who drop the gloves more than occasionally, and has only one player, Alexander Ovechkin, who delivers highlight-reel hits with any regularity. Throw it all together and the Caps aren't a squad that a lot of people associate with toughness. The team's wealth of skill and high number of prominent European-born players compound this perception of "softness" (and before anyone asks, no, that's not a shot at Don Cherry - there are plenty of people out there who associate skilled Europeans with a lack of toughness).
Superficially, this approach makes some sense - fighting and physical fouls are generally correlated with toughness and for the onlooker who doesn't have the opportunity to watch a decent number of a team's games, it's easy to wind up drawing conclusions based on statistics and highlight packages. But those numbers and anecdotes offer only a very cursory look at which teams and players exhibit in-game toughness, and to rank teams or players based on some combination of fighting majors and penalty minutes would be a gross oversimplification. After all, does anyone believe that Daniel Carcillo (623 penalty minutes in 141 NHL games) is the toughest player in the NHL (besides Carcillo himself, perhaps), or that Peter Forsberg lacked toughness because he only had two career fights?
That's not to say that fights and big hits aren't indicative of toughness (they are), but rather to say that what it means to be tough in a hockey game goes beyond that kind of overt physicality. Sure, being willing to drop the gloves is toughness (and, for what it's worth, a rarity in hockey's second season), but so too is playing a playoff series with a torn hamstring or scoring a shootout goal the same night you suffered a broken hand, as Boyd Gordon did last season. It's going to the front of the net and taking your lumps night after night to help your team score a goal or blocking shots with whatever body part you can throw in the puck's path, like Brooks Laich has done all year. It's finishing the season with a cracked collarbone, and a playoff series with your jaw wired shut while dropping thirty pounds because you can't eat, like Shaone Morrisonn did last year. It's suffering a broken nose and having to get stitches in two different places inside your mouth, and responding by scoring four goals like Ovechkin did against the Canadiens last February. It's missing fourteen months due to a blow to the head, coming back and still being willing to take a hit to make a play like Brian Pothier. It's playing with a torn rotator cuff so painful you can't lift your arm or sleep, like Michael Nylander did for three weeks last season. It's having to take stitches inside your nose after a fight and coming back into the game, like Matt Bradley did in Nashville. It's taking a puck to the face, winding up with a crushed palate bone and short two teeth, finishing your shift, coming back with a dead guy's bone in your body, an begging doctors to let you play two nights laterr - an ordeal that earned Chris Clark (who should be back by the end of April) the nickname "Captain Cadaver."
Of course as a general rule individuals don't win games, teams do, especially come playoff time, and the lack of scraps among the Capitals might seem to suggest the team as a whole is soft, impressive anecdotes notwithstanding. But, just like with individuals, measuring a team's toughness based on fights alone would be a mistake. Team toughness might have something to do with willingness to scrap, but it has more to do with being willing to block shots, bear down and win faceoffs, take the physical game to the opponents on the road, and win one-goal games, categories where the Caps rank in the top five among playoff-bound teams. In a nutshell, if we're talking about what it takes to win playoff games, we'll take the kind of toughness Milan Jurcina (zero fights, 148 hits, 125 blocked shots) brings over Shane O'Brien's brand (seven fights, 71 hits, 50 blocked shots) any day.
All that being said, it would unrealistic to assume the Capitals were the League's toughest team or that everyone on the team is going to ramp up their game come playoff time. Tomas Fleischmann seems to developing the dreaded "hit him and he goes away" rap, and Viktor Kozlov's career playoff line - no goals, six assists, and a minus-11 rating in 22 games over the course of nine years and five postseasons - suggest he's not going to be a significant post-season contributor. But then, if the Capitals are going to be sunk by a drop in production from wingers who have a combined eight goals in 63 games in 2009, toughness isn't going to be what sends them home early.
Other than that dubious duo, there's not much reason to think the Capitals are going to suffer from lack of toughness in the postseason, even beyond guys like Donald Brashear, John Erskine, and Matt Bradley, who were made for the intensity of NHL playoff games. Michael Nylander? He's scored at a higher rate in the playoff than in the regular season over his career. Alexander Semin? He was the team's best player in last spring's series against the Flyers. Nicklas Backstrom? Four goals and a pair of assists in his first NHL playoff series sounds pretty good to us. The trend continues through the roster - David Steckel, Eric Fehr, Mike Green, and Brooks Laich have demonstrated the ability to step up in playoff situations for Bruce Boudreau, down a level. And then there's Sergei Fedorov and his 168 points in 169 career playoff games, and, oh yeah, his three Stanley Cup Championships.
Despite mounds of evidence to the contrary - both anecdotal and statistical - there will still be those who think the Capitals are destined for an early playoff exit due to lack of toughness... just like they thought that the Red Wings weren't tough enough at this time last year. How'd that turn out, again?
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Until I read the last sentence, I was about to point out that the Red Wings are at the dead bottom of the league in fighting majors and are almost never the deliverers of highlight-reel hits … and are poised to win an eighth-straight division championship, are competing for the President’s Trophy, and are very much a contender to take Lord Stanley’s Cup for the second straight year.
From the board reading I’ve done and the comments I’ve seen, that sort of thinking seems to be associated with nostalgia for the Caps of old – a hardworking, lunchpail team who brought 100% every night but weren’t necessarily flashy. This season’s Caps are a completely new thing and something that DC hasn’t seen before, and of course the majority of people are very resistant to change. Thus, it’s new and different and it’s not what they want, so it won’t work. The people who make these types of comments are usually hidebound and a little narrow-minded, and want things done in a particular way instead of accepting what gets results.
I see this attitude a lot at work. :P It’s not uncommon in general, really – change doesn’t come easily to a lot of people, and there’s a lot of Caps fans who are going “wait, what?” over this season.
"It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees." - Delores Ibarruri
Just wanted to go on record with my prediction that the WIngs aren’t winning it this year. They could even go out in round 1 if the matchup is there. Ok, back to Caps hockey.
Russian Machine Never Breaks
Don’t blame him if he is. He’s got reason to be.
"It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees." - Delores Ibarruri
Ken Holland and I may be the only two people in the world who feel this way, but I think Conklin’s good enough to get the job done.
If toughness equates to courage then the Caps have plenty of both. The fact that they are 10th in the league in blocked shots shows that they are more than willing to sacrifice their bodies to prevent a goal. The one stat that does concern me is that while the Caps are 8th in the league in road hits, they’re 19th in home hits. I think that points to the fact that they tend to put on a finesse show at home or, as Bruce says, they try to be “cute”. In the playoffs that’s a receipe for a first round exit. As DMG pointed out, this team has the personnel to play a tough, hard-nosed game; something they’ve been doing consistently on the road. They just have to lose the “Showtime” mentality when it comes to home games and display the same kind of determination at the Verizon Center. If they do that, a long playoff run could be in their future.
I think that hits are not a good stat you can judge in any arena. Often, arena scorekeepers give more hits in certain towns. I seem to recall Anaheim giving a TON of hits, but Chicago doesn’t give a lot (Towns may be wrong, but we’ve had that discussion). Maybe we hit a little less at home, but not enough that we drop 9 spots.
I'm so sick and tired of the refs explaining the calls like this is the NFL.
by Whiter Mage on Mar 31, 2009 10:58 AM EDT up reply actions
To that end, hockey analysis normalizes hits (among other stats).
Japers' Rink: Hockey blogging from the most powerful city in the world
LA. Not Anaheim. I wanted to write that, but I was thinking they don’t ever hit. That’s it.
I'm so sick and tired of the refs explaining the calls like this is the NFL.
by Whiter Mage on Mar 31, 2009 11:01 AM EDT up reply actions
Flash would have to clear waivers, which would be unlikely. Plus he isn’t on Hershey’s submitted postseason roster.
I’d take him over Osala, though. I don’t think Osala’s NHL ready.
Agree with DMG, Osala isn’t NHL ready yet and I doubt he’ll be ready for next year. I’m still confused about the Flash hating though…cold streak or not, almost 20 goals and 35 points for a 750k cap hit. I’d love to see an example of another player with that much bang for the buck.
/I would like to see scratched for a game though to light a fire under his backside.
Fleischmann’s low cap hit is pretty much his saving grace right now because he hasn’t been producing like a scoring winger in a long time, he’s not very good at killing penalties, he doesn’t hit, and he’s average defensively. But for 725k, I think he’s worth keeping on the team.
Amen DMG, any guy that can pot 15+ goals in a season for 725k is worth a shot in my book. The only reason that everyone is so down on Flash is because 1) he’s supposed to be better than 17 a season, and 2) he hasn’t scored in 2 months.
I’m definitely in the crowd that wants Flash to be sat, or demoted, but he’s certainly a guy I’d like to keep around for a while longer.
I still say his problem is the pneumonia. Isn’t this what he looked like last year before he put on all that muscle? Pneumonia’ll take it out of you in a hurry, for a long time, and he was probably out of the gym for a couple of weeks. We’ll see what happens over the summer, though.
"It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees." - Delores Ibarruri
East is Wide Open!
1) As usual DMG you make an excellent point/argument. Certainly the Caps are NOT a ‘soft team’ by any measure. Many detractors, Fauxrumors included, point to the teams’ lack of discipline/maturity as their biggest issue.
2) After watching the Devils, Flyers and Bruins all struggle at times the past few weeks it seems more than ever that the conference is wide open for the taking for the team that can put it together and play 3 tough, disciplined series.(and get great goaltending of course)
Hard to disagree with the lack of discipline/maturity point. I have a high degree of confidence that all these players learned what it means to step up the intensity for the playoffs last year and that they will do so again, but the discipline is a concern given the weakness of the PK. As long as the Caps can protect their crease and come out even on PPs, they should be fine.
I share b.orr’s concern about the “Sweet Georgia Brown” tendencies at home, but I am hoping the boys will come out for game 1 ready to grind and hit like they have done so well on the road. The Caps may be a finesse team but they’re also big and can impose their will physically over a 7-game series on a lot of the potential first-round opponents. That’s what I want to see.
You know, I’m harder on Jurcina than anyone, but, yeah, I’d rather have his toughness than Shane O’Brien’s.
I'm so sick and tired of the refs explaining the calls like this is the NFL.
In faux-style:
1) They are not teachers. They’re referees.
2) They’re only doing it to look more like NFL refs.
3) Their microphones are never working, so it’s a mumble jumble mess.
4) It lessens the roles of the hand gestures that mean each penalty, something that at the age of 7 when I was first watching hockey I worked my butt off to learn so I could turn off the words underneath in NHL 95. I know, lame, but it was me.
I'm so sick and tired of the refs explaining the calls like this is the NFL.
by Whiter Mage on Mar 31, 2009 10:51 AM EDT up reply actions
1) Referees can still explain what is going on without being “teachers.”
2) If it is a good idea (i.e. if fans respond well to it) then it doesn’t matter what the inspiration is (and the NHL could learn a thing or two from the NFL).
3) That is a technology issue that can be resolved without scrapping the whole idea.
4) Refs explain things other than just PIM calls. The most effective ref explanations are when goals are reviewed (when they do them well). If a goal is called off don’t you want to know if it was incidental contact? Goalie interference? Kicked puck? A whistle? Some fans like to know these things. I agree the way they do it now comes off amateurish but that is because a) the technology stuff you identify and b) they don’t do it consistently.
I agree with you and it frustrates me when people trash new ideas just because it didn’t used to be that way, and it seems to be mostly in hockey.
Give the announcing thing a few years (even 1 year) and it won’t be as amateurish.
In terms of problems with the referees, them announcing what is happening is the least of my concerns. First off lets get them to know the rules, secondly lets get some consistency.
I fully support everything in this post on the basis that NHL 95 was awesome, but the audio was crap.
by Gould Old Days on Mar 31, 2009 10:19 PM EDT up reply actions
I’ll add, that when a goal is allowed/disallowed, I’d like the PA guy (Wes) to say so. The refs we have, notably Bill McCreary, have no public speaking skills, and his posture and what not just looks awkward. Let’s not take the PA guy’s job away, as he can explain “Goal” or “No Goal. The puck was kicked in.”
I'm so sick and tired of the refs explaining the calls like this is the NFL.
by Whiter Mage on Mar 31, 2009 11:03 AM EDT up reply actions
The PA guy doesn’t talk to the TV audience or the NHL review office. I’d rather hear the guy that knows exactly what was going on.
Which is why you have Joe B and Craig. Frankly, I don’t like the ref talking to the fans. It’s not because it’s “New” or because it’s something, but his job is to officiate, not tell everyone about it right when it happens.
I'm so sick and tired of the refs explaining the calls like this is the NFL.
Demonstration of toughness
Fan version: Surviving this two-games-in-10-days stretch. I. Am. Going stir-crazy.
by TylerG on Mar 31, 2009 10:56 AM EDT reply actions 2 recs
Fan version? Try blogger version – at least you haven’t had to come up with content during this stretch.
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by J.P. on Mar 31, 2009 11:01 AM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
To me, the toughness that is said to be lacking relates more to the willingness to battle for every puck, go into every corner and go to the net for 60 minutes (or more) in order to get the W. I agree, it’s really not about PIMs. It also pertains to all 18 skaters. Without launching into a great discussion, I can understand why we have our doubters.
Russian Machine Never Breaks
I understand the doubters, I just disagree with them because other than Flesichmann and Kozlov I don’t see anyone whose play is likely to drop off in the postseason due to a lack of toughness.
I agree that our players have the toughness, it’s the fact that we don’t consistently show it that creates the doubters. Taking off games against weak opponents doesn’t scream “killer instinct.” Combine that with the fact that our toughness is the “non-traditional” variety and it’s pretty easy for me to understand where the reputation comes from.
Michael Nylander? He’s scored at a higher rate in the playoff than in the regular season over his career.
Not really related to the post, which is excellent BTW, but I’d like to add to this. Does anyone remember the 2003 Round One series against Tampa? Nylander was by far the best player on the ice for both teams most nights. He was skating hard, dangling, creating his own shots. I remember being amazed. Do I expect the same thing, 6 years later? Not exactly. But it’s a comforting thought.
The keyboard is mightier.
I respect the thought but gawd you are officially reeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaachhhhhhhhhhinnnnnnnnngggg. :-)
Russian Machine Never Breaks
My greatest memory of that series is how much mugging Pavel Kubina was allowed to get away with on Jagr.
Japers' Rink: Hockey blogging from the most powerful city in the world
My memory of that series is Jagr insulting Tampa and the Caps proceeding to blow the series. In hindsight, the failure that was that series (from a ticket sales and on-ice perspective) may have been the greatest thing to ever happen to the Caps.
I remember watching the first two games of that series and how Robert Lang was having his way with Tampa. Then on a road trip up north I missed the next few games, and on our way back I heard the infamous Jason Doig too many men on the ice call.
Strangely, I’m not sour one bit towards the Lightning over it, considering that most people say “you only make rivals in the playoffs”
by CapitalsKremlin on Mar 31, 2009 12:33 PM EDT up reply actions
Ah yes, ’03 playoffs, triple overtime loss in Game 6. Had to stay up until dawn over at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar watching the game on a dusty laptop. Even harder to then try and get to sleep for a few hours before I had to go fly my next mission.
Oh, and Nylander served the bench minor. Maybe if he wasn’t in the box he could’ve prevented the goal, since he was playing so well. But that loss was certainly the nail in the coffin for this franchise for a few years. No regrets here, but wonder what Leonsis and McPhee would’ve done had that won that series and mad a little run. Would we have stuck it with Jagr et al instead of having the ’04 firesale, or was the fiscal writing already on the wall so to speak?
Or how about that high sticking call on Olie when he was clearing the puck and the Tampa guy skated into his follow-through? A call that, by the rule book, was 100% incorrect and, if I’m not mistaken, led to the series-winning goal by the Hobbit.
Nice call. I too had repressed that memory.
Japers' Rink: Hockey blogging from the most powerful city in the world
Definitely right about that. I remember thinking it was so fitting that the season was going to end on a too many men call because Cassidy was so horrible at preventing those and it had dogged the team all season.
What’s weird is that I remember the call on Olie but I don’t see him on the box score for that penalty. Was that in a different game?
Yes – first period of Game 5 (and served by none other than Michael Nylander, to bring this full circle)
Japers' Rink: Hockey blogging from the most powerful city in the world
You’re right. I was off by a game. The call on Olie was in Game Six. St. Louis did score the winner but not on that power play. It was still a BS call and based on this report, everyone knew it.
Tampa Bay scored its first goal by taking advantage of a four-minute penalty on Kolzig for high-sticking Lecavalier after the goaltender accidently hit the Tampa Bay center in the face after clearing the puck from behind the net. Washington coach Bruce Cassidy said it shouldn’t have been a penalty.
"Rule 61, page 122 says that if a player shoots, he’s allowed a windup or follow-through. On accidental contact, it’s no penalty,‘’ Cassidy said.
"It’s a call that, to me, a referee didn’t know the rule, and that frustrates you. Judgment calls you have to live with, you move on. … But that’s a rule that’s in the rule book and the referee should know that rule. It’s automatic and there should be no call.’’
I believe that call also did in Calle Jo’s career in Washington, as Cassidy elected to use Doig more than our most experienced defender.
by CapitalsKremlin on Mar 31, 2009 2:30 PM EDT up reply actions
Yeah. What a friggin’ nightmare that was.
Japers' Rink: Hockey blogging from the most powerful city in the world
I’ve never forgiven Doig or Cassidy, Calle Jo was one of my favorite Capitals of all time.
by CapitalsKremlin on Mar 31, 2009 3:23 PM EDT up reply actions
Great article, and you’re right, the only indication of toughness in the playoffs are the wins… if you win, you’re tough, if you lose, you’re not.
16 wins, and you’re the toughest of all….
I definitely agree that toughness rarely wins or loses games come playoff time, but it certainly doesn’t hurt. The Caps have got to do a better job of protecting their crease and their skill guys come playoff time than they did last year. Huet got run over so many times, and there wasn’t much if any retribution.
Swing by The Flyer Frequent. You have nothing better to do.
There shouldn’t have to be. That’s why there are rules.
Japers' Rink: Hockey blogging from the most powerful city in the world
Obviously, but things are called differently in the playoffs.
Swing by The Flyer Frequent. You have nothing better to do.
by Ben Rothenberg on Mar 31, 2009 2:55 PM EDT up reply actions
Not really. See yesterday morning’s post.
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Interesting, but I’m guessing it’s misleading. Playoff hockey is a lot more physical, a lot scrappier, and so there are probably more times where a penalty would be justified than in a regular season game.
From your Game 2 recap last year:
“At the other end of the ice, if the Caps’ blueliners don’t clear the front of the net and/or stick up for their netminder and the team goes 0-fer on the power play, expect the Flyers to keep running Cristobal Huet whenever they want.”
Swing by The Flyer Frequent. You have nothing better to do.
by Ben Rothenberg on Mar 31, 2009 3:13 PM EDT up reply actions
Like I said, it shouldn’t have to come to the team taking matters into its own hands to stop their opponent from committing penalties. But if it does come to that, the Caps could be in trouble, as their team as presently constructed is plenty tough within the rules, but somewhat lacking when lawlessness ensues.
Japers' Rink: Hockey blogging from the most powerful city in the world
Some degree of lawlessness is bound to ensue in a long playoff series. If the Caps wind up playing somebody like the Rangers, expect them to take a lot of runs at the Caps skill guys. Not as much Ovechkin because he can stick up for himself pretty well, but at Semin or Backstrom (or even Theodore). The Caps need for Brashear or somebody to step up to hold opponents accountable in these situations, something that was lacking last year.
If nothing else, the lack of retribution gives the other team momentum.
Swing by The Flyer Frequent. You have nothing better to do.
by Ben Rothenberg on Mar 31, 2009 3:25 PM EDT up reply actions
Misred your post, I guess we pretty much agree here…
Swing by The Flyer Frequent. You have nothing better to do.
by Ben Rothenberg on Mar 31, 2009 3:27 PM EDT up reply actions
Hmmm, I wonder if Brash will be back from his “knee injury” by then. If no Brashear, I guess it is up to Bradley and Erskine to get the job done.
Brashear hasn’t held anyone accountable in two years – why would he start now?
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Great. He beat down a kid less than half his age (who doesn’t fight) for a shoulder-to-shoulder hit on a fourth liner. Huzzah.
Japers' Rink: Hockey blogging from the most powerful city in the world
Well, to be fair, it looked to me like Bogosian hit Steckel from behind and his age and general willingness to fight shouldn’t matter. But there’s no doubt that if it’s the best example we can come up with of Brashear holding people accountable, he’s not filling the role he’s supposed to be.
I never understood how fighting the other fighter for something another guy did amounts to retribution…Fighting in general doesn’t accomplish much in my opinion…it’s not so much the risk of injury just that fights in hockey usually end up looking like two guys slow dancing.
Let them settle it into the boards.
IMO, no, the Caps don’t need Brashear or any other fighter to stop a team like the Flyers from intentionally, repeatedly running the goalie when the refs refuse to call it. Nothing is going to stop that except the refs, because there is nothing but enormous incentive in doing so if the refs aren’t calling it. Watching Riley Cote get his ass beat in a staged fight is no disincentive. Watching Brashear pummel the player who does it is no disincentive (quite the opposite, given the heavy PIMs that follow something like that).
Unfortunately, the only thing the Caps can do in that situation is return the favor and start running the other goalie until the refs become hypersensitive about it and start calling it both ways. And hopefully, if they play against a team like Philly, they’ll do just that if it becomes an issue again.
While I think Philly is kind of an exception in their obvious strategy to commit so many penalties that the refs stop calling most of them, all tough teams take liberties in the playoffs, and Salmon is right that the Caps need to do the same to go far. It’s absurd and makes a mockery of both the rules and the NHL’s lip service about enforcing them, but such is “playoff hockey”.
…a number of charges have been leveled at the Capitals, some of which are fair…and some of which may not be (that George McPhee should have made a bigger splash at the trade deadline).
The wording above is a bit hedged, but judging from the fact I see not a single reference to the string “GMGM” or “McPhee” in the comments I’m guessing if the Caps won every single game since the trade deadline there is not a single move anyone here could see personnel wise that would have improved the team’s prospect for playoff and future success.
Mmhmm…
I believe what McPhee said is pretty accurate. To paraphrase, “what is available and affordable isn’t any better than what we already have”.
I won’t second-guess McPhee’s decision to “reward” the existing players by seeing how far they can go. But I don’t have to like that as stated part of his rationale. To re-quote a recently re-hired coach “the organizations primary job is not to make the players happy, it’s to get the most out of them.” (It follows that completely pissed off players aren’t generally productive though)
As long as BB plays who he wants to play with the minutes he wants to give them versus getting the looks the organization needs to assess younger players it is costing the team information, and electricity in the locker room and on the ice (the fact nobody’s watching Phoenix doesn’t mean they aren’t tearing it up out there right now), and it could have us trading away Player A when we really should have traded Player B. That is the type of thing that affects us tomorrow.
At what point does a GM override a “player’s coach” ?
Never – he fires him before it gets to that.
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I don’t mean a power play face-off between coach and GM override. I mean a “we need to give skippy and dexter x minutes+ each over the next 3 games however you have to get it done”
If the coach gets a message of this general nature and disregards it…well I’d like to think he’d see the bigger picture. A successful coach in time sees all his kids come and go. I’d hope an NHL coach has loftier goals than simply mothering “his” kids.
Are you saying BB is at least to some degree “allegedly” ignoring requests from the GM at this time?
Correct me if I’m wrong, but it sounds like you’re saying that you’re concerned (1) the organization hangs on to players too long in an effort to evaluate them by seeing what level they top out at and (2) the organization doesn’t do enough evaluation of players at the NHL level to see if they’re capable of playing at that level? That doesn’t make sense to me.
McPhee’s strategy seems to make perfectly good sense: you draft players and, because they have so much value before they hit the free agent market, you don’t move them until it’s clear they’re no longer in your plans (Pettinger, Sutherby, Eminger).
Finally, with where the Capitals are right now, the goal is to win games. If that means evaluation of players has to take a backseat at times, so be it, because no one’s going to say it was worth losing games and home ice advantage to get a better look at a prospect or two. Besides, even with winning being goal number one we’ve seen plenty out of players who started the year in the AHL.
No general manager is omniscient and any that tries to be is going to end up hurting him team in that pursuit.
- I could’ve sworn I read some really great articles somewhere recently stating that individual or team performances leading into the playoffs have little bearing on playoff success.
:)
- We continue to see that teams that give guys from the minors playing time (say like the Caps earlier this season) often get passionate performances.
- We’ve seen the error of our ways: only promoting one or two guys tops out of the minors. Our new plan is everybody but the stickboy from minors gets to play 6-8 minutes in one or two games?
-My main perspective here actually can be seen as being on McPhee’s side.
The road to free agency is starting to get a little crowded in Hershey and salaries are headed in a fairly upward direction in Washington…the lowering cap…etc etc. When we cut somebody loose pretty soon – they won’t all be aging overpriced has-beens (apologies). We’ve collected some high draft picks/interesting performers and we can’t keep them all.
And we can’t convince all of them to quit the NHL and go play in the Russian national league.
- I could’ve sworn I read some really great articles somewhere recently stating that individual or team performances leading into the playoffs have little bearing on playoff success.
That is true, but having home ice advantage for a second round and getting the 7th seed versus the 6th seed could be huge this year, and I don’t think it’s worth risking wins to get it at this point.
- We’ve seen the error of our ways: only promoting one or two guys tops out of the minors. Our new plan is everybody but the stickboy from minors gets to play 6-8 minutes in one or two games?
That has much more to do with injuries and illness than wanting to get a look at players.
Thanks overall. I strongly believe many here are better positioned and armed to get things oriented more accurately.
Tomorrow we learn if a playoff position slot is more motivating than job security or a shot at the big-time
Yeah...but
Aren’t we all forgetting that you only get, what is it again, 4 non-emergency call-ups after the deadline? The time for evaluating players begins in the A. Which is where they are all at, playing an almost identical system at a “slower” tempo. Not in the waning days of a season when you are trying to gel the guys together and secure a 2nd seed.
by wittcap79 on Mar 31, 2009 8:12 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
Just stirring the game dead-zone pot a little.
It does make me wonder with not a single suggestion if the statement in the original post does not intend to head off such statements proactively
Sure, Guerin would have been a nice addition, but I think his price was too high. I could be wron on that though.
Nope, just to provide an example of what I think is an unfair criticism that has been leveled at the team recently.
Unquestionably there was some theoretical move out there that would have improved the team: trading some lesser known Bear for a 4th rounder who turns out to be the next St. Louis or something, but McPhee being constrained by that whole having-to-make-logical-decisions thing did not seem to have a lot of compelling options in front of him for improvement.
Why would we invite people to make silly, baseless assertions?
Japers' Rink: Hockey blogging from the most powerful city in the world
hear that boom?
that is the sound of hundreds of folks’ heads exploding after reading this.
well done sir.
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Southeast Standings
| GP | W | L | OTL | PT | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Florida
|
53 | 25 | 17 | 11 | 61 |
|
Washington
|
54 | 28 | 21 | 5 | 61 |
|
Winnipeg
|
56 | 26 | 24 | 6 | 58 |
|
Tampa Bay
|
53 | 23 | 24 | 6 | 52 |
|
Carolina
|
56 | 20 | 25 | 11 | 51 |
(updated 2.11.2012 at 8:02 AM EST)
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