2008-09 Rink Wrap: Tyler Sloan

I’m a little surprised he even got a wrap, to be honest, but I thought about it and, yeah, he was here for a solid chunk of the season.

I gave him a 6. I had no expectations of him (I’d never heard of him), but he came in and was perfectly serviceable. He also came in and caused me to give myself a premature bald spot, too.

All said, however, I was pleasantly surprised, and would be happy to see him as an injury-replacement at any time next year.

Um, I gave him a 10 because A. I’m generous and B. he didnt shit the bed and we didn’t eat it while having a lot of players with injuries. Had you told me before the season started that sometime during the middle of season our blueline would consist of Helmer, Sloan, Collins and Kronwall, I’d definitely say that we were screwed. So based on my expectations of despair and bewilderment and the Hershey boys passing the grade, 10.

The Good:

The Bad: Tyler could stand to be a little more gangsta when posing for his head shot.

Thanks for your service, Tyler, but I hope to never see you again in a Caps sweater.

Bonus Interesting Caps Fact: Today’s Wrap is for the only player in team history to wear #89, while tomorrow’s is for the only player to ever wear #70 for the Caps.

Answering Pepper’s questions, sure, for a slightly modest increase (<600k), and I’d guess that even with the other D being resigned, he’d still be valuable in Hershey.

He was certainly better than I thought he was…

…and we’ll always have Calgary

Thanks for bringing up Sloan the band. You inspired me to break out the 1994 mega-smash album Twice Removed. What? it wasn’t mega-smash? Damned Canadian radio in my youth…

Having no expectations, the kid exceeded them, but you could see near the end of his stint up here that it was time for him to go back to Hershey. He’d be great to resign and keep in Choco-town, but there’s no room on our d-line for him this season barring injuries.

Tough one to score based on our expectations-guided system, but I’d throw out there that our expectations can be informed by the fact that he was called up (i.e. he wouldn’t have been called up if he couldn’t at least play a little), so I got the high end of what I expected from that point on… and a 6.

I was super happy with Sloan this season. If he can develop into a real NHL player, he’s exactly the sort of player the Caps need, as a counterweight to Green.

I gave him a 10, since I had precisely zero expectations for him to make a material contribution at the NHL level. He turned out to prove himself as a competent 5/6/7 D-man or injury call-up and seems like a great fit to keep in the system.

My expectations were for him to play in Hershey all season and get lit up like a pinball machine in The Show in the unhappy event that events required him to play in Washington. He was a tolerable fill in.

Don’t care if he stays or if he goes, as his ceiling is organizational filler.

These are the kind of guys you need in the minors, one’s that can be recalled and contribute effectively. It was a good signing.

I thought Sloan was great for a little while and he really could have been much worse.

In the playoffs I was pulling my hair out every time he was on the ice though. I think it was more just happenstance that he wasn’t scored on. I agree that we probably would have been better with him out there more than Green.

He gets an 8 since I had no expectations from him and I think he made good use of his time with the big club. Monster hit? Check. Goal? Check. Playoff Game? Check.

I had no expectations of him in the NHL (at the AHL, I did, I figured he’d be veteran leadership in Hershey, and he definitely did that…)

He played effectively when he was in the line up here in DC. He didn’t make too many mistakes and he certainly didn’t embarass himself. And when was the last time anyone in the NHL drew a 9 minute penalty from an opponent? (That the Caps forgot to score on the 9 minute PP is another issue…)

I’d resign him, if possible, to keep around as a 7th D/veteran leader in Hershey, but I suspect someone out there might want him as their regular 5th or 6th D-man, in which case, he should take them up on it. Colorado would be a good fit for him, I suspect.

It’s a shame to see his obvious exceptional skating ability hindered by suspect decision making. He’s a tremendous skater.

1) Gave him a 10 because had ZERO expectations and filled in OK during his time in DC.
2) To get another 10 he’d have to again play 25+ games. (That wouldn’t be a good thing if you’re a Caps supporter!)

As a ridiculously proud Empress for Life of the Tyler Sloan Fan Club, I grant him a 10.

Of course, now I have slightly higher expectations for next season…

I’d somehow never heard of Tyler Sloan, and when he was called up I was angry about calling up what I thought at the time was an ECHLer. I was expecting him to be garbage. Those expectations changed fast, but this is another “Giroux” kind of guy, who stays in the AHL, pops up when injuries require it, but hopefully knows his place on the depth chart.

He got an 8, because I didn’t expect anything but a body, and he went well and beyond that.

In the cap era, we are going to need guys like Sloan, who play for close to minimum dollars yet give you more bang for your buck than say, Morrison at $1.9 mil.

And I agree with all those on this board who suggest that he should have played more versus Pens, especially with Green looking like the guy who had just been called up from AHL. The organization really needs to look at how they handled the whole call up / Beagle/ hurt Dmen situation. Looking back it’s easy to second guess, but id rather have 2-3 healthy ahl d men playing than obviously hurt, not playing anywhere near the level of the regular season, first teamers’.

Im glad we have Sloan to provide call up depth, but I would never be worried if he had to play for an extended period.

Gave him an 8.

pneumonia is brutal. You end up losing muscle mass real quick.

Don’t know if Flash dropped 30 pounds but I’m sure he lost some weight. He admits he lost some strength as a result of the illness. There have been rumors on the internet that he had mono. Would not be surprised at that. The Caps played Columbus around the time Steve Mason had just come down with mono but before it was announced. (He had been suffering for 3-4 weeks, a time frame that included the Caps game.) And then the Caps played the Bruins soon after Phil Kessel was diagnosed. Green apparently had mono, since late March. (At least that was the first report of Green being sick.)

I didn’t have very high expectations and he did quite well when he was called up.