Monday Caps Clips: "The Mystery of the 21st Century"

Or a spokesperson for the Chicago Blackhawks talking about Patrick Kane. Talk about having a bad summer.

If they played on different teams, would the team that had Crosby trade him even up for Malkin?

Not likely.

In fact, you could pose that hypothetical for any player in the sport, and the team that has Crosby isn’t trading him.

I’d rather have Malkin than Crosby on my team right now. Crosby goes hard every night, plays his rear end off, and always shows up.

Malkin also shows up too, and when he’s on, he’s the only player that compares to Ovechkin in the Eastern Conference. They’re both great players.

One more thing, as an argument for Malkin being better than Sid. Malkin has been a finalist for the Hart trophy as NHL MVP the past 2 years, Sid hasn’t. Admittedly, Sid was hurt 2 seasons ago and missed a bunch of games. And admittedly, the Hart is voted on by the NHL writers.

But…Malkin and not Crosby was also a finalist for the Pearson award the last 2 years, as presented by the NHLPA, meaning that the players also think Malkin is more valuable to the Penguins than Crosby.

Just out of curiosity, what specifically constitutes “winning” a faceoff? We all know Ovie’s knack for slapping the puck forward behind his faceoff opponent and trying to barge through them to it. Are those automatic “losses” when calculating faceoff percentage, since the puck ended up behind his opponent?

He could have always outsourced to us. I don’t think many people here would have trouble writing that at all.

It is entirely likely — probable, in fact — that the Caps will match neither 50 wins, nor 108 points this year. But they are likely to be a better team, absent some debilitating injury. Atlanta and Tampa will be better (they could hardly be worse, and the Thrashers already gave the Caps fits last year).

The trouble is, in the last 20 full seasons of play (discounting the 1994/95 season), 13 of 20 teams winning the Cup also had at least 100 points in the regular season; eight of them had at least 110. Only two Cup winners in this period finished a regular season with less than 90 points. Actually, it was one team that did it twice.

The Penguins.

Wondering out loud here, but does GMGM look to trade one of the goalie prospects for a proven winner (if there is one) at the deadline if Theo maintains similar form to last year and Varly looks like a very good, but still 21 year old goalie?

In short, no. If the team didn’t feel comfortable going into the playoffs with Varlamov, Theo wouldn’t have had such a short leash last spring.

I think he waits until halfway through the season to see what is truly needed before making any decisions along those lines.

This team is too young, and could be too good for too long, to move Varlamov, and I’m not sure what Neuvy’s trade value is right now.

if you’re talking about Holtby, I could see that if Dan Dunn shows promise.

I honestly can’t see us getting a goalie via trade. I haven’t exactly researched the options out there, but it seems to me, especially with the cap situation, we’d have to trade Theo for a better, less expensive version of himself. What team is going to make that trade?

Maybe they’d go for it with one of the prospects thrown in, but that really doesn’t seem like something GMGM would do.

Varly’s quick and talented, but he’s still a little rough around the edges. I think backing up Jose this year will help polish his game, and next year (when Theo’s contract expires) we hand him the keys. He may have been lightning in a bottle during the playoffs last year, but I could still count the number of NHL games he’s played on fingers and toes.

Yes, it’s unsettled. Varly had one magical run, but he ran out of gas (endurance is an issue) and we don’t know if the rest of the league is going to adjust to him, and if he’ll adjust to them adjusting to him, and so on. It’s way to early to say he’s our starter, just that he could be.

And I’m not saying I think it’s unlikely that he becomes the starter. But it’s far from a lock as well.

So, we’re going to send Dinamo Riga a really nice cookie bouquet?

Dunno, it sounded like a month ago Boudreau still thinks Theo is the number one until Varlaverth knock him off. I think he might do a Ward, but perhaps more closely to the 2.80/.900-ish version of Ward’s sophomore year.

Varlamov could “do a Cam Ward” and lead the team to playoff success or he could “do a Cam Ward” by following up his unexpected playoff success by posting a .897 save percentage and 2.93 goals against average.