Tuesday Caps Clips: Preds @ Caps Game Day

No doubt that’s it – brutal air-brushing. The full story:

During the summer of 1975, the Philadelphia Flyers traded center Bill Clement to the Washington Capitals. This transaction was apparently important enough to prompt Topps’ art department to revise their photo of Clement for their 1975-76 set. Unfortunately, his trade wasn’t quite worthy enough to merit revision to the entire photograph. Only Clement’s jersey had been altered to reflect the trade. His torso screams “Capitals,” while his legs (and heart, probably) still say “Flyers.”

The mismatched jersey and socks makes Clement look like some castoff from a third-tier European hockey team – just add a green helmet and some skates from the 1950s. What puts this over the top, though, as one of the worst paint-overs ever is that there are real Washington Capitals players present in the picture. Are we not supposed to notice that Clement’s socks are orange, while his teammates’ socks are white?

Worse yet, Clement was “given” double-zeros (00) as his jersey number. Strange that Topps would go the extra mile to add a uniform number – albeit an insulting one – but then totally ignore the legs.

As for the trade itself, it didn’t fare too well for Washington, who received Clement, defenseman Don McLean and Philadelphia’s first pick (18th overall) in the upcoming entry draft. McLean played a total of 9 games, and their draft pick – Alex Forsyth – only played one game. Clement was named team captain, but was again traded midway through the 1975-76 season before he could make any real contributions to Washington.

In return for their pick and the two players, the Flyers received the Capitals first pick in the draft. And since the Caps finished dead last the season before, their pick was the first overall pick. The Flyers reaped the reward of the Capitals’ on-ice and off-ice ineptitude, and used the first overall pick to draft junior league scoring sensation Mel Bridgman.

Just like Clement’s jersey, Washington got whitewashed.

Yeah, they’re terrible, top-to-bottom.

It looked like Bruce has split Ryan off of the top line (last night, at least), so they rolled:

1. 27.3% COGLIANO,ANDREW – RYAN,BOBBY – SELANNE,TEEMU
2. 26.3% GETZLAF,RYAN – HAGMAN,NIKLAS – PERRY,COREY
3. 21.1% BELESKEY,MATT – BONINO,NICK – PALMIERI,KYLE
4. 5.3% GORDON,ANDREW – PARROS,GEORGE – PELLEY,RODNEY

Those lines have combined for 27, 25, 2 and 3 goals. Swap Ryan with Hagman and that goes to 22, 30, 2, 3. Bet he wishes he still had a fourth-liner like Knuble to kick around…

(And, by comparison, the thinking man’s Caps lines:

8-19-22: 24
28-90-20: 20
25-21-42: 22
26-15-85: 6)

There are 119 other 4th line players in the NHL… I’m sure Stecks is better than half of them.

I just got a new Android phone the other day (my first one), and was looking for one. Didn’t know it was just IPhone only until now.

Just download the fuckin’ thing.

If it’s like the iPhone app, it has the equivalent.

Dear lord please no.

They run a tight ship around here.

I think Grant’s take seemed relatively reasonable. He was honest, and maybe a lot of people don’t like that, but I didn’t see anything ridiculous in there.

And since you mentioned an NFL player, why do you think NHL players seem to be missing so much more time with concussions than NFL players? Am I just overlooking a bunch of NFL guys? Is it just a period of bad luck for the NHL? Are the NFL players “tougher” than NHL players?

I had a discussion about this with my family, and my dad’s personal theory is that skating on ice requires a more sensitive sense of equilibrium. So if an NHL player has a concussion it will be harder for them to fight through the symptoms to continue to play effectively. I’m not sure if I’m convinced. I think there may be something there, but the margin for error is so small in the NFL that even if you don’t have the same balance concerns any impact on execution could have huge impacts in a game.

Was he diagnosed with a c? I saw the hit and didn’t see anything thereafter.

Whoa, really? That’s probably not the smartest move I’ve ever seen.

I would go 8-19-22, 20-90-28, 25-21-42, 26-15-85. Halpern is not a top 6 quality player – there’s one of them sitting on the 4th right now getting far too little time and opportunity.

… or if we stick to the CLAW being the true 2nd line, does this mean AO has been demoted to 3L?

I see a bad 1C, a strong 2nd line, the usual third line, and a 4th line who has a top 6 winger.

Point taken. But as you pointed out in the AHI fancystats link, some key systemic strengths are there.
Goaltending will make or break the 2011-12 season, it seems.

But on the other hand, if you remove all the times they didn’t score, they’re clicking away at a 100% rate, far and away the best in the League!

Seriously, the PP blows, we all know that. But I don’t think you can remove a good night against a bad team and keep the competitions’ good nights in there.

“Carves out a career of consistency.” Yea….it’d be nice to see that consistency for more than 12 minutes a night. And not with MP or whoever else on his line.

I hear there’s big trouble there, so I try to stay away from that place.

Now that I’ve read it, seems like more par for the Cled course. Whatever.

I bet Ted doesn’t respond to the post. He’s likely to just chalk it up to Internet cookiness and move on.

Or…

Pretty sure the Caps and most other hockey teams lose money every year.

Unless you’re going exclusively by the bottom line on their tax statements, I very much doubt this. To get an idea of how misleading that can be (for US teams, at least. I don’t have any idea about Canadian teams), consider that they can write off the whole team purchase price (over 15 years, IIRC), depreciate the value of player salaries (even though they don’t pay taxes on those salaries to begin with), paying large salaries to the owner, etc. If they’re S-corps (as I’ve heard some are), they can even have all profits go directly onto the owner’s return. Given all that, it’s amazing to me that any team would be unable to claim that they’re losing money. (And those are just schemes that I’ve heard about from various sources. I’m far from an expert, and wouldn’t be surprised if there are even more subtle ones.)

That the same guy Greenberg was arguing with?

I knew this was coming and it still made me laugh.

I guess that means Phoebe Cates won’t be along for the trip. Sighs.

Yup, that’s what I thought of.

He’s got a mustache; it must be a comedy.

I cannot wait for the tournament. Every year it’s just beyond great.

Hey, do you have lunch plans? I’ve got a whole bowl of something for you. Bring a spoon.

I’m not cranky at all, actually, just wondering why a guy who’s played 180 games for the team gets essentially the same pre-game treatment as the guy whose number they most recently hung in the rafters. Seems a bit much, but I’m not upset about it or anything.

Maybe it makes GMGM/Hunter feel as though Knuble is actually getting real minutes if everyone’s wearing his jersey.

264 players in toto. There have also been only 13 players who have ever played over 1500 games.

That’s the think I hate about the auctions at every game. They seem to be profit-making ventures, not charitable. Just feels unclean to me.

What’s next, Attendance Banners?

way to put a huge bummer of the day.

Well, the Caps seem to have modeled themselves after the mid-2000s Senators, so why not?

(Oh, because Knuble’s not the captain, hasn’t played more than a handful of his games here, etc…. but that was a rhetorical question.)

Ha!

Technically, Finland isn’t part of Scandinavia (unless you’re using a veeerrry loose definition of Scandinavia).

And really, you snub Byfuglien, Yandle AND Tyler Myers?

Whatever.