Many Happy Returns

Agreed, If wides can fetch decent return, I think GMGM should do it. Plus we have Dima, Green, Carlson and hamr? as the puck moving Dmen we want.

Absolutely agree. One can easily overreact with the notion that the team needs to be blown up, but when yr missing, for most of the year, your top offensive D-man (and PP point) and top center, the potential for struggle is great. Since there are, however, more buyers than sellers, the potential for getting a good return is enhanced right now and it might make lots of sense to cash in where it’s smart.

If I were GMGM, I’d definitely see what the above-referenced players will draw and make decisions from there. Wideman, to me, is the most marketable asset we have and would make the most sense in shipping out regardless of where we stand on Monday. In the meantime, we keep an eye on the market for potential help, especially at center — although getting a #1 center seems a bit of a stretch to me; we might have to be happy with a solid, experienced #2/3 like Ott or Ribeiro, who could still provide offense, grit, and leadership.

I’d think Burkie would love to talk to his old pal George about Vokoun.

Agreed, great stuff. And I’m with you on Wideman. At last year’s deadline, he was 9-24-33 (though a dreadful -26 to the extent GMs rely on that stat) and was had for a third. It’s hard for me to conclude that he’s a really different player this year. Did the second year at $4M detract so much from his value that he’s now Kaberle return worthy at the end of the contract? Really hard for me to gauge.

How about Philly having some interest in Vokoun? They seem to be moving all in on this season with some of their recent trades, and their goaltending is a huge achilles heel. They could bring in Vokoun for their playoff run and still have flexability to go back to Bob/Bryz next season.

I agree on Semin, but he has so much baggage that it’s hard to imagine him bringing back more than what Penner got. Wideman, in my opinion, doesn’t have quite the reputation Kaberle has/had around the league. Maybe that’s because the Toronto media was pumping his tires for a decade, or maybe I’m mis-reading the respect Wideman gets around the league.

Vokoun will be as much about getting more than one suitor as anything else. I agree that CHI would be a good fit, but if they are the only one then where does GMGM get leverage to ask for that First+? He could just say “a 2 isn’t worth it so we’d rather sit on him and hope he gets hot enough to carry us unless you up it to a 1st+” and I bet that’s what he’d say. But it’s still not the same kind of leverage as a bidding war.

Crawford looks like he’s picked it up lately, so maybe Chicago doesn’t worry so much about their goaltending. Then again, I’m going off of watching a couple of games since the weekend.

Sure, but how many teams would do that?

It’s all about creating a market. Get in a bidding war for his services, and you can jack up the price pretty easily.

Teams value rentals sometimes more than they value guys with years left on their contract.

Also, Halpern has more scoring ability than Steckel.

At least the past couple of years, a 2nd is kind of the go-to deadline currency for solid role players. I guess the Caps could balance by returning a 6th or so, but a 2nd is almost certainly Halpern’s sticker price.

Halpern is much better than Steckel everywhere except the dot. But I do think a 2 is high for Halpern and never would have guessed that until I looked at the comparables.

The guy HAS been playing some of the most consistent hockey of his career under Hunter lately… Just think, it took Perreault as his pivot to do that.

I hope we don’t deal Matty, I see good things for him as he matures, ala St. Louis.

So a question…for Carter or Stastny would the team be willing to just take first round picks?

Based on the LOWESS function, there does not appear to be much difference payoff between a high second and a low third round pick. If a team holds out for a high second as a condition to trade a player (if, presumably, the deal also includes a first, with much higher probabilities of mean games played exceeding 250), they might be shooting themselves in the foot. Of course, with the Caps, second…third…hardly seems to matter.

there’s less drop-off between the 28th and 70th picks than between 5th and 8th. How does that impact your thinking on any of this?

Looking at the standings and the way they are playing, this tells me the Caps should be selling their tradeable assets and with the way things are going, they could end up with a top 5 pick and then have assets to trade up even higher if they so desired.

I would also try to trade as many of my assets I could to teams playing Colorado down the stretch…

Worth noting, btw, is that this is primarily “predicted games played” driven AND the data is pre-cap – since then, there’s a lot more reason to give younger, cheaper players more ice earlier, so the applicability of the data is worth questioning, to an extent.

I’m sold. You should call GMGM on his cell.

I don’t say this often, but this ought to be bright green.

Good post. Made me also realize how underrated Patrice Bergeron is in the league.

It’s a good post…but that was 2010. This is 2012.

It was also my impression that he was traded because of locker room problems. That’s probably the last thing this team needs.

Honestly, I’d live with either but think Carter is the better player.

I don’t like that cap hit, because it removes any of the flexibility gained by letting Semin walk. But they could do it if they wanted to.

I have to believe another team comes up with a better offer than anything the Caps would realistically give them, but who knows.

Also, neither of them are expiring contracts, which are the only thinks Rob looked at with this post.

I had been saying the same thing about trading Ward and Hamrlik. Hamr, I can understand holding onto because he’s only here for another year, but wouldn’t be opposed to him going. The only downside is that this team would be very thin on capable d-men, so I don’t see it happening unless they plan on bringing back Wideman long term.

Ward, I wanted gone because 3 million for the next few years for what he brings just isn’t worth it. That being said, it looks like with this new CBA, there will be a one-time amnesty clause built in where teams can get rid of one contract. If that’s the case, I really think GMGM will consider letting Ward go. It was odd that he paid Ward that much money in FA, but I can only imagine that GMGM thought Ward would play a larger role at even strength and on the PK.

No – they were excluded because they’re not pending UFAs (as was detailed in the post).

As I said, I agree. But look at those comparables and tell me where the breakdown is.

Like I says earlier, it’s all about the bidding war and how many teams they get on the hook about his services that they can play against each other.

Jacques Martin wanted his general manager Pierre Gauthier, get along with Roman Hamrlik for the current season.

Finally, Pierre Gauthier has not accepted the salary demands of the defender who has an agreement with the Capitals that they were willing to give it a two-year contract, which would bring him $ 7 million in total.

But today, Roman Hamrlik had enough of Washington and would like to play elsewhere. To be honest, nothing is easy in this team now and it weighs heavily on the shoulders of several players.

Hamrlik has been offered a few teams, but the Capitals are very demanding.

Is that the transaction market is very expensive … because of the exchange of Gill Hall in Nashville.

The fact that the Predators have given a second-round pick, plus a prospect Blake Geoffrion as for Hal Gill, mean that for Roman Hamrlik, is expected to give more.

And that’s where the pressure is on dg by February 27. We must determine the true value of a player and not overpay.

In short, can a team be willing to pay full price for Roman Hamrlik? Not currently. But it is also possible that requests the Chief Capitals, George McPhee down Feb. 27. The game of cat and mouse has begun.

(and yes – I realize we’ve been down this road once or twice)

You would think GMDP would talk to GMGM about Semin. I’d personally rather have Semin than Hemsky, but neither are overwhelming options.

Not sure I’d count on Semin sticking around when thinking about Radulov. Maybe he would, but it’s not the kind of thing you could bank on.

Welcome back, stranger.

I stand a better chance at replacing Suter in the Weber pairing than Semin does of going to Nashville — floaty, enigmatic forwards aren’t exactly Trotz-hockey.

Eventually, even a blind squirrel finds a nut.