Worth checking out this afternoon are Vogs' profiles of Mathieu Perreault and Patrick McNeill over at Caps.com, as well a pair of pieces on Ted Leonsis, the first of which is an interview over at DCist, while the second is a lengthy recap of an AP interview.
Some highlights from the latter Leonsis article:
- "Every person in the organization's expectation is that we will make the playoffs."
- "We're under the cap. We have a lot of assets. I could see us during the season making trades. We've reached that point now where we're a team going up with good cap management. We have 'optionality.' We're very well-positioned in the new NHL. We're not a whining team."
- "I need another 2,500 season-ticket seats," Leonsis said. "What that would do is tip it, it would give us scarcity of tickets and allow us finally to raise prices. Our ticket prices, for the most part are exactly the same as they were in 1999."
- Leonsis said the Capitals "might never break even" financially, but added that the franchise right now could probably sell for at least $225 million, compared to the $85 million he paid for it eight years ago.
And one quote from Perreault that I couldn't let go unmentioned:
Perreault doesn’t hesitate when asked which NHL player he looks up to and tries to model his game after.
"Daniel Briere," Perreault affirms. "He played junior on Drummondville. I’m from Drummondville so I watched him play junior. He is the kind of player I want to be, so I’m working to be like him."
All things considered, I'd take that in a heartbeat.