capcrunch98

Good for the Avs. They did a great job building that club, and they should be contenders for several more years. Hate to see a dirty player like Kadri get his name on the Cup, but half the teams in the league have a scumbag like him so I guess it's a wash. I am sure a lot of fans in other cities said the same thing about Willy in 2018.

I don't like him either, but come on man - his level of douchiness doesn't hold a candle to Caps foes from back in the day like Tocchet, Mario, Hextall, Lindros, and Dennis Potvin. Or how about Jagr - a dude who managed to brutally F us over and over when he was in an opposing jersey AND when he was wearing a Caps sweater. Jaro Halak also makes my list - he seems like a decent guy but I'll never forgive him for singlehandedly pulling the rug out from under the most electric Caps team ever.

Right, and that's a season-changing amount of cap room at our disposal if it happens. Spending a chunk of that on Malkin would be foolish.

They already have $9 mil annually committed to an old guy who is broken down and whose best years are behind him (Backstrom), They don't need another. Malkin can still produce when he's healthy, but that hasn't happened consistently for a few years. If he's willing to take a major pay cut to play with Ovi and Kuzy, I could see management kicking the tires. But if they pay market price for him, they're f-ing nuts.

Backstrom had his surgery, no timetable for return. Will be interesting to see what happens. I love the guy, but $9 mil for a forward who scores 6 goals doesn't work in today's NHL.

As if any of us need another reason to hate the Flyers, they hired John Tortorella as their coach.

Thank you Bolts. As a Caps fan, I'm reduced to cheering for other teams to humble the clubs I hate. F the Rangers.

Inside Capital One Arena, thinking about all the heartbreaking collapses Caps fans had to endure over the previous 30 years, remembering a time not too long before when our home playoff games were overrun by opposing fans, looking up at the retired jerseys in the rafters and thinking of Caps greats who never got a chance to lift the Cup but completely deserved to (guys like Langway, Hunter, Bondra, Gartner, Pivonka, Calle, Kelly Miller, and Olie). And then I smiled, realizing that was all in the rearview mirror, because we were f'ing STANLEY CUP CHAMPIONS.

Not a Canes fan, but I hate the Rangers even more. I can't believe one year after we thoroughly embarrassed them in the Wilson game, and then they embarrassed themselves a couple weeks later during the rematch, they're now in the conference finals. I'll give them credit, though - they had the stones to initiate a rebuild a few years ago and sell high on some of their older vets. They've also had an insane amount of luck - winning the draft lottery two years in a row, fleecing Ottawa for Mika Zibanejad, Artemi Panarin rejecting higher offers to sign with NY, future Norris Trophy winner Adam Fox forcing a trade to the Rangers, finding an MVP goalie in Igor Shesterkin. These fukkers are gonna be good for a long time. Losing to Carolina in 2019 was our own fault. The Canes were an up-and-coming team then, but very green and we should've easily beaten them that year. Squandering numerous chances to end that series early, and then blowing a 2-goal lead at home in Game 7, showed that this team - despite the Cup win - was still prone to half-assing it and folding during crunch time. As far as I'm concerned, the window for the current Caps core slammed shut that night 3 years ago when we lost that series in OT. We've been garbage in the playoffs ever since.

Well, it depends. As a gauge for winning the Cup, of course. But the three years we won it were some of the funnest times for Caps fans. That 2010 team was electric, scoring 5 - 6 goals every night; with the Young Guns and a great supporting cast, it felt like we were a dynasty in the making. And the 2016 and 2017 teams were the most well-rounded Caps clubs ever; it's unlikely we'll ever see a Caps team that solid for a long time. Yes, each of those teams crapped out in the playoffs, and it's heartbreaking that none of them even made it past the second round. But that doesn't change the fact that for 6 months in each of those years, we were seemingly unstoppable.

Absolutely. This is the best I've felt as an Orioles fan since they started off hot the first 2 months of 2017 (and then the wheels fell off and it became obvious that the window had slammed shut for the Machado/Jones/Davis/Hardy/Tillman/Wieters/Britton/Buck group). It's gonna be another losing season, but that light at the end of this cold dark tunnel we've been limping down over the past 5 years finally seems a lot closer.

Well guys, even if we had gotten past Florida, I think Tampa would've really smacked us around, fwiw.

We all love Backi and everything he's done for this team. But even he admits he'll never be the same. Can't believe I'm at the point of saying this, but him retiring and giving us $9 mil in cap space to work with might be our only chance of being competitive the next couple seasons and pushing back the inevitable rebuild a bit.

Agreed. I have little confidence in any of our young prospects to step up and become high impact players over the next 1 - 2 seasons, and I have little confidence in GMBM to swing a franchise-altering trade. Right now, our only options are to stay the course (bad), blow it all up and begin a rebuild (not likely to happen with Ovi still here and playing well), or pray for some major cap relief like you mention to bring in a couple top-end free agents. This scenario is the only way I see us being competitive over the next couple seasons.

The Penguins haven't "rebuilt" in 15 years, and they're currently at the same spot as us - an aging core that is still talented enough to make the playoffs, but do nothing beyond that.

I don't know anything about the NBA, but I know rebuilds in hockey - if done correctly - usually take a long time. IMO, a "one or two year retooling" is akin to rebuilding a plane in mid-flight, and it usually never works. The current Rangers are the only team I can recall doing a successful rebuild in less than 3 years, and they got incredibly lucky with an MVP goalie, winning the draft lottery, and a future Norris Trophy winner forcing a trade to NY. And Ted did initiate a rebuild in 2003 - a long and painful one that many Caps fans were pissed about but that eventually brought us Ovi and the Rock the Red era. Although he was basically forced to do it because everything else he tried - especially bringing in Jagr and Robert Lang - failed spectacularly.

Definitely agree they need to start getting younger and cannot wait for Ovi to retire, just saying I'll give them a pass for not starting this 2 years ago. I read all your posts in the O's thread and you've stated correctly many times the Orioles should've started their rebuild in 2016, but the Caps were in a much different place the past few years - ownership and management had a legitimate belief they could make another run, even if a lot of us fans were skeptical. They just announced Wilson and Backstrom are dealing with series injuries and both could have surgery and miss time next season. Reports are even throwing out the "retirement" possibility for Backstrom. And of course Hagelin's career is in jeopardy. Will be interesting to see what the Caps do if some of these guys end up on longterm IR.

I hear you, but there's no realistic way a rebuild could've been done a couple years ago. They were finishing at the top of the conference, they were selling out the building every night, memories of winning the Cup were still fresh, and the best player who will ever put on a Caps sweater still had some good years ahead of him. I had a feeling this team's window shut after they choked to Carolina in 2019; the same tendencies pre-2018 of taking entire periods off and nobody stepping up in the clutch were very apparent in that series. But I don't blame them for not blowing it up. They had a solid core, they thought they had a star goaltender in-waiting with Samsonov, and they saw for themselves in 2018 that getting hot at the right time is almost as important as who you put on the ice. And fwiw, the main pieces they could've moved to bring back parts in a rebuild were either untouchable (Ovi and Backstrom), wouldn't have brought back much in return (Holtby, Kuzy coming off a down year, Eller, Oshie whose injuries were starting to pile up), or guys who would make no sense to trade (Wilson, who was the league's top power forward and who was still young). Carlson would've been the only one to trade, and they could've gotten a nice return for him, but dealing one guy isn't a rebuild so why get rid of someone who at the time was a Norris Trophy candidate? Again, I agree that we'd be better off now had they started a rebuild 2 years ago, but it just wasn't possible, all things considered.

We were a great team in 2018, and we deserved the Cup. You can't fluke your way to 16 wins in the NHL postseason. But yeah, the inherent problems with this team - namely an inability to play a full 60 minute game and unable to step up during gut-check time - haunted them before 2018 and remain with us to this day. I think it was just a case of this team being so talented for so long, even the hockey gods couldn't prevent them from finally catching fire one spring and riding it to a title. But with an aging core, inconsistent goaltending, and the Rierden mistake, it's no surprise we haven't come close since.

Yup, those teams - especially the 2009/10 and 2015/16 clubs were unbelievable and it's likely we'll never see a Caps group that talented for a really, really long time. The 2018 Cup run will always be cherished, but it's bittersweet when you consider this team left a few other Cups on the table over the past 12 years.

What a gut punch. I was fine with the Game 4 loss (not happy, but understood that it happens), but just no excuse for last night. As others have said, leave it to the Caps to choke in a series they weren't even favored to win. They could still win the series. They lost 3 in a row to Tampa in 2018 and came back to win games 6 and 7. And that Tampa team was better than this Florida team. But the 2018 Caps club was better than this year's Caps team, so maybe it's a wash. Anyways, if they lose this series after looking like the better team for so much of it, I think it's a certainty (for me, at least) that the Stanley Cup champion Caps of the Rock the Red/OVI era died in Game 7 against Carolina in 2019. Ever since then, they've had enough talent to put together some good regular seasons, but at gut-check time in the playoffs they've completely fallen flat, and they're continuing that trend now.

Last night's ending was tough, but any level-headed fan has to be feeling good now. We split the first 4 games with the President's Trophy winners, and it's not a fluke - for huge stretches of this series we've clearly looked like the better team. I don't think last night's end result is going to affect the Caps any more than losing 5-1 in Game 2 did. Being up 3-1 after 4 games would've been really, really nice, but let's not forget that a lot of the "experts" were predicting us to be swept after 4 games.

Yes, for all the flack baseball gets about being a slow, boring sport that doesn't appeal to today's youth, the ridiculous disparity between the haves and the have-nots is just as much to blame for declining interest, IMO. You bring up the Royals, and that is exactly the blueprint that small market teams have to follow. They were a great club in 2015 (also make the Series the year before) and it wasn't a surprise to most that they won it that year. But they had to go through a painful decade-long rebuild to get there - acquiring top draft picks, developing them and hoping they pan out, selling high to contenders on the few good players they did have while the rebuild was still ongoing, and then enjoying a 4 - 5 year window before their homegrown talent leaves for greener pa$tures. The Orioles had to do the same thing to get to the point from 2012 - 2016 where they were competitive, and it's been back to sucking ever since. Really hard to keep fans (and recruit new ones) when you have to be terrible for 5 years for every 2 good years of being competitive.

If that's the level of enthusiasm of this team's chances, that could explain why they might not think a watch party is necessary at this point? Even when they won it in 2018, I don't think they started Capital One Arena watch parties until the ECF vs. Tampa. I can't remember if they hosted watch parties in 2019 (vs. Carolina)?

Yeah, I appreciate Bang's enthusiasm but I too was confused by that post.