Prior to last night’s game against the Buffalo Sabres the Capitals PR department had this little nugget for fans:

The Capitals close the book on a remarkable 2008 calendar year against Buffalo, a year that saw them post a 51-23-6 record to this point (trailing only San Jose, 117 points, and Boston, 110, with 108 points). Among the team’s other notable achievements in 2008:

• Won the Southeast Division championship last season and has a 10-point lead in the division this year
• Posted a 31-6-3 home record at Verizon Center with 14 sellouts
• Alex Ovechkin has scored 60 goals in 2008 (10 more than any other player), posted 113 points (second only to Evgeni Malkin, 124), won four major NHL awards, received the Key to the City of Washington, D.C., signed a new 13-year contract, played in the NHL All-Star Game, led Russia to a gold medal at the World Championship, won NHL First Star of the Month three times and launched his own designer clothing line
• Bruce Boudreau was named NHL coach of the year and was selected for induction in the AHL Hall of Fame

Long term fans benefit for having stuck with the team through the lean years. Casual D.C. sports fans benefit from having at least one team in the city they don’t have to be ashamed of. And of course the players and Coach Boudreau get to go out in front of a packed house almost every night and play some of the most exciting hockey in the NHL.

But quietly there have to be two men sitting back and smiling, watching their plan come to fruition after years of adversity: Ted Leonsis and George McPhee.

For McPhee it’s the payoff after years of being second guessed on everything from the decision to trade Peter Bondra for a second round pick and a little-known AHL center named Brooks Laich, selecting Nicklas Backstrom over Phil Kessel, and the decision to give career minor league coach Bruce Boudreau a chance in the big leagues rather than rushing out to find a coach with NHL experience. For Leonsis it’s the reward to the decision to stand behind McPhee and scouting director Ross Mahoney in the face of oftentimes cruel or profane outbursts from diehards, threats of allegiances retracted from soon-to-be-former season-ticket holders, the nights of half-full arenas and the accompanying unenviable balance sheets, and the smug voices that insisted hockey was dead in Washington and the team should either be contracted or moved to a “real hockey city”.  For both it’s proof that patience is a virtue and that resistance to the urge to overpay for a significant free agent or make a trade for a player with more name recognition was the right decision. 

The pragmatism to not only develop a long term plan, but to keep with it even during the team’s most significant struggles, is paying off in ways that the critics, many of whom could not see several seasons down road, would never have imagined. The so called “Capitals model” has produced not only an organization capable of sustainably fielding competitive NHL teams, but has a model for teams around the league for any team trying to find in the midst of dismal season.

The rebuild has worked. Despite that, both McPhee and Leonsis will always have their critics. The difference is that now they don’t have to answer them. The wins, the trophies, the standings, the thousands of eyes from around the league, and the 18,000 strong who show in up in red and make as much noise as humanly possible are doing that for them every night there’s professional hockey in Washington.

Living well, or in this case playing well, is the best revenge.

By now you may have seen that the Capitals have re-signed defenseman John Erskine. What you may not have seen is that Erskine was inked to a two year deal worth a total of $2.5 million dollars.

I respect John Erskine a great deal. He’s a great team player, he always hustles, he gives up the body to block shots, and he’s more than willing to drop the gloves (and not half bad at it). But he’s also a painfuly slow skater and a poor puckhandler who, at twenty-eight, isn’t likely to get all that much better. He also takes far more penalties than anyone else on the Capitals: with thirty-six minors in fifty-six games last year, Erskine was taking .71 minor penalties per game. The next more frequently offer was Alexander Semin who picked .34 minor penalties per game, meaning Erskine was send to the box for minor penalties more than twice as often as anyone else on the team.  Some of those may have been roughing penalties due to his style of play but I’d be willing to bet the vast majority were holding, hooking, tripping, or puck-over-the-glass.

Aside from Erskine’s shortcomings as a defenseman (more on that can be found here), there doesn’t seem to be a great deal of need at the defense position for the Capitals. Mike Green and Tom Poti are signed through next year. The team controls, to varying degrees, the status of Jeff Schultz, Shaone Morrisonn, and Milan Jurcina, all of whom are, despite their struggles at times, better options than Erskine. Meanwhile the team expects blue-chip prospect Karl Alzner to be in Washington by season’s end, and fellow Hershey Bear Sami Lepisto is also playing well.

But the biggest problem with this contract isn’t the depth the Capitals have or that they want to have Erskine back - after all, you can never have too many defensemen and Erskine is good enough to be at least a seventh or eight defenseman in the NHL. The problem is that the contract is completely irreconcilable with what it would take to keep Erskine if he were to hit the free agent market. If the Capitals decided the wanted to re-sign Erskine next summer, fine. But I have a hard time believing any other NHL team is going to shell out $1.25 million a year for a guy who should only get in when someone else is hurt. If I’m wrong, I’m wrong, but it still seems like the Capitals have paid Erskine at least fifty percent more than he could have gotten somewhere else.

There is one, and only one, possible rationale I can think of for this signing: that the team plans to move Erskine to the wing and have him play the role of enforcer in coming seasons. It might sound crazy, but then Donald Brashear will be thirty-seven at the start of next season and if there’s anyone slower than Erskine on the team, it’s him. The Capitals don’t have any NHL-calibre enforcers in their minor league system - Grant McNeill’s the only enforcer in Hershey and he’s spent most of his career in the ECHL.

The idea of moving a defenseman to forward and into an enforcer role is not uncommon: Paul Bissonnette, Patrick Kaleta, Wade Brookbank, Wade Belak, and Eric Godard are all examples of players who successfully made the transition from rugged defenseman to winger-enforcer, as is former Capital Stephen Peat, although each of these players did it at a younger age than Erskine.

Would a move to wing work for Erskine? My guess would be that it would, and not just because I’ve often found myself thinking that Erskine could have carved out a nice career for himself if a coach had decided to move him to wing as a twenty-one year old. On the wing Erskine would have to opportunity to play his game, hitting opponents without having to worry as much about whether or not he’s drawing himself out of position and getting into scraps without forcing his team to alter the defensive rotation. He wouldn’t be an every game player, but he could still be a valuable one by playing a role similar to the one played by Aaron Downy for the Detroit Red Wings last season.

That said, on a final note, I’d like to point out that Erskine as an enforcer playing the wing, still probably isn’t worth $1.25 million a year. But my goal here was to provide a possible explanation for the logic of the Capitals’ front office, not to try and defend the decision.

The Capitals’ loss of Cristobal Huet and their subsequent decision to replace him with Jose Theodore have immediately sparked intense debate amongst Caps fans, blogging community included. JP of Japers’ Rink contends that Theodore may just be the better goaltender, as does Pepper of the Red Skate. At the other end of the spectrum is Pucks’n’books from On Frozen Blog, who is echoing the sentiments of many disappointed Capitals fans (albeit in a much more reasoned and eloquent manner).

For any Capitals fan it’s impossible to be completely at ease with this personnel change: Theodore has been one of the most notoriously inconsistent goalies in the league over the last decade and it was easy to become attached to Huet for his play during the team’s incredible finish to the season. Despite this, George McPhee and the rest of the Capitals’ front office made the right decision when they elected to bring in Theodore, for two reasons.

The first is that Huet and his agent were apparently jerking the Capitals around during the negotiation sessions:

[McPhee] said the Caps started at the 3 years/$3.7 million and Huet’s camp started at 3 years/$5 million. McPhee said the Caps came up to $4.3 and then $4.6 and finally to $5 million per season, but Bartlett/Huet decided they wanted to test the market.

Other reports indicate that once Huet received his four-year, 22 million dollar contract offer from Chicago he and his agent came back and asked the Capitals to match, which the Capitals declined to do. Although the case could be made that Huet would have been worth the $5.6 million per year he’s getting from Chicago, there’s no reason to assume Huet and his agent were negotiating in good faith at the point they asked the Capitals to match. After all, Huet was given the contract he asked for, chose walk anyway, and then came back essentially asking the Capitals to engage in a bidding war with the Blackhawks. If the Capitals had matched Chicago’s offer why would it be more reasonable to assume Huet would have signed, rather than go back to Chicago’s management and asked for more? If this happens, the risk increases that Theodore signs elsewhere and leaves the Capitals no choice but to vastly overpay for Huet or sign a second-tier free agent like Ty Conklin, Alex Auld or Ray Emery.

The second is that the signing of Theodore to replace Huet may actually make the team better. The point of personnel decisions in professional sports isn’t to get the best player or the biggest name player and it’s definitely not to fall in love with, and overpay for, a player who played well for your team during a two month stretch. Rather, it’s to maximize a somewhat abstract characteristic that could be referred to as “ability to win games at an [NHL, MLB, NFL, etc] level”, “team competitiveness at a high level” or something of the like subject to any given constraints (in the case of the Capitals for 2008-09, that would be the 56.7 million dollar salary cap).

The dollar amount, and hence cap space, the Capitals have freed up by signing Theodore rather than Huet is not insignificant. For each of the next two years, Theodore’s cap hit will be 1.1 million dollars lower than Huet’s, an amount that personnel-wise translates into a valuable depth player like Matt Bradley ($1.1 million), Donald Brashear ($1.2 million), Boyd Gordon ($650,000 in 2007-08) or Milan Jurcina ($912,000) or the majority of a cap hit for a rookie (for example, Karl Alzner’s cap number in 2008-09 will be $1.675 million). Given the Capitals’ current cap-crunch, it could be the difference between retaining Shaone Morrisonn, Brooks Laich and Sergei Fedorov and having to let one of them walk. Three and four years out, when Huet will be 36 and 37 years old, the $5.6 million in salary cap space saved by the Capitals can be used to help finance extensions for Alexander Semin and Nicklas Backstrom. Assuming the Capitals manage their assets well (and recent history suggests they will), Theodore at $4.5 million for two years is better than Huet at $5.6 million over four year both in the short term and long term.

It may very well be the case that Huet is a better player than Theodore, but Theodore is the better signing.

Capitals 2, Maple Leafs 3

It’s nice to beat the best team in the Conference in their own building, but it’s hard to feel too good or build too much momentum when you come back and lose to the 12th ranked ream in your own building.

Capitals fans are of course keenly aware of this and the wake has led to a lot of scapegoating. Here’s who’s being blamed:

Olaf Kolzig. Who knew Capitals fans were of such a “what have you done for me lately” variety? Kolzig has become the number one scapegoat for the team this season and while I think that he certainly has not played all that well he deserves better than what some fans want, including one who wanted him sent to the AHL in order to “make a statement” (note: for Kolzig to be sent to the AHL he would have to clear waivers, which is unlikely to happen. Kolzig, a class act for many, many years would likely be lost on waivers to essentially punish him for being human and having his skills decline with age and would simply be a classless act, and a P.R. disaster, for the organization). The numbers suggest Kolzig can’t play every night at his age - he put up save percentages of .860 or so in December and January when Bruce Boudreau was riding him heavily but had a .922 save percentage in February once Brent Johnson started to see more playing time. Kolzig is fine as a backup. As for last night - he wasn’t exactly a sieve but the Mats Sundin goal should have been stopped - a shot with no traffic and from that angle always should be.

Bruce Boudreau. I’ve seen more than one person suggest Boudreau should have started Cristobal Huet last night rather than Kolzig. That criticism has some merit, but given how Olie had been playing of late and the fact that the Caps were playing on back-to-back days, in different cities, it was not unreasonable to play Kolzig last night.

George McPhee. Huh? Yeah, doesn’t make enough sense, but I’ve seen people doing it, faulting McPhee for letting Kolzig play (not his decision), picking up Fedorov (who was fine) and failing to pick up a better defenseman at the trade deadline. I have to this: anyone who thinks McPhee is doing a poor job either (1) is taking their cues on the difficult of being a GM from a video game (2) is looking for reasons to be grumpy and be upset at McPhee because they’ve been scapegoating him for so long and/or (3) has no appreciation for how difficult it is to be a general manager in the NHL. I’m sure there are constructive arguments that can be made criticism McPhee’s ability as a GM…but I haven’t heard any yet.

Ted Leonsis. Another head-scratcher to me, but there are people faulting him for the fact that Olie got the start…because we all know it’d be better to have an over-involved Dan Snyder or Peter Angelos type owner, right?

Tomas Fleischmann and Alexander Semin both missed good chances last night.

Team Effort. This seem to be the go-to excuse any time a team loses a hockey game, but the fact that it’s the once Boudreau cited makes it carry a little more weight in my mind. Still, although I think the Capitals effort could have been better for portions of the second period, yet I don’t think it cost them the game.

The Powerplay. The Caps were 0-5 with the man advantage and it seemed like the Leafs actually gained momentum by taking penalties and killing them off.

That there are many suggested causes (scapegoats?) for this loss leads me to think it was a case of “just not enough”. The Capitals offense just couldn’t quite convert on their chances, the defense just couldn’t quite bottle the Leafs attack and Olaf Kolzig wasn’t quite good enough to pick up his teammates. No one was terrible, but a lot of guys were mediocre and when no one steps up and carries the team on their shoulders, that’s just not enough to win.

Despite warnings that he might not be terribly active at the deadline Capitals general manager George McPhee made three trades this afternoon, while still holding keeping his word that he wouldn’t give up too much in the way of players or picks.

As a primer, here’s an breakdown of the changes the Capitals made:

Acquired:
Matt Cooke
Sergei Fedorov
Cristobal Huet

Shipped Out:
2009 2nd round draft pick
Matt Pettinger
Rights to Ted Ruth

At face value, the Capitals look much improved. But are these moves really going to help the team as much as it seems like they should on paper? To answer, let’s take a look at each trade individually.

A 2nd round draft pick in 2009 to the Montreal Canadiens for Cristobal Huet

Initial Reaction: Wow. Shocking for a few reasons: Huet wasn’t supposed to be moved, the Caps are apparently willing to spell Olaf Kolzig as their starting goalie, and it’s odd that Huet was had for only a second round pick.

Pros
(1) Cristobal Huet is a good goalie. Really good. Like top ten in the NHL good.
(2) Huet’s save percentage is .916
(3) Olaf Kolzig’s save percentage is .888
(4) Brent Johnson’s save percentage is .908
(5) Acquiring Huet now gives the Caps a chance to show off their young talented core to him and gives them the jump on negotiating a contract with the free-agent-to-be.
(6) He only cost a second round pick.
(7) Coming from le bleu, blanc et rouge of Montreal, Huet’s pads already match the Capitals’ uniforms.

Cons
(1) Huet is still a free agent come July 1.
(2) How will Kolzig handle his demotion?
(3) Kolzig deserved better. I’m not saying the Capitals shouldn’t have made this trade, but it is unfortunate for Olie the way this season has played out.

Grade: A. The Capitals addressed their biggest weakness even if it meant possibly offending a portion of their fan base, picked up a very good player and have a chance to build with this move if they can re-sign Huet. No other goalie nearly this good was available and it only cost the Capitals a second round pick.

The rights to Ted Ruth for Sergei Fedorov

Intial Reaction: Again a surprise. Not that Fedorov was moved, but that the Capitals were able to pick him up. Who’s Ted Ruth?

Pros
(1) Fedorov is an offensively skilled center who can hopefully fill Michael Nylander’s shoes.
(2) Ted Ruth is far from a blue-chip prospect.
(3) Fedorov seems a good fit for the Capitals second line since he’s historically a good defensive center, gives Alexander Semin a Russian countryman to work with and has undeniable offensive talent.
(4) Fedorov has played 1178 NHL games, 162 NHL playoff games and won three Stanley Cups. That’s the kind of veteran presence you want when you’re making a playoff push.
(5) Fedorov’s contract expires after this season.

Cons
(1) Fedorov has become too lazy too often in recent years.

Grade: A-. Fedorov is a great pick up for the Capitals second line because he not only has offensive skill but because he is a two-time Selke winner who speaks Semin’s language (literally).

Matt Pettinger for Matt Cooke

Initial Reaction: A fair trade and a solid pickup for a player (Pettinger) who needed a change of scenery.

Pros
(1) Matt Cooke is a solid defensive player.
(2) Pettinger couldn’t seem to get things going in D.C. this year, so maybe a new locale will help.
(3) Cooke provides grit and agitation skills, something the Caps could use a little more of.

Cons
(1) Pettinger has more offensive upside than Cooke.
(2) At 27, Pettinger is two years younger than Cooke.

Grade: B. Simply a good, fair trade that will probably benefit both teams in the end.

Aggregate Grade: B+ A-*. To me, these trades are even better than they initially look because each player has some advantage beyond their playing skill: that the Caps can start negotiations with Huet for the future earlier than anyone else, Fedorov’s experience and potential to mesh well with Semin and Cooke’s agitation tendencies. The Capitals filled two of their biggest holes with the acquisition of Fedorov and Huet and didn’t give up a whole lot doing it and for the trades that were made I’d give them an A/A-. However there were two notables non moves: the failure to trade for a big, mean stay-at-home defenseman and the decision to hold on to Steve Eminger. Perhaps they were the best decisions because perhaps the Capitals couldn’t get a stay-at-home defender for what they were willing to give up and perhaps they didn’t get any decent offers for Eminger. But those non-moves keep this deadline from being a complete success…although the team came much closer than anyone could have expected.

*Okay, Mark, you convinced me!

With the trade deadline less than twenty-four hours away, talk around the NHL has (understandably) been focused on trades. The same is true in the nation’s capital where, for the first time in recent memory, the Capitals are not sellers at the deadline. But does that make them buyers?

Not necessarily. George McPhee has said that he may try and bolster the Capitals depth if he can acquire a player he thinks is worthwhile without giving up too much in the way of assets, be them players for future draft picks. While McPhee certainly has his supporters in this approach, there are more than a couple playoff-hungry Capitals fan who want to see McPhee make a big move to help lock up a playoff spot, and the names Brad Richards and Adam Foote are popping up way more than they should (which is to say, more than just in passing).

To understand my, and I suppose McPhee’s, aversion to making a big trade at the current deadline you have to look at the NHL’s general managers, the frameworks they use and what it takes to be successful versus what usually ends up with the GM getting the boot and a franchise in disrepair.

The best-run NHL organizations have one underlying factor: the interests of the general manager are aligned with the interests of the franchise in the long run. When this is the case a GM can make decisions with the long-term heath and competitiveness of the club in mind which, if the GM is decent at his job, means holding on to high draft picks and prospects while refraining from making unnecessary trades involving headline-grabbing names and overpaying for free agents. Provided such an organization is not hit by injuries and does a halfway decent job of drafting, it should remain competitive year in and year out, while still retaining a deep enough prospect pool that they can make a landscape-changing deal when they need it. Examples of such organizations in recent years include the Ottawa Senators, the Buffalo Sabres and the Montreal Canadiens.

The antithesis of these organizations are those that have general managers who are influenced by something other than the best interests of their team, be it a clamoring fan base, intense media scrutiny or an overbearing owner. These situations almost inevitably breed failure, as GMs continually look for the all-but-unattainable: a solution that will fix all their problems and in readily available (a combination of “fix-all” and “quick-fix”). The results are ugly as teams wind up mortgaging their future, oftentimes to get only marginally better. Caps fans don’t need to look at further than Southeast rival Atlanta and Caps Blue Line’s least favorite currently-employed GM, Don Waddell to find an example for how easily things can go awry for an organization in this situation. Another recent example would be John Ferguson Jr.’s tenure in Toronto.

General managers like Waddell and Ferguson only win as a happy accident and subsequently simply do not win consistently. Rather than being the ones who steer their teams to glory, these GMs are the ones who are taken advantage of by their more savvy peers. As an aside, Paul Holmgrin, in Philadelphia, has proven quite adept at this, taking advantage of David Poile and Craig Leopold’s initial drive to make noise in the playoffs and then to cut costs in Nashville, Waddell’s desperation to make the playoffs and keep his job and Kevin Lowe’s general insanity and embarrassment at not signing Ryan Smyth. Holmgrin was in turn able to spin (1) Peter Forsberg for Ryan Parent, Scottie Upshall, a 1st round pick and a 3rd round pick (2) Alexei Zhitnik for Braydon Coburn (3) Joni Pitkanen, Geoff Sanderson and a 3rd round pick for Jason Smith and Joffrey Lupul and (4) a 1st round pick for Kimmo Timonen and Scott Hartnell.

Back to the matter at hand: this is why I think McPhee has the right approach. I’d rather the Capitals organization be talked about the way Buffalo or Ottawa has been in recent years, not the way Atlanta and Toronto are.

With the NHL trade deadline (February 26th) less than a week ago and the league’s general managers meeting in Florida, trade speculation is ramping up around the league and will probably only grow more rampant now that armchair GMs won’t have the fun of guessing what team Peter Forsberg is coming back to (the answer: none). For Capitals fans it’s nice to a buyer, rather than a seller, for the first time in five years. So then, Caps fans, let’s take a look at what the Capitals might look to do at the deadline.

Acquire a top six forward

This is probably the most obvious need the Capitals have right now, and has been ever since it was announced Michael Nylander would miss the remainder of this season with shoulder surgery. The top six caliber forwards the Capitals do have are solid: Alexander Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, Viktor Kozlov, Alexander Semin and Tomas Fleischmann (as a number six forward and provided he continues to play as he has of late). However, Backstrom is the lone natural center, both Semin and Fleischmann have been inconsistent this year, and the group as a whole doesn’t have as much grit or defensive acumen as a coach or general manager would want. It’s not essential for the Capitals to get a center, since Kozlov can play the position, but it would be ideal. It’s also not impossible that Eric Fehr or Matt Pettinger could step up their play and solidify the top two lines for the rest of this season.

The Capitals also have to take Chris Clark’s condition into consideration. If he’s able to come back, the winger has exactly what the Caps are looking for: grit, hustle, defensive play, leadership and the ability to chip in on offense. If Clark can successfully come back from his groin injury this season, the Capitals would get a boost similar to making a deadline deal, only without having to give up anything. Other options include Darcy Tucker, Martin Lapointe and Michael Ryder. Olli Jokinen and Patrick Marleau are the cream of the crop, but the Capitals won’t want to pay the price necessary to get either of them.

Prediction: I think the Caps will stand pat with their forwards for several reasons: they have options in Fehr, Pettinger and Chris Bourque, they’re still hoping to get Clark back, and almost every team in the league is looking for secondary scoring right now, so price of legitimate top six forwards is probably going to be much higher than what the Capitals want to offer.

Acquire a stay-at-home defenseman

While a top six forward may be the Caps most obvious need, this is their most pressing one. When the Capitals are healthy they have a deceptively strong defense corps, the only problem is that most of their better defenders are offensively oriented: Tom Poti, Mike Green and Brian Pothier are all better on the attack that they are in their own end. On the other end the Caps’ defensive defensemen, Milan Jurcina, Jeff Schultz and John Erskine, all have significant holes in their games. Erskine lack skating ability (particularly agility) and puck handling skills, Schultz is not as physical as you’d like a stay-at-home defender to be and Jurcina is maddeningly inconsistent. Shaone Morrisonn is a very good stay-at-home bluelier but he can’t carry the load himself. The Capitals would certainly benefit from another defenseman who could anchor the penalty kill and match up against other team’s top forwards.

The cream of the crop among potentially available stay-at-home types is Adam Foote, but the Blue Jackets seem like they’ll only move their captain for the right offer and since the Capitals probably don’t want to give up too much, it’s unlikely they’d be able to pry him away. There are, however, several other solid options, including fellow Blue Jacket Ron Hainsey, Minnesota’s Nick Schultz, Florida’s Branislav Mezei, and Los Angeles’ Brad Stuart. Rob Blake is not a realistic option, as he’d both be expensive and unlikely to waive his no-trade clause for a trade to a team as far to the east as Washington.

Prediction: The Caps will make a move here. Between players and picks they can dangle, the need to upgrade their blue line and the relatively low price for defensively minded defensemen, McPhee will be able to pick up a player. My money is on a team that would be interested in what the Capitals can give up, young talent and draft picks, so I think Hainsey, Stuart and Schultz, are the most likely in that order.

Which Caps are on the block?

The two most obvious are Steve Eminger and Matt Pettinger, both of whom have underperformed this season yet are young and talented enough that they could turn things around and be productive NHL players in the coming years. The Capitals depth defensemen (Jurcina and Erskine) could also be had in the right deal, since given that 29 of the 30 teams in the NHL are within eight points or less of a playoff spot there will be a high demand for players who can play in the NHL right now, even if it’s in a supporting role. Draft picks are also available, given the depth the Capitals have in their organization right now. I wouldn’t bank on McPhee letting go of any first rounders but a second rounder (or two) could be thrown in if it’s what it takes for the Capitals to get their man.

Broader Prediction: McPhee makes two trades. In one the Capitals acquire a defenseman for Steve Eminger and either a second round pick or Matt Pettinger. In the other McPhee trades either John Erskine or Milan Jurcina for a mid-round (third-fifth round) draft pick.

I’d Like to See: (1) The Caps refrain from picking up a forward unless it can be done on the cheap because otherwise the cost would far exceed the benefit, (2) make a strong push for Nick Schultz who I think is underrated and will come ever cheaper because he is an unrestricted free agent come July and (3) make a trade for an enforcer who can hold his own in the NHL should Donald Brashear get injured. Candidates for this include Kip Brennan, B.J. Crombeen, Ryan Flinn, Darryl Bootland and Peter Vandermeer.

McPhee on the Ovechkin Extension: “Of course we f*ckin’ signed him. We’re not idiots”.

Okay, I made that quote up. But isn’t that what this picture seems to say?

The Capitals are struggling mightily and their fans are (reasonably) upset and calling for either Glen Hanlon or George McPhee (or both) to be ousted. As I’ve mentioned before, I think it would be appropriate to fire Hanlon. It pains me to say so because I respect what he’s done for the organization over the last couple years, but it’s becoming increasingly clear that he is not the right coach for this team right now.

But I don’t think McPhee deserves the boot.

If you’re consider a coaching or management change you have to go beyond the knee-jerk reactions I think many people may be having, which take two forms: (1) “Well the team is struggling, it must be the [coach, GM, owner]’s fault, get rid of them!” or (2) “The team is struggling and I’m pissed off and I want blood, damn it!” Each reaction is understandable and to an extent warranted, but if you’re going to make a change I think you have to go beyond these reactions and consider the situation more carefully. That’s what I did with Hanlon and that’s what I did with McPhee that led me to this conclusion.

What I’m going to do to make my case is lay what I think were crucial periods for the Capitals and how McPhee responded to them.

I. Initial Success
II. Two Bad Decisions
III. The Fire Sale
IV. The Rebuild and the Draft
V. Trades
VI. Summer of 2007

I. Initial Success

The Capitals started well under McPhee, who took the helm at the start of the 1997-98 season, which ended in a Stanly Cup Finals loss to Detroit. Critics here say that this wasn’t McPhee’s team; it was David Poile’s and I think that is a fair assessment. Following a Stanly Cup run hangover in 1998-99, the team won its division in both the 1999-2000 and 2000-01 seasons.

II. Two Bad Decisions

I think most Capitals fan would agree that the reasons this team crashed and burned were twofold. One was the signing of Jaormir Jagr to that ridiculous contract for $77 million over 7 years. The other was the hiring of Bruce Cassidy as the head coach. Either of these would be enough to put a GM on the hot seat and both should be automatic grounds for dismissal. So why does McPhee still have his job and why do I think he deserves it?. Simple. The overwhelming impression given to Caps fans was that each was move was a brainchild of owner Ted Leonsis.

It’s generally accepted Leonsis wanted to ink Jagr to huge extension as an effort to make a splash and garner more support for the team. If I remember correctly Leonsis boasted after the signing that Jagr would retire as a Capital and we heard a lot about the season ticket base expanding. As for Cassidy, his hiring was directly inspired by the job Paul Maurice had done with Hurricanes, taking them on a run to the Cup finals in 2001. Cassidy was supposed to be a coach in the Maurice mold - young, hip, play-friendly and decidedly different from defense-oriented taskmaster Ron Wilson.

Of course the Jagr contract became an albatross (even more so with the labor uncertainty surrounding the NHL in the next couple years), even while enshrined Jagr as the franchise cornerstone and hence lead to other bad signings (most notably Robert Lang). Meanwhile Bruce Cassidy turned out to be a world-class S.O.B.

After these failures McPhee was instructed by Leonsis to tear down and rebuild, resulting in….

III. The Fire Sale

Capitals fans remember the names that were shipped out well: Jagr, Lang, Peter Bondra, Sergei Gonchar, Brendan Witt, Michael Nylander. Fire sales are tricky, especially this variety. McPhee was ordered to tear down the team mid-season (giving him less time to search for buyers) and had to do it amidst labor unrest, as the CBA was soon to expire (making it hard to deal vets with big contract like Lang and Jagr). Given that, I think he did well, amassing the following: Jared Aulin, Kris Beech, Shaone Morrisonn, Brooks Laich, Tomas Fleischmann, three first round picks, three second round picks and a fourth round pick.

What else is there to say? It is what it is and all things considered I think McPhee did a good job.

IV. The Rebuild and the Draft

Caps draft history available here.

I decided to combine these sections because they are, in large part, on and the same. Let me preface this by saying that how much of draft success and failure is because of skill on the GM’s part and how much is because of skill on the scouts’ part is up for debate and can vary widely. That said, I think McPhee has done fine, picking players like Fehr, Eminger, Semin, Schultz, Green, Backstrom, Varlamov, Bouchard, Neuvirth and Bourque (and Ovechkin, but he doesn’t count because, c’mon, that was a slam dunk). Not all of those guys are going to be great NHL players or even have sustained NHL careers. But looking at this it’s hard to say that the Capitals haven’t been getting useful players from the draft, or to say they haven’t built up depth amongst their prospects. And yes they’re all first and second round picks. But the reality is that it’s very rare to get a productive NHL-caliber player past those first two rounds, especially these days. When it happens it’s just as much luck as anything else.

There’s always one argument I hate and it goes something like “[General Manager’s Name] is horrible! Look at [draft year], he drafted [Player A] when he could have had [Player B]”. In some instances this is fair. For example I think saying “McPhee should have picked Ryan Getzlaf over Eric Fehr” is reasonable, even though Fehr’s effectiveness has been limited by his compressed nerve. When it bugs me is when people say something like: “We passed on Pavel Datsyuk in 1998! How could we do that?” because every team passed on Datsyuk. Several times. Credit where credit is due - the Red Wings made a great pick when the drafted Datsyuk. But it’s not like any of the other 27 teams knew how good Datsyuk was going to be in 1998, so it isn’t fair to vilify any one GM for passing on him. The fact is that with almost every pick in every draft you can look at it and find guys who “should” have been picked instead, that’s the way it goes for any general manager.

To demonstrate this I’ve done the following: I decided to chose a high, but not top-10 draft spot and look at who was, and who should have been, picked there. I chose the 20th overall pick, when most of the top prospects were off the board but still early on that there theoretically shouldn’t be that much luck to it. The drafts I chose to look at were 1997-2001, as these are the ones I think most people will have familiarity with that can be looked at using the conventional rule-of-thumb to wait at least five seasons before evaluating a draft class.

1997: Mike Brown (Florida). Picked ahead of: Scott Hannan (23), Brendan Morrow (25), Ben Clymer (27), Kristian Huselius (45), Henrik Tallinder (48), Maxim Afinogenov (69), Mike York (136), Brian Campbell (156), Ladislav Nagy (177)

1998: Scott Parker (Colorado). Potential better picks: Simon Gagne (22), Scott Gomez (27), Jonathon Cheechoo (29), Mike Fischer (44), Mike Ribeiro (45), Brad Richards (64), Erik Cole (71), Brian Gionta (82), Shawn Horcoff (99), Pavel Datsyuk (141), Michael Ryder (216).

1999: Barrett Heisten (Buffalo). Better picks: Nick Boynton (21), Martin Havlat (26), Mike Commodore (41), Jordan Leopold (44), Adam Hall (52), Niklas Hagman (70), Niclas Havelid (83), Mike Comrie (91), Martin Erat (191), Henrik Zetterberg (210).

2000: Alexander Frolov (Los Angeles). I picked a number (20th overall) at random and went with it. Honestly I think Frolov was the best player available at this point in the draft.

2001: Marcel Goc (San Jose). Potential better picks: Derek Roy (32), Fedor Tyutin (40), Mike Cammalleri (49), Jason Pominville (55), Tomas Plekanec (71), Jussi Jokinen (192).

So what’s my point? Everyone misses players, everyone makes picks that don’t work out. That is the nature of the draft

Go back to 1998, McPhee’s first draft after having been with the team for a year and look at his first and second round picks. Some have failed (Jomar Cruz, anyone?) but for the most part if you take out the guys who either look like good prospects, have proven themselves to be quality players or who have had unforeseen injury issues, how many busts are there? Not a lot. And that’s really all you can ask a GM to do in the draft after the first ten picks or so - pick up quality players and not waste your picks.

Of course, I don’t think the draft is a great indicator of skill for a GM. As an aside, who knows who the Caps would have drafted if they’d had a top 4 pick in 2005 like they should have had (they tied for fewest points in 2003-04). The top four picks in the draft that year were Crosby, Bobby Ryan, Jack Johnson and Benoit Pouliot. Gilbert Brule, Marc Staal and Anze Kopitar would have been available. Instead the Caps wound up with the 14th pick and Sasha Pokulok. Nothing against Pokulok, but the I’d rather have one of those other guys. Like the Caps should have had. You know, teams could only move 3 spots in the regular lottery, why not have the same rule for the post-lockout weighted lottery?

V. Trades

Okay, not a time period but an important part of the GM’s job nonetheless.

I really like what McPhee has done in the trade market. As bad as the Jagr extension was I still maintain the trade for him was not a bad move, given that the Capitals picked him up for Kris Beech, Michal Sivek and Ross Lupaschuk. The best offensive player in the league at that point for three guys who never amounted to anything in the NHL. That’s a good trade.

• Adam Oates to the Flyers for 14 games in return for Maxime Ouellet and one pick in each of the first three rounds in the draft - good trade, even though Ouellet never amounted to anything.
• Chris Clark was acquired for, I believe, either a third or fourth round pick. Also a good trade.
• Milan Jurcina for a fourth round pick. A good trade unless the Bruins get real lucky with that pick.
• Brian Sutherby for a second round pick is a good trade. I like Suts but he wasn’t going to play here.

VI. Summer of 2007

I bring this up to make one last point: going in the offseason the Capitals needed to fill three holes: a center who could play on the top two lines, a defenseman who could skate a lot of minutes and another top six forward, preferably a right wing. He filled all those holes quite well with Nylander, Poti and Kozlov, especially given the money available and the general low desirability of Washington for free agents.

My goal is not to exclude McPhee from criticism. Steve Konowalchuk shipping off for Jonas Johansson and Bates Battaglia wasn’t a great move. Failing to sign Nick Boynton was a huge mistake (although it was almost ten years ago). I know that; McPhee probably knows it as well. But any GM is going to make mistakes.

So in closing then I guess I’d just have to say, where has McPhee gone so horribly wrong that he deserves to lose his job? After the Jagr/Cassidy fiasco Leonsis told McPhee to tear everything down and start over, which he did. He hasn’t made horrible picks or horrible trades and hasn’t signed any free agents that are going to be albatrosses for this organization. There’s really nothing you can point at and say it was a mistake and that someone else could have been reasonably expected to do it better.

The Bottom Line: McPhee’s had to try and rebuild this organization from scratch and the reality is that takes longer than three years. To expect anything else is to be unrealistic, thus it doesn’t make sense to look at the Capitals current problems and automatically decide it’s time to fire the GM. To me, once you look deeper, there’s nothing to point at to show McPhee needs to go.