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Todd Cordell
As much as everyone wants to freak out about another (somewhat) early exit for the Capitals I really don't think they need to change a whole lot.
Their core of Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, Evgeny Kuznetsov and Braden Holtby, among a few others, is one of the very best in the league.
The likes of Kuznetsov, Andre Burakovsky and Dmitry Orlov are still improving, too, while T.J. Oshie and Justin Williams are fantastic complimentary pieces, for lack of a better term.
Besides decreasing Brooks Orpik's minutes and tinkering with their depth blue liners/bottom-6 forwards I don't think there's a whole lot to be done here.
As much as anything I think the Caps were simply unlucky to run into, for my money, the best team in the NHL in the 2nd round.
Jason Lewis No team is ever going to have an "Ideal" bottom line or a "perfect" bottom pair. If those players were good then they wouldn't be bottom pair or bottom line. However, Washington probably needs to invest in finding some cheap, young, and burgeoning talent for their bottom six and bottom pair. Chorney was good in the playoffs, but he's not an ideal bottom guy. Neither is Weber. Tom Wilson is not a very good bottom six forward, neither is Michael Latta (Although both young.)
Depth is really key in making deep runs, and I just felt like Washington didn't have the horses late in the year past their top players.
You could say the same for A LOT of teams. Anaheim for example, and San Jose in previous years. It is something that hurts a lot of teams and is often hard to correct given the salary cap era. You gotta go cheap, and you usually have to go internal.
Also bear in mind they played a really really good Pittsburgh team.
John Jaeckel Real simple. Upgrade the defense. Blueline play is important to both your defense and initiating your offense. The Caps lack blue-chippers on the back end. They have "good guys," but not those 25-32 minute a night (in the playoffs) horses—who can potentially take over a game—like a Doughty or a Keith or a Lidstrom— who take you to Stanley Cups.
Peter Tessier What do the Caps need to do?
Nothing major and that's what people need to understand. They had a record season, played extremely well in the post season but lost in OT in a game they were down 3-0 in. Looks like luck to me.
If there is one thing that might make sense it's to work on adding a puck-moving defensemen a bit younger if possible too. But think of this do you know what Washington's shooting percent was this post season? 5.17% only the Islanders and Blackhawks were lower. Oops for get the Flyers at 2.83%. That's from 8.33% for the Capitals from the regular season, an almost 50% drop in success yet the PDO stayed basically near 100 in both regular and post season.
IF you can trade of buy luck then the Capitals should do that but one thing is don't worry about winning the President's trophy it didn't seem to do them any favours in round 2.
James Tanner The Capitals are a good team that could easily still be playing. However, if they want to be even better, they could use a better third line centre or a more top-of-the-line defenseman.
That being said, it's a salary cap world and no team is perfect. So, sure they could add a couple guys to improve - but so could whoever ends up winning the Cup. If they enter next year with the exact same team as they currently have, they ought to be among the favorites for next year's Cup anyways.
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