NHL 2021 Irregular Season and Plagueoffs

Wonder if this will change anything with the Canadian government and their vaccine rollout. Feel bad for these guys.

I’m gonna be so pissed if Seattle signs Hall this summer.

Thank goodness Caps were playing Jersey today. 8-0-0 against them for the season.

Denamian said:

Who were those guys wearing the Wings uniforms today? I want to see more of that.

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TB's backup goalie situation is rough! Good on Detroit for coming out swinging.

Denamian said:

It was a rare win for Greiss. He has been a bit of a disappointment, but we can't seem to score for shit when he is in net either.

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Ya he has been big time. I thought that was a great signing for the Wings buts hes been terrible. Happy for Bernier though having a great season, hope hes back soon.

I was so sad when we had to let Domingue go

Honestly a combination of bad puck luck and Detroits goalie making some amazing saves.

On another note I feel confident that the west has the 3 best teams in the NHL right now.

MIN looks absolutely spectacular.

Denamian said:

I figured he'd take the starting job from Bernier when we signed him, or they'd be a solid tandem at the very least. Right now Greiss is barely better than Pickard.

We really need one of our goalie prospects to pan out. After his stint in Denver, Larrson looked really good, but he fell off a cliff in Grand Rapids. Now Petruzzelli is having a really good final year at Quinnipiac, so hopefully he'll do well in Grand Rapids next season.

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Petruzzelli is a senior and unsigned. I’m a little scared he goes ufa.

Blockbuster

Always loved Conno after he won the Cup with us. Had a really good first year in Florida, but was struggling this season from what I read. Hope he can find his form again.

Merrith said:

Always loved Conno after he won the Cup with us. Had a really good first year in Florida, but was struggling this season from what I read. Hope he can find his form again.

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Jesus fuck, seeing his name made me go searching through the archives. Discounting Cal Foote who was their first rounder in 2017, you know who the last Lightning first rounder is that's still on the team? Vasilevskiy in 2012 and then Hedman in 2009. Granted those two are, ya know, pretty fucking good... but still. They've traded a chunk of them away -- 2015, 2018, and 2020 -- and it's easy to argue that the success has been worth it.

Fadaar said:

Jesus fuck, seeing his name made me go searching through the archives. Discounting Cal Foote who was their first rounder in 2017, you know who the last Lightning first rounder is that's still on the team? Vasilevskiy in 2012 and then Hedman in 2009. Granted those two are, ya know, pretty fucking good... but still. They've traded a chunk of them away -- 2015, 2018, and 2020 -- and it's easy to argue that the success has been worth it.

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That's actually crazy. If you guys hadn't found so many gems in mid rounds or later who knows. It's crazy because the Capitals main success in drafting is that we've picked usually in the back end of the 1st round for the last decade plus (with a few exceptions), but have been able to find productive players there time and again.

2006 - #23 Semyon Varlamov (Isles current starter)
2008 - #27 John Carlson
2009 - #24 Marcus Johannson (with us for a long time, was part of Boston's run to the Finals in 2019 a well)
2010 - #26 Evgeny Kuznetsov
2012 - #16 Tom Wilson (also Forsberg at #11 that year with the 1st we got in the Varlamov trade...who we later handed to Nashville on a platter for Erat)
2013 - #23 Andre Burakovsky
2014 - #13 Jakub Vrana
2015 - #22 Ilya Samsonov

Jury still out on Samsonov, and some good potential from our last 3 1st round picks which were all #22 or later, but it's pretty much allowed us to keep building our our core for this long.

Meant to clarify -- when I say "traded a chunk of them away" that's just the picks themselves, not players. So they didn't have a 1st round in 15/18/20. All first rounders (including Koekkoek who they took BEFORE Vasy in 2012) from 2010, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2016, and 2019 are gone. Lordy.

But yes agree on the mid round talent. Point in 2014 3rd round and Cirelli 2015 3rd round? Both top tier players.

Fadaar said:

Meant to clarify -- when I say "traded a chunk of them away" that's just the picks themselves, not players. So they didn't have a 1st round in 15/18/20. All first rounders (including Koekkoek who they took BEFORE Vasy in 2012) from 2010, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2016, and 2019 are gone. Lordy.

But yes agree on the mid round talent. Point in 2014 3rd round and Cirelli 2015 3rd round? Both top tier players.

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Crazy that many are gone, although I realize I was thinking of a time about 8-10 years ago when we had far more of our 1st round picks still on our own roster. Mike Green, Jeff Schultz, Eric Fehr, Alex Semin, Boyd Gordon, Steve Eminger, Karl Alzner. For awhile there Caps had something like 12-15 of our own 1st round picks on the team at the same time. Actually crazy we had three 1sts from 2002 draft all turn into NHL players, and 3 more from the Ovechkin draft in 2004.

Had some good luck with 4th round goalies with Holtby and Grubauer, although we've had some good goalie success in general.