Capitals smartly inactive in free agency

You know what will fire up a fan base?

After their Presidents’ Trophy winners lose in the first round of the playoffs to an eighth seed, the general manager of the team tells the fan base just before the beginning of free agency that the team is in a ”great position” heading into free agency because they already have a ”good team” – this, the same team that lost in the first round of the playoffs – and that they’ll be relying heavily on young players to fill key needs. Then, the general manager follows through with his pre-free agency words by doing nothing on the only day that teams can realistically improve their teams via free agency, while the team’s chief rival beefed up significantly.

Yup, that should do it. That should fire up the fan base.

It doesn’t sound great on the surface. The Capitals’ needs, which I outlined yesterday, are glaring, perhaps no need more glaring than the hole at second-line center. The Capitals need a centerman on the second line to maximize the abilities of Alexander Semin in the playoffs, and also need a defenseman — a good penalty killer, ideally – to take pressure off of Mike Green in the playoffs. With about $4.5 million to work with on Thursday, general manager George McPhee and the Capitals did nothing.

At first blush, it seems like my offseason fear could be playing out; that the Capitals are not making the necessary adjustments and tweaks to their roster and are instead going into hibernation for the summer behind the basic excuse that they were a much better team than the Montreal Canadiens in the first round, but got knocked out because of a hot goaltender, a poor schematic matchup with the Canadiens, and just plain bad luck.

After all, the Capitals stood pat with their roster (with a stated heavy reliance on young players in the organization who aren’t necessarily on team currently), while the Pittsburgh Penguins signed defensemen Paul Martin and Zbynek Michalek, and the New Jersey Devils signed Anton Volchenkov, arguably the top defenseman on the market.

By standing pat, the Capitals project to send out an Opening Night roster that includes Tomas Fleischmann, he whom resided in the press box during Game 7 against the Canadiens, as the second-line center. It includes 19-year-old Swede Marcus Johansson as the third-line center with Mathieu Perreault knocking on the door for a spot at a center position. And it includes big, bad John Erskine with a spot on defense.

Nope, the Capitals’ inactivity on Thursday doesn’t look good on the surface. But there’s zero reason to panic. The Capitals may very well end up better off by not doing anything in free agency, assuming they don’t end up with center Matthew Lombardi, and given Lombardi’s lofty contract demands, there’s really no reason to believe he’ll become a Capital.

Look, the Capitals had about $4.5 million to work with. Because of that, they were never going to end up with any of the prized defenseman on the market – Volchenkov, Martin, Michalek, or Dan Hamhuis (who signed with Vancouver). The Capitals can’t control what their competition does, so there’s no reason to get all wrapped up with who Pittsburgh or New Jersey signed. At best, the Capitals were going to sign one of the following centers to fill the second-line role — Matt Cullen (who went to Minnesota), Saku Koivu (stayed in Anaheim), or Lombardi. Does the fact that the Capitals didn’t land one of those three centers mean they won’t win the Stanley Cup? Of course not.

Cullen and Koivu are both on the wrong side of 30 (Cullen, 33, and Koivu, 35). Cullen (16 goals and 32 assists in 81 games last season) got three years from the Minnesota Wild at $3.5 million per season, while Koivu (19 goals and 33 assists in 71 games) re-upped with the Anaheim Ducks to the tune of two years at $2.5 million per season. The Capitals couldn’t cut a deal with Lombardi right now even if they wanted to, given his contract demands (I’m sure the 29 other teams feel the same way, seeing as he remains unsigned — although, Olli Jokinen managed a hefty contract, so I suppose anything is possible). 

Given the internal options the Capitals have at center – Fleischmann, Johansson, Perreault, and perhaps even Brooks Laich — were the Capitals getting the proper short-term upgrade in terms of value with either Cullen or Koivu, especially given that either player would leave the Capitals little room to wheel and deal at the trade deadline next March? Probably not.

While it’s a pretty risky roll of the dice to go with the Capitals’ internal options at center — especially given what we’ve seen out of Fleischmann and the inexperience of both Johansson and Perreault – it’s a gamble that makes sense. The value just wasn’t on the open market to justify shifting most of the team’s remaining cap space to a 33- or 35-year-old centerman, when significantly cheaper internal options — Fleischmann, Johansson and Perreault — if given a full season’s work, will probably come close to, or perhaps even match, the production of either Cullen or Koivu next year.

Further, the roster that won the Presidents’ Trophy last season remains largely intact save for a few minor pieces such as Brendan Morrison, Eric Belanger and Shaone Morrisonn. The concern for the Capitals is not the regular season. No matter what they did on Thursday, the Capitals were going to blow through the regular season once again, barring injuries. Of all the teams in hockey, the Capitals are probably the biggest lock to win their division and earn a top-three seed for the playoffs.

(Even if the Capitals didn’t somehow win the Southeast – say, a couple of major injuries occurred at some point – and instead, just made the playoffs, the playoff seed earned via the regular season doesn’t really matter come playoff time, as we’ve seen).

Considering the regular season is not as important to the Capitals as it may be for other teams in the League, the real deadline for the Capitals becomes the trade deadline next March — and the Capitals will have dollars to play with at that time.

What the Capitals should now focus on is beginning the process of changing their schemes and philosophies that work in the regular season to schemes and philosophies that work in the playoffs. That means fixing a penalty kill in which the penalty killers are immobile within their box, as I believe most of the penalty killing issues are more schematic than personnel-related. That also means shifting the offensive philosophy to more of a dump and chase game — I believe much of the issue against the Canadiens was Capitals’ insistence to play their fancy regular season type of game rather than shift to the gritty playoff style necessary to win the Cup. The Capitals need to play a playoff-style of offense and defense beginning on the first day of training camp — if this past April’s first round exit won’t enforce a change in philosophy, nothing will.

Come Opening Night, a few players from the Hershey Bears’ back-to-back Calder Cup teams, such as John Carlson, Karl Alzner, Andrew Gordon and Perreault, will get a prolonged look at the NHL level and will get their well-deserved chance to become a full-time part of the Capitals. Players from abroad like Johansson will get their shot, too. The Capitals should adhere to their blueprint to draft and develop their own talent. 

As the season winds towards the trade deadline and the Capitals (barring significant injuries) inevitably sit in first place in the Southeast, that’s when it will become time to re-evaluate the team. Hopefully, by then, the Capitals will have instilled new offensive and defensive philosophies. And by then, the Capitals will definitely know if their young pieces are good enough to fill what we now consider to be the team’s pressing needs. They’ll know whether Carlson and Alzner are the answer on defense and the penalty kill, and they’ll know for sure whether Fleischmann, Perreault and Johansson are good enough to fill the center positions on the second and third lines come playoff time.

If the Capitals still need help at those positions at the deadline – or at any other position that may crop up due to injuries or unexpected ineffectiveness of current players — they’ll have the cap space to swing a few deals before the playoffs, when their needs are much clearer. Maybe Johansson and Perreault turn out to be the real deal as centermen for the Capitals, while, God forbid, a key piece gets injured at the wrong time, and the Capitals end up having to get a scoring winger, of all things. Who knows? Professional sports come at you fast.

If next year’s trade deadline passes without new offensive and defensive philosophies, and without both a second-line center and legitimate penalty killer stemming from the internal options currently available or from unknown players traded to the Capitals at next year’s deadline, then Capitals fans can yell and scream at McPhee.

But as for now, they’ve already accomplished their No. 1 personnel priority. They resigned that Nicklas Backstrom guy. I hear he’s pretty good.