The Capitals Cannot Let The Past Dictate Their Future

The Washington Capitals are in a tough spot these days. It seems like forever ago that this team was celebrating by lifting the Stanley Cup over their heads. In sports terms, it kind of was forever ago. Five years is a long time in sports. That amount of time is a third of someone’s career, if they are even lucky enough to have a long fifteen year career.

In that five years the Capitals have not had a lot of success. They have four first round exits, a couple of those exits were very uninspiring. They have now followed up those four first round losses by not even making the playoffs. While it is not official, it is only a matter of time before the Capitals will officially be eliminated from playoff contention.

Now the Capitals have to ask themselves, “What do we do now?”. The Capitals need to sit back this offseason, look at this roster, look at this leadership group and decide if they want to continue running into a brick wall with these guys, or make a big move or more than one big move.

There are at least three guys that you need to look at on this roster and make the incredibly tough decision on. The easy to see one is Evgeny Kuznetsov.

Enough words have been said about Kuznetsov. If you have followed me long enough you will know or remember I consider this guy to be a potential top ten NHL player. At the end of the day he clearly does not want to be that based on the effort he gives almost every game. He is paid handsomely to be a great player. He is paid to be a top player on this team and he simply does not give enough every night.

This Capitals team could use more and more cap room. This one is easy. I would argue the Caps should have tried to move on from this guy a few seasons ago. Now, based on this seasons performance, both team and individual wise, it’s time to move on for both parties.

What about T.J. Oshie? When healthy there is not a lot of Capitals you can rely on more than number seventy-seven. The problem is, he is never healthy. Even when he is healthy enough to play he is likely playing with a knock.

Oshie is 36-years-old right now and will be 37 in the middle of next season. Call me crazy, I doubt the injury issues get better for this guy going forward. He is still pretty productive, but that is why you could argue the Capitals should try to move him and get something for him while he has value.

He has scored 19 goals in 58 games played this season. He has also registered 16 assists for a total of 35 points. That is pretty good production for someone who should probably be a good piece for a contender. But to me, he is someone that you cannot rely on to be a main piece anymore thanks to his age and injury history.

Oshie’s $5.75m cap hit, in my opinion, could possibly be used for other players. To help change the identity of this team. Or help give this team any sort of identity seeing as they don’t have one. Other than being older and expensive.

This last one is the hardest. Nicklas Backstrom. Even saying the name you will have most people scoff at the idea. But you need to look at the facts from now, and not look at the past. Backstrom is 35-years-old, he clearly does not look like the guy Capitals fans know and love, and he is a very expensive player having a $9.2m cap hit for two more seasons.

There is a lot of people who think that Backstrom should retire a Washington Capital. You have a right to think that way. But even some of the most legendary players in this league have not had the opportunity to play for just one team in their career. The obvious one being Wayne Gretzky.

Who are some others who were legends on their teams and didn’t get to finish their careers on that team. Well, as a San Jose Sharks fan I can tell you the Sharks saw four players in successive years leave. First was Patrick Marleau, then it was Joe Pavelski, then Joe Thornton, and finally Brent Burns. All were adored by Sharks fans, but all realizing it was time to move on, at least for most of them.

Daniel Alfredsson didn’t finish his career in Ottawa. Patrick Kane is now a New York Ranger. Jerome Iginla didn’t stay with Calgary for his entire career. There are plenty of examples of this. Go look and you will find a lot of these situations.

Will it hurt to potentially see Backstrom with another team? Yes. But, as brutal as it can be, sports is a business. The Capitals as a franchise were around long before Backstrom and they will, hopefully, be around long after Backstrom. They need to think about the time after him right now.

This is still a move you may not need to make anyways, especially if you can move the other two players we talked about here. If you can move one or two other more expensive, older players, then this contract may not be quite as bad. That way you can also use Backstrom’s experience and leadership on this team. Assuming that is a good thing.

At the end of the day the argument is simply this. The Capitals need to think about the future, now more than ever. Building this team based on the past is not a good idea. You can’t look at what some of these Capitals players have done in the past and keep holding on to them. They’re getting older. They’re getting less valuable.

I would argue they have already held on to some players for too long. As a result it has led to nothing happening come playoff time. Teams around the Capitals are getting younger and better. The Caps are getting older and worse.

The Capitals cannot keep looking at a guy like Kuznetsov and see he put up 83 points and 32 points in 24 playoff games in 2017-18. That was then. What has he done lately? The fact is, now he is thirty, soon to be thirty-one, and on most nights you cannot find him on the ice.

Oshie is older and seemingly always banged up now. He has been a great player for you, he sounds like  one of the very best guys you could meet. But I don’t think you can rely on someone who gets dinged up as much as he does, especially at his age.

You cannot look at Backstrom and say he has been a great player in the past, which means he deserves a spot for the future. That’s not how good business works. In the past two seasons he has played in 81 games and he has a total of 12 goals. That would be tied for a career low if it was one full season. In these last two years he has also scored 49 points. In a full season that would easily be a career low. In these past two seasons he is also a -29. Not the best stat to look at, but not meaningless at the same time.

Again, you can’t look at 2009-10 when he scored over one hundred points. You cannot look at 2013-2019. It is not those years anymore. He is older and he is coming off hip surgery. At a $9.2m cap hit is it worth going forward with him now?

You cannot look at your key players and continue to give them opportunities based on what they did in the past. They have shown all of us now for five years they are not getting it done. This is a leadership group that since 2015 has gotten past the second round once. This is a leadership group that since they finally did get past the second round and finally won the Cup in 2018 has failed to win one single round in five years and now will miss the playoffs altogether.

It’s time to think about the future. Leave the past in the past. This is a Capitals team that has proven they need change. It’s time to change.