I really think it's coaching (TR and his systems) but also room leadership. I think they really miss Batya and Nisky. BMGM got too cute when he traded for Jensen and Gudas to replace them. They are not half of Orpik and Niskanen in my opinion.

Yeah team defense is terrible and this team has literally no motivation. Leadership doesn’t exist atm and this coach has no balls. He’s out to lunch. We are doing this stretch passes that are so predictable and easy to defend. Sad to say they haven’t had the drive since winning the cup

The defensemen certainly have their flaws, but a big problem for the Caps defensively is that the forwards are unbelievably lazy on the back-check. Defensemen can't do much when they're outnumbered constantly.

Case in point, last night, the Flyers had a 5-2 on a slow developing rush. A 5-2. Unbelievable.

That and, Ovi reliving his "controller unplugged" moment on the Provorov goal last night.

Completely off topic. Did you notice Djoo numbers for the ducks? They just beat the best team in the western conference last night. Djoo was a +1 and played 25+minutes. How TF did we just trade this kid for Sprong and how did he not play over Jensen or Gudas. I really hate this team some days bc we make terrible decisions and give up on youth so fast

I think there were a couple factors to why we moved Djoos:

1. I think GMBM wanted to give him a shot to get NHL ice time. For better or for worse, the left side of the defense is pretty deep right now, both in the NHL and in the prospect pipeline.
2. Hershey was in pretty dire need of some offensive talent, and Sprong delivers that. Worse case is that Sprong pans out to be a fringe NHLer, but maybe we think we can get something out of him that Anaheim or Pittsburgh couldn't.
3. This is probably the most likely of scenarios: we didn't want to deal with re-signing him in the off-season this year. He got a pretty decent raise because of arbitration, and a qualifying offer would give him another raise, counting against the cap. Depending on who is on the NHL roster next season, he's still probably a 6-7D. I think we'd rather see what Fehervary or Alexeyev have there rather than Djoos.

There's also the piece where there's a lot less pressure to perform on a rebuilding team. He's getting a ton more ice time than he'd remotely get in DC in Anaheim, so he's going to be able to perform. I think the best example of this was Nick Jensen on the Red Wings versus on the Caps. There's just an ability to play with a bit less weight on your shoulders on a rebuilding squad, and Anaheim's system might just suit him better. I'm not sure Djoos fits in with the more physical style the Caps are trying to implement (sometimes too physical, like two straight games with 6+ minutes of PK in a row).

I liked Djoos in his time here, I think it's more or less an attempt to balance out the pipeline. Our organizational position of strength is LHD, and it was pretty clear that Fehervary passed Djoos on the depth chart this season. Our RW situation isn't that great in Hershey right now. Sprong came in as the leading RW scorer on the Bears, and AJF was the next highest RW (as noted on the AHL website) at 23 points in 58 games. The AHL is a high scoring league, so that's not great.

Also Hershey kinda sucks with Caps prospect development, meaning they don't seem to really care to help them as much as other AHL clubs. I wonder if BMGM was moving him out also so that the Bears had no choice but to play those who might be getting scratched too often.

What was vrana highest point total in Hershey ? 36 points? He’s going to score 70 points in the nhl. I don’t pay attention to what the AHL numbers are as much as how good the actual player is. And Djoo didn’t get leaped frogged by anyone. He cost too much money...... if you wanna look at AHL Numbers his numbers where far superior to anyone on the bears right now