The Washington Capitals announced Saturday morning that forward Marcus Johansson will not play against the Rangers due to a non-Covid illness.
#Caps forward Marcus Johansson will not play today vs. the New York Rangers (non-COVID illness)
— CapitalsPR (@CapitalsPR) February 25, 2023
Capitals bench boss Peter Laviolette met with the media when he arrived at the arena this morning. He said Craig Smith, acquired from Boston in the Garnet Hathaway and Dmitry Orlov trade, will make his debut today. Darcy Kuemper will start in goal.
Recently acquired Craig Smith is expected to make his Capitals debut, per head coach Peter Laviolette from pregame media availability.#CapsRangers | @SociosUSA pic.twitter.com/hkJPlMDtSp
— Washington Capitals (@Capitals) February 25, 2023
Makes sense. MoJo hasn’t missed any games this season.
Did realize smith had so many 20-goal seasons.
Hmm… Illness or trade candidate? Will be an interesting week. Spent last night with a Caps TV personality and a beat writer. We’re going to see some more movement. Can’t comment further on it but there is more coming. GMBM has a plan. Lots of options and activity. Goal is to get younger and assemble team that can compete for the next two OV years. They want to win another cup.
Which basically means BMac will trade UFAs for draft capital, then flip that for younger, but established, players like Chychrun.
I’d prefer a rebuild myself, but don’t think we’re gona get it.
ah, great post, music to my ears and I believe it. If GMBM is actually able to take the assets he has in place now and assemble a legit contender out of it, even he Nobel Prize committee should take notice. It will be fascinating to watch. If this plays out correctly, he’ll first accumulate more draft capital now — this March trade deadline is ALWAYS more kind to sellers than to buyers — so now is the time to accumulate the capital. Then, flip it before the draft when the market is friendliest to people looking to flip choices. This will make the team a bit worse in the meantime which is all to the good in terms of improving the value of our own 1st and 2nd rounders this year.
Nobel Prize. 🤔 possibly.
Why not both? It’s flu season
I could see him or Sheary getting traded this week, regardless of the team’s record.
Give ‘em hell Smitty!
Stingrays used to be an offensive powerhouse with 3 of their rookies in the top 20 ECHL scorers. Now Turnbull is in Europe, O’Neil is in Colorado, and Bear Hughes has fallen out of the top 20. He’s still number 7 on the ECHL rookie scorers list. Bear has 18 goals and 26 assists for 44 points. 2 goals are PP with 1 overtime goal but no shootout goals. And 20 PIM. Plus/minus is +11. But since he represented the Rays at the AllStars, he can’t score.
Martin Has has played 41 games for the Rays and has 3 goals and 6 assists for 9 points. None were PP, OT, or SO. He has 12 PIM. His plus/minus is 3. Martin has been a healthy scratch a few times. He just doesn’t seem comfortable.
Benton Maass has 4 goals and 4 assists (8 pts) in 44 Stingrays games. Plus/minus is 14 and he has the most PIM of any loaner — 40. No PP, OT, or SO goals. Maass has been a steady performer with his coach and Rays radio announcer impressed with his development this year. He is an important cog in the Rays defense.
Despite missing games with injuries and one call up to Hershey, Clay Stevenson is the #5 goalie in the ECHL and second highest rookie goalie. In 26 games he has a 0.919 Save% and a 2.44 goals against average. With Clay’s injury Tyler Wall started out as the number 1 but Clay is now getting more games even though the Rays are really playing more of a tandem scheme than a true #1 and #2. Clay is credited with 3 assists. He has 3 OT losses and 1 out of 2 shootouts. Clay is a good goalie to have in the pipeline.