A good perspective. Thanks Mike for getting our quotes of support to Olie out there.
Archive for May 9th, 2008
Mike Vogel on Olie
Friday, May 9th, 2008The “It” Teams
Friday, May 9th, 2008I agree with the main points of this article. Pittsburgh basically is two to three years ahead of us in their development cycle. They traded away or didn’t re-sign their core older players: Jagr, Kovalev, Lang, Straka, etc. Mario retired. They finished low in the standings for several years. Their attendance dropped while they rebuilt. Fans and media were very negative early on in their plan. They did receive a great bit of luck in winning the lottery post lockout that let them draft Sidney Crosby to boot while we ended up getting the 16th slot in the draft which was bad luck for us.
Pittsburgh drafted high, year after year, and rebuilt their core and added some vets via trades and free agency. Their fan base began to believe and now they are in the Eastern Conference Finals. And they sell out every night. They will be good for a long, long time.
The Penguins are a case study in rebuilding a team the right way through the draft. I believe we are also becoming a model franchise following this same course of action.
I found this article very insightful.
Sad
Friday, May 9th, 2008I was sad to read this piece in the Washington Post this morning.
I will never ever say anything negative about Olie Kolzig. He has been a great player. He is a great person and I will always take the high road about anything having to do with Olie. He is truly one of my favorite players ever to wear a Caps jersey. Our fan base loves Olie Kolzig and deservedly so. I will always respect what he says and support him in any decision he makes.
I will try to connect with George McPhee and Dick Patrick today to discuss this matter.
We have not spoken to Olie since the season ended and we now need to get together with Olie to discuss the content of this article. It would have been better for us to connect before this story ran but such is life in professional sports.
I am proud of the way our team played this year and I am proud of all of the contributions made by every single player and member of management. We achieved our goal of winning a division title and of making the playoffs. That was our key deliverable to our fan base and for the health of our franchise.
I, too, wish we had been able to hoist a Stanley Cup together.
Goaltending
Friday, May 9th, 2008Here is a good blog post at Japers’ Rink about the play of goaltender Cristobal Huet.
From a purely statistical stand point and productivity point of view, he had superior numbers compared to almost all goaltenders around the NHL and a great winning percentage to help us get to the division championship and the playoffs. We must also remember that he had two losses in the late season Boston and Penguins game that he played remarkably well in to boot.
You cannot fault the outcome of our coach’s decision to play the hot hand in goal. Our promise and deliverable for the year was to qualify for the playoffs - which we did - and our new goaltender played lights out to help us reach that goal. You cannot second guess a good decision.
