At the blatant risk of stating the obvious, the Washington Capitals should be a much better team than the Florida Panthers this year. Some of the biggest headlines of the off-season have come from former Capital and future Panther Matt Bradley's public questioning of current Capital Alexander Semin's motivation to win in the playoffs, but these questions pale in comparison to the struggles Bradley will face in even reaching the postseason with a severely under-stocked club in Miami.Bradley has suggested that he would rather be on a team where players who get really excited about the playoffs get more playing time in the playoffs. Players like, for instance, Matt Bradley. Of course, in Florida, Bradley still definitely figures to play a fourth line role. But at least now he'll be fighting for minutes behind guys who don't know each other and didn't fit in with their teams last year. Guys like Tomas Fleischmann, who didn't totally gel with the Caps' second and third lines the last couple years, but now is a consensus second liner with the Panthers (if he's healthy (just kidding. Tomas Fleischmann is as healthy as Marin Gaborik)).
Why don't the Panthers have any great players to join Bradley? Well, to make a long story short, the best players they had left two years ago went to Boston for Dennis Wideman, who then went to Washington for a handful of hope. That left the Panthers with a skeleton crew in front of star goalie Tomas Vokoun, who has now also come to Washington because, in his words, the Caps are closer to winning a Stanley Cup than the Red Wings. In response to the constantly replayed headlines from Bradley, questioning whether the Caps are really ready to win it all, Vokoun says he's happier with his Cup chances in Washington than in Florida.
Vokoun shows great character and sportsmanship by praising the changes Florida made this summer to get up to the Salary cap floor. He even said that when he made the decision not to stay in Florida, he had no way of knowing how much the Panthers would improve. That's all very nice of him, but I think if he looks closely at how much the Panthers improved, he'll be even happier he's in Washington.
Florida added two very expensive defensemen this summer. Brian Campbell and Ed Jovanovski combine for a salary cap hit of 11.25 million dollars per year. Between them last year, the Panthers new top pair combined for 41 points. That's one more than Wideman had in an injury-shortened campaign. Wideman's 3.5 million dollar salary is an afterthought on a Caps team where he figures to be the undisputed 5th best defenseman this year.
Florida also added former Caps goalie Jose Theodore, who hasn't done well in the playoffs in over a decade. Theodore won a total of 15 games last year, playing without the Caps. Washington starts the year with two goalies who won thirty games last year, counting Vokoun, who should do a lot better on a solid team.
Florida has picked up a lot of forwards this summer, and they're all good players. Florida will have as many 40+ point players (based on last year's numbers) as the Capitals. But they won't have as many 20+ point players, and they won't have any 50+ point players at all. Stephen Weiss led the Panthers with a hard-fought 49 points last year--the third-best total of his career. Alexander Semin, Nicklas Backstrom and Alex Ovechkin all had terrible years last year because they only scored 54, 64 and 85 points, respectively. The panthers have added some good players, for sure. If they still had even one very good player like Horton to lead them all, they might even make the playoffs, so that Matt Bradley could again whine about his lack of playoff ice time.
Matt Bradley has been a consummate competitor for many years in Washington, and everything he says this summer will help build a healthy fan base in Florida and a healthy rivalry in what could be the last year of the Southeast Division. But in spite of all that, it should be remembered that the only reason Matt Bradley did not sign another contract with the Capitals this summer is that the Capitals did not offer him one.
