Agonizing and Painful to Admit But..........

[bulldog]

for a cash-strapped team in only a medium-sized hockey market, the best thing that could happen to this organization is to finally burb out the bad year, gain the first or second pick in the draft and finally acquire the young anchor star the team needs to rebuild.

the team already started this process by allowing Johansson, Klee and Berezin to depart after last season. Konowalchuk this season as well, although performance I think dictated some of the reasons for that move.

with Gordon, Eminger and Semin joining Sutherby on the parent club in 2003, this team is already more about the future than the present.

if Jagr, Lang, Bondra, etc. were still capable of career average numbers the Caps might have been able to make this transition without the ugly season we are seeing.

but this team seemed to reach a peak last year against Tampa, and it was not a peak that warranted keeping the core intact.

The goal long-term has to be to do more than merely make the playoffs and compete.

The fact Jagr and the other Caps veterans allowed two young guns in LeCavalier and St. Louis to outscore and outclutch them in the playoffs indicated this team was not going to climb the mountain the way it was constructed.

[Posse81]

Well said, Bulldog. I think us as fans will have to endure for a few years.

[bulldog]

all I ask for in trying to make a team better is to see a firm commitment from the top in seeing the job through and hiring the right people to oversee the transition.

Leonsis went out and traded for Jagr on his own without George McPhee's active participation and that one move has come close to putting the team's finances in the hopper.

McPhee agreed that the team needed more scoring and a more marketable product, ie a recognizable player for fans to rally around, however, he was trying to steer the organization toward players like Jeremy Roenick and Joe Sakic, that showed leadership skills.

Jagr was a question mark in that regard. He played in Mario's shadow in Pittsburgh, but in his one brief stint as team leader in the Olympics he took the Czechs to the gold medal with an emotional victory over a talented Russian squad.

Would Jagr carry those emotions over to the NHL if he went elsewhere and got out of #66's shadow?

The gamble was that he would. And I thought it was possible at age 29 that Jagr was indeed ready for that challenge.

Evidently, Jagr is still as emotionally immature as Ivan Hlinka thought he was 3 or 4 years ago, when he was fired after having run-ins with #68 about his attitude and inconsistent play.

One of the players last year said that Jagr was 31 but acted as if he were "15 or 16, all he wants to do off the ice is drive fast and play video games"................. :(