McKenna’s Mailbag: Discussing the Capitals, Oilers and…the Macon Whoopee?

Mike McKenna
Mike McKenna(MikeMcKenna56)
McKenna’s Mailbag: Discussing the Capitals, Oilers and…the Macon Whoopee?

The Washington goaltending situation is interesting. Ilya Samsonov and Vitek Vanecek have pretty similar traditional numbers, with the slight edge to Vanecek. But Samsonov has won 13 games to Vanecek’s eight.

I think this is a classic situation of a team waiting to see who takes control of the net. It just hasn’t happened yet. And it might not. But if the Stanley Cup Playoffs started tomorrow, I’d expect Samsonov to be the starter.

I’m not totally sure the Capitals are comfortable in goal. Samsonov was expected to be on the same trajectory as fellow Russian goaltender Igor Shesterkin, who’s been tearing up the NHL. That hasn’t happened with Samsonov. The tools are there and the ceiling is high, but I think Samsonov is still finding his way in North America.

Contrast that to Vanecek. In my opinion, with Vanecek, it’s very much “what you see is what you get.” He was good – but never dominant – at the AHL level. And that’s what I’ve seen so far in his NHL career. I’m not sure he has the “it” factor of an NHL No. 1 goaltender.

Love me some Zach Fucale. I love his story, his career path and his battle. But he doesn’t have the organizational juice, or contract, to be given the ball.

I could see the Capitals poking around for goaltending at the trade deadline.

Right now, there isn’t a good solution. Ken Holland should have taken care of the goaltending situation this past offseason, but chose to gamble on an aging Mike Smith being able to replicate last year’s inspired play.

The Stanley Cup-winning answer is to develop from within. But the Oilers haven’t drafted a goaltender since 2019. To me, that’s an utter dereliction of duty given their lack of depth and quality in net.

The Oilers drafted Devan Dubnyk 14th overall in the 2004 Draft. Since then, the only goalie they’ve drafted that’s played meaningful games is Stuart Skinner. Think about that. Out of 16 draft classes, Edmonton has yet to produce a full-time NHL goalie. That’s embarrassing. It tells me their scouting staff is either lacking in goalie knowledge or they just don’t care.

It would be one thing if the Oilers had had a mainstay in net the whole time. A Henrik Lundqvist-type run of dominance. But, as you pointed out, they haven’t.

But anyway. The Oilers are in a terrible spot when it comes to trading for a goalie. Every team in the league knows they need one. So Edmonton will get rinsed in any deal. And then there’s the salary cap. Any game-changing NHL goaltender is going to cost $4 million-plus against the cap.

I’m sure Ken Holland has options. But I don’t know if any make sense.

The goaltender put himself in an absolutely terrible spot and got lasered. But the attacking player also should have had his head up long enough to realize the goalie was coming out to play the puck. It’s on the player to avoid the goaltender.

Goalies are not eligible to be hit anywhere on the ice. So it’s infuriating to see the tweet even give the option of “clean hit” to choose from. That’s reckless and uneducated. The rules clearly state goalies cannot be hit.

So, to summarize. The goaltender made a really bad decision and the attacking player didn’t have enough awareness. Hopefully they both learn from it because these types of collisions are scary.

Your intuition is right. For the most part, AHL teams do travel by bus most often. Generally, if a trip is about two hours or less, teams will travel the day of the game.

As for air travel, yes in the AHL it’s all commercial. Except occasionally in the Calder Cup Playoffs, if you get lucky. We got to use the Lightning’s jet once with Syracuse. And another time with Texas we had similar travel arrangements during the finals. But both of those trips had extenuating circumstances that necessitated chartering.

Of course, there are teams now in the AHL that fly almost everywhere. Abbotsford, Charlotte, Texas – those clubs spend a lot of time in the air. But once they land, at least they can bus to several cities on a road trip.

Where it gets interesting is the threshold for air travel. For some organizations, eight hours is about the limit for the length of a bus trip. Other teams are willing to let their prospects ride around on the Iron Lung for up to 14 hours. As you can imagine, it mostly comes down to finances. Wealthy teams travel better in the AHL. That’s a fact.

I don’t know. But obviously someone has planted that idea. Why start rumors?

I do agree that Campbell hasn’t looked as good recently as he did at the start of the year. But I also think he’s in the process of coming back down to earth. It happens every year. A few goalies jump out to huge statistical leads, then eventually level out over the course of the season.

Things haven’t been perfect lately for Campbell, but I don’t think he’s in enough of a funk to shut him down for two weeks. Should Petr Mrazek get a few more starts? Yeah, absolutely. Toronto is paying him decent money and he’s their best hope if Campbell goes down. He needs to play.

It’s not quite halfway through the season. I’d expect Campbell to get more rest with a healthy Mrazek.

I don’t think it makes much of a difference. Lehner has extreme hunger to succeed. He doesn’t need anyone else to motivate him. He’s been great as a starter in Buffalo. Great in a tandem on Long Island, Chicago and Vegas.

Lehner’s numbers are down this season, but it isn’t because he’s playing particularly poorly. The Golden Knights have given up a huge amount of high danger chances – far more than any previous season. His goals-against have gone up accordingly.

But I do think Lehner has another gear. He’s always hovering around the .915 range in save percentage by the end of the season. There are a few technical details to clean up but I think he’ll probably get close to that number.

Yes. Actually this needs to happen. A catalog of terminology. Imagine the submissions? They would have to be reviewed by a board. As long as double cheeseburger pad stacks and the leather lobster make the cut, I’m all for it.

Of all the teams I played for? Yeah, definitely. You’d be surprised how many people are shocked to find out Ak-Sar-Ben is just Nebraska spelled backwards. I have no clue why it was in the team name.

But the absolute worst (best) hockey team name of all time? That belongs to the Macon Whoopee of the defunct Central Hockey League.

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