The Caps said goodbye to Michael Nylander on Monday. Well – not really since Nylander hasn’t been seen around the team’s Arlington County headquarters for weeks. But his locker stall – the one right between Alex Ovechkin and Alex Semin – has been changed. It now belongs to center Keith Aucoin, who himself is still at AHL Hershey.
Nylander was officially loaned to the Grand Rapids Griffins of the AHL on Sunday. The deal is a standard loan and Nylander’s $4.875 million salary-cap hit comes off the books – even though the Caps still have to pay his $5.5 million salary. That also opens a roster spot, too, and that’s a big deal for a team that had to list Nylander as a healthy scratch for every game save the two-week conditioning stint he spent at Grand Rapids in late October and early November.
“It’s nice that he’s playing. The one thing in our conversations [with Nylander] is that he really wanted to get back playing,” said Caps coach Bruce Boudreau. “We really wanted him to get back playing and we were trying to find a good fit for him. We tried some other things that didn’t work out and this is good for Michael. He goes down there and lights it up and you never know – another team might be interested in him and reserect his NHL career.”
Nylander still has one year left on his contract at $3 million so the Caps haven’t completey cut ties with him. But his no-movement clause expires after this season and a buy-out becomes far more realistic next summer when the team can spread that $3 million over two seasons. Still not ideal. But far better than what it would have had to swallow last summer. Caps general manager George McPhee has enjoyed talking about the Nylander situation about as much as a trip to the dentist. That didn’t change much on Monday morning after practice.
How long after Nylander’s last conditioning stint did you start talking w/ Grand Rapids about taking him back?
T”here were a lot of different teams and federations we talked to. But there seemed to be issues at different times – whether it be tax issues for Mike that complicated things. In the end we thought that this would be the best situation for now – to get him playing.”
Did it get frustrating at all that you thought you had this situation resolved a few times?
“Well, there were just different issues that came up that we didn’t expect – like tax issues, for example, that would be really hard on Mike. And so things of that nature got in the way from time to time. But it was just important to find the right place for him. There are still other options out there. But this just seems to be the best. We had actually considered Hershey as well. But you want your young players getting the ice time. There’s a [veteran] rule down there as well. We have too many vets. This works best for now.”
Does this give you more options now as a [general manager]
“Well, I don’t know that it really changes anything. As I mentioned before, there are lots of ways to work with the cap. If you really want to do some things you can. There’s more flexibility with the cap than we were led to believe early on. So I don’t know how much it changes things. I’m not going to be doing anything right now anyway. We like our team. We like the way they’ve been playing. We like the personnel that we have. So I don’t expect to be changing anything soon.”
But there is money there now – unlike at the [trade] deadline last year?
“Right, but we could have done that last year. As I explained last year, there were ways to do things if we wanted to do it last year. There just wasn’t anything out there that we thought made our team better. We thought Brian Pothier was close to playing last year and he was better than anything else that we could have picked up – in our minds. So there really weren’t any decisions to make last year.”
So what happened with Nylander exactly? He was sent away from the team last month for good.
“He was never told to leave. We just made it clear last spring that the year didn’t go the way that he wanted or we wanted. And maybe it was time to look at something else. Just with the way our team developed it wasn’t a good fit. There’s not much you can do if that happens in this business.”
That conversation occured last spring during break down day after the Pittsburgh series ended?
“Yeah. If we couldn’t make a trade [a loan] was something that we should consider. And it has been considered. Other leagues are a lot like our league right now. There’s a lot of gridlock. It’s hard to move players.”
Was it playing style or personality [conflicts] with the coaching staff?
“No, it was just playing style.”
But there were times last year when [Boudreau and Nylander] had heated conversations?
“Yeah, but you know what – Bruce does that with a lot of players. He has lots of discussions with our players. It just didn’t work out. Players excel in one place and don’t in another. It just wasn’t working for him or us last year.”
So to be clear – there were no blowups?
“No issues like that. None whatsoever.”
Any idea what will happen with his contract next year?
“Well, that’s a little too far ahead to discuss at the moment. It’s hard to predict. So we won’t.”
Do you look back at the Nyalnder signing in July of 2007 and critique your decision?
“No, you make the best decisions you can and hope they work out. There were three deals done that day – [Viktor] Kozlov and [Tom] Poti and Nylander – and two of the three worked out very well. The third? Maybe there’s still a chance. Sometimes it just doesn’t go the way you want it.”
Is this the end of no-trade clauses for the Caps?
“We historically haven’t. And that’s one of the reasons that allowed us to build a good team. When we were rebuilding we were able to move real good players that didn’t have those clauses. And got young players back and picks that helped us build it. It’s something that’s happened a lot in our league now. A lot of players are getting them. But we haven’t done it historically and we won’t be doing it in the future.”
