Grading The Grader

SI.com's Allan Muir is handing out grades based on what each team has been able to accomplish so far in the offseason, and the marks are in for the Southeast Division.

While I don't think that the Panthers' additions of a few stiff forwards (not the least rigid amongst them being Richard Zednik) and an injury-prone netminder warrants a better grade than what the Caps have done this summer, reasonable minds can disagree on that.

What reasonable minds really can't disagree on (besides the spelling of Brent Johnson's name, that Jiri Novotny has signed with Columbus and that Joey Tenute has signed with Phoenix) is the underlying point in Muir's claim that "[GM George] McPhee also left himself open to criticism by failing to get [Alex] Ovechkin signed to an extension."

Technically, since Muir is implicitly criticizing the lack of an extension, I guess he is right - GMGM has left himself open to such criticism. But such criticism is ridiculous. At the risk of beating a dead horse, GMGM has more than 10 months in which to get a deal done with AO, and, more to the point, the team wouldn't likely announce a deal until Ovie is back stateside anyway.

So criticize the team on their personnel moves, their player development or their backup goaltender, but calling the team out for not announcing that they've yet extended their superstar who hasn't been in town all sumer is comical, especially since we all know what the genesis of that criticism really is - the seemingly inevitable comparison to you-know-who.

I give Muir a C for this portion of his summer report card.