For the Washington Capitals players, coaches and fans every spring brings disappointment regarding their hockey team. This year the Capitals could not get by the high-speed locomotive known the Pittsburgh Penguins. Fueling the frustration is the fact all of Washington’s losses in the series were by one goal and two of those contests went to overtime. Winning the President’s Trophy is little consolation for hockey fans in D.C. Once again in the Alex Ovechkin era the Capitals failed to make the Eastern Conference Finals. Now it’s about the Capitals moving forward.
Capitals Moving Forward
How does general manager Brian MacLellan attack this off-season? Despite the bitter disappointment, he should not make wholesale changes. This is an elite team and the core of this squad is signed for next season. Washington has 17 players signed for next season with a cap number of $58.6 million. Jason Chimera and Mike Weber are unrestricted free agents and may not be back. Most of the remaining cap space will have to be used to sign restricted free agents Marcus Johansson, Dmitry Orlov, Tom Wilson and Michael Latta.
The key question for MacLellan is can he add one key piece this summer to either his forward unit or defensive corps? Ideally that key piece would be a veteran who has at least one Stanley Cup ring on his finger. Basically can he find another Justin Williams type to add to his squad? A player that has plenty of game left in the tank as well?
What doesn’t help MacLellan is having a bottom third prospect pipeline. Hockeys Future currently ranks the Capitals farm system without any future gems on the horizon. The lack of top prospects in the Capitals system makes the level of difficulty of MacLellan pulling off a trade to land an impactful player go up exponentially.
Given the Capitals salary cap, thin farm system and the fact that are not going to want to disrupt the core of this team makes adding one more key piece no easy task. But being a general manger in the NHL is not easy. For MacLellan this off-season is about making one key move. It’s a difficult move to make but so is winning the Stanley Cup.
Make Next Year Different
This week hockey fans in D.C were saying that dreaded phrase, “Wait till next year.” There has been a lot of waiting in Washington in terms of winning a Stanley Cup. This is a franchise that has a deep history of excellent teams. But some how some way the Capitals have only been to the Stanley Cup Finals once and the Conference Finals twice.
For an organization that has never won a Stanley Cup the 2016-17 season has to be all about becoming champions. After next season the Capitals have key unrestricted free agents in T.J. Oshie, Justin Williams and Karl Alzner. In addition Washington has young core players in Evgeny Kuznetsov, Andre Burakovsky and Nate Schmidt who become restricted free agents after next season. That will make managing their salary cap very difficult. The Capitals have to be all in for the Stanley Cup in 2016-17.
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