{"id":26920,"date":"2018-04-11T01:08:36","date_gmt":"2018-04-11T05:08:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=26920"},"modified":"2018-04-11T01:09:45","modified_gmt":"2018-04-11T05:09:45","slug":"ilya-sasonov-to-sign-contract-with-washington-caps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2018\/04\/11\/ilya-sasonov-to-sign-contract-with-washington-caps\/","title":{"rendered":"Report: Ilya Samsonov To Sign Rookie Contract With The Washington Capitals"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"td-page-header\">\n<p class=\"entry-title td-page-title\">It has been no secret that the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonhockey.com\/nhl-teams\/capitals\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Washington Capitals<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/\/2017\/12\/13\/ilya-samsonov-an-exciting-visitor\/\" target=\"_self\">have been keen for<\/a> the\u00a0Magnitogorsk Metallurg goalie <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/\/2017\/08\/23\/tsp-washington-capitals-prospects\/\" target=\"_self\"><strong>Ilya Samsonov<\/strong><\/a> to come to the American Capital since drafting him in the first round of the 2015\u00a0NHL Draft. However, the Capitals have had to be patient\u00a0until the 21-year-old&#8217;s current\u00a0contract has expired. There are no announcements\u00a0of specific contract details as yet,\u00a0only that the Russian native is flying over to sign a rookie contract.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"td-page-content\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Report: Ilya Samsonov expected to sign with the Capitals after April 30 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/kTSTKS6q1v\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/kTSTKS6q1v<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; RMNB (@rmnb) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/rmnb\/status\/983776020091277312?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">April 10, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h1>Ilya Samsonov Signs With the Washington Capitals.<\/h1>\n<p>The young\u00a0Russian is considered by some as the best prospect in the KHL. He has played four seasons in this competitive league, achieving a .936 save percentage with a 2.31 Goals against average this season.<\/p>\n<p>However, the Magnitogorsk Metallurg where unsuccessful in their playoff attempts this year, Samsonov\u00a0has solidly performing considering his young age.<\/p>\n<p>The Following is from Ben Kerr &#8216;s scouting report for the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/\/2017\/08\/23\/tsp-washington-capitals-prospects\/\" target=\"_self\">Top Shelf Prospects<\/a> series:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>Samsonov has the ideal size that teams are looking for in goaltenders today at 6\u20194\u2033 and 203 pounds.\u00a0 Samsonov makes the most of that size, coming out to challenge on plays, and reducing the amount of net that forwards <\/em>have<em> to shoot at. He is very athletic and never gives up on a play, resulting in him being able to make some ridiculous saves.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>Samsonov has strong legs and gets side-to-<\/em><em>side across the crease quickly and efficiently. He plays a tight butterfly and his legs kick out quickly to take away the bottom of the net. He has a fast glove hand and blocker as well. Samsonov skates backward very well, and this makes him hard to beat on dekes. He\u00a0comes out to cut down those <\/em>angles<em> but backs up quickly if the shooter instead tries to go around him. His positioning is very good. He remains square to the puck even when moving around the crease.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>In terms of weaknesses, Samsonov needs to work on his rebound control, though this is something that is a common problem for young goaltenders. He improved over his draft year. With good coaching, it can be developed over the next several years. He also doesn\u2019t seem to handle the puck very well, though he also doesn\u2019t do it very often.<\/em><\/p>\n<h2>What This Signing Means for the Future.<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<p>It&#8217;s likely that Samsonov will go to the Hershey Bears first to log in some ice time. But with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/h\/holtbbr01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Braden Holtby<\/a> slump and back up goalie <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/g\/grubaph01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Philipp Grubauer<\/a>&#8216;s needing more responsibility with his contract up after playoffs. The Russian might find an opening soon if he can prove himself.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>SOCHI, RUSSIA &#8211; AUGUST 6, 2017: HC Metallurg Magnitogorsk&#8217;s goaltender Ilya Samsonov makes a save in their Sochi Hockey Open 2017 match against SKA St Petersburg at the Bolshoi Ice Palace. Artyom Korotayev\/TASS (Photo by Artyom KorotayevTASS via Getty Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It has been no secret that the Washington Capitals have been keen for the\u00a0Magnitogorsk Metallurg goalie Ilya Samsonov to come to the American Capital since drafting him in the first round of the 2015\u00a0NHL Draft. However, the Capitals have had to be patient\u00a0until the 21-year-old&#8217;s current\u00a0contract has expired. There are no announcements\u00a0of specific contract details [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2344,"featured_media":20139,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15,34,309],"tags":[2413,75],"class_list":["post-26920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-capitals","category-news","category-nhl-top-prospects","tag-ilya-samsonov","tag-washington-capitals"],"modified_by":"Ben Kerr","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2344"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26920\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}