Washington Capitals: Trading Marcus Johansson A Bad Idea
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Marcus Johansson of the Washington Capitals has filed for arbitration. He is due for a nice pay raise because like it or not, he has been a legitimate top six forward over the past three seasons. The Washington Capitals might have been trying to build up his value by playing him with Alex Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom, but now the Washington Capitals are the ones left holding the bill for his next contract. That bill is most likely going to be over $4,000,000 per season. Nazem Kadri‘s $4,100,000 AAV contract serves as a good comparable, as Johansson arguably deserves more than him.
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MUST READ: Marcus Johansson’s 2014-2015 Season Review
Keeping Marcus Johansson and Braden Holtby will be tricky. They have $10,894,041 of cap space to get those two locked up. That would leave them with under $1,000,000 in case someone got injured but not put on the long term injured reserve list. That’s pushing it. However, the Washington Capitals should definitely not move Marcus Johansson if he’s just going to act as a “salary dump”.
Why The Washington Capitals Should Keep Johansson
You don’t salary dump 24 year old (turning 25 in October) forwards who are constantly improving and have proven themselves to be a capable top six forward, especially not when you don’t have that many top six caliber forwards to begin with.At best, they currently have seven top six caliber forwards, and one of them (Tom Wilson) couldn’t score even when paired with Ovechkin and Backstrom. The Caps came into this off-season needing more scoring depth. Trading your third best scorer in terms of points (47) and points per 60 minutes during all situations (2.09) seems rather counter-productive to that objective, no?
If somebody gets injured, the Caps don’t really have many replacement options. Teams like the Chicago Blackhawks can afford to move guys like Johansson because they have plenty of other guys capable of filling in. The Washington Capitals do not have that luxury. So what if he’s your third line center or left wing? You know he can be a very capable top six forward. Suppose Andre Burakovsky gets injured. Guess what? Johansson can fill in for him.
If you don’t believe he is a top six forward, here’s a table that I made for Johansson’s season review. It’s quite relevant. There were 395 NHL forwards who played at least 410 minutes this season during all situations. By simple logic, 192 forwards could be considered “top six forwards” since when you think about it, half of the forwards on a team are top six forwards. I think there are about 120 legitimate top six forwards in the league. Johansson is definitely among them.
[table id=78 /]
If there is an issue with cap space, Johansson is not the player who the Washington Capitals should ship out to make room for others. He’s the kind of player who the Capitals should make room for. There are several players that I would happily ship out to make room for Johansson. Jason Chimera immediately comes to mind. He’s the kind of player that teams like the Arizona Coyotes and Toronto Maple Leafs would like to have. Either of those two teams could gamble on him and hope that he rebuilds his value enough that they can flip him for something at the trade deadline. Remember, Chimera is a year removed from having a career year. If they can’t get anything for him, that just means that he most likely helped them on their quest to get a high draft pick. It’s kind of a win-win scenario if you think about it. Yes, Chimera was good in the playoffs. However, the Canadiens made an unwise decision in believing that Rene Bourque was a keeper after being good in the playoffs back in 2013-2014. They were lucky to find a taker for him last season because he was awful.
They could also try to trade Brooks Laich, but in order to do so, they would likely have to include an early draft pick. For the same reason that Chimera would be a good fit in Arizona or Toronto, Laich could be a fit in either of those two cities as well.
If the Washington Capitals can get a team to give them valuable assets that would help the team over the next two seasons for Johansson, I would consider trading him. I would have to get a cheap (but still good) center in return. Ironically, Cody Eakin would make sense. The Stars have the center depth to be able to deal him, and Johansson would likely be a good fit with the Stars. The Caps would likely need to get more for that deal to work, but hey, it’s a good start.
If the Washington Capitals can get something of value for Johansson that will help them over the next two seasons, that’s fine. But the purpose of the trade should not be to dump salary. It should be to improve the team. I’m not sure how many trades out there for Johansson would improve the team more than Johansson currently does. My guess is that there are very few, if any, that would do that.
Next: Marcus Johansson's Value