Should the Capitals trade for a forward?

The Washington Capitals might be up to something with the trade deadline exactly a month away. There’s three questions and we’ll tackle each one every day to begin this week. The first question is should the Capitals trade for a forward.

On Tuesday Elliotte Friedman reported in his 32 Thoughts that, “Washington’s looking for forwards. They’re going to be eyeing the Pacific Northwest. Several potential matches in Seattle and Vancouver.”

On the forward front it would make sense for the Caps to see what kind of options they have available. Two of the Caps top five scorers are defensemen. The forward group has experienced a drop off other than the good performances of Alex Ovechkin, Evgeny Kuznetsov, and Tom Wilson.

Part of it is in large part due to the absences of Anthony Mantha and T.J. Oshie. When both are healthy the offense is good and we saw that in the early part of the season. The Caps could certainly use some scoring depth as the games get more important going forward.

Who could the Capitals possibly move? Carl Hagelin might be an option but teams might be enticed by the youth the Caps have as well. Just make sure guys like Connor McMichael and Hendrix Lapierre are off limits.

With that said, who could be other young guys that teams could inquire about? Aliaksei Protas and Brett Leason do come to mind. Both could be great assets to rebuilding teams and could perhaps be in a top six role.

On the Seattle Kraken, there’s a couple good names. On the centers side is Jared McCann who’s 25 and has 20 goals and 12 assists for 32 points. I doubt the Caps go center route if they were to trade for a forward. On right wing is 31 year old Jordan Eberle with 14 goals and 15 assists for 29 points. On the left side is Brandon Tanev with nine goals and six assists for 15 points. He’s 30.

Over on the Vancouver Canucks is Conor Garland who’s 25 and has 13 goals and 16 assists for 29 points. There’s also Brock Bosser who’s 24 and has 15 goals and 13 assists for 28 points. Those are right wingers.

On left wing there’s Tanner Parson who’s 29 with eight goals and 13 assists for 21 points. If they want to go young perhaps Nils Hoglander fits that bill. He’s 21 and has eight goals and eight assists for 16 points.

No matter what the Caps do it’s going to be an interesting month coming up.