Top 3 reasons the Capitals should stay away from Claude Giroux
The Washington Capitals should not trade for Claude Giroux. Nope. They shouldn’t even think about it.
It is likely the Philadelphia Flyers are going to trade away their star captain as the franchise enters a rebuild or a retool. The Flyers are currently at the bottom of the Metropolitan Division with a 18-30-11 record which is good for 47 points.
Giroux has been a staple of some good Flyers teams. He’s been around the organization for all 15 of his seasons in the NHL. That stretch includes 10 as a captain. He’s also in the final season of an eight year contract which is why the Flyers could be open to shopping him. Here’s 3 reasons why Giroux in D.C. won’t work.
#3 Age
Giroux is 34 years old and it’s bad enough the Caps are stacked with many players in their 30’s in their lineup. Good teams need a balance of veterans and youth, especially on the Capitals forward front. Adding another player in his 30s that could be just a rental could be costly. We’ve seen it cost them in the past.
Now Giroux is putting together a productive season, don’t get me wrong. 18 goals and 24 assists for 42 points isn’t too shabby for a player at 34 but if the Caps want speed to burn some teams in the playoffs, adding a 34 year old midseason won’t help the equation.
#2 The assets they could give up sound suspicious
The Philadelphia Flyers have sent scouts to the last several Hershey Bears games. It’s clear that they are trying to move on from their captain Claude Giroux and get the ball rolling on their rebuild.
I don’t think anything will happen today as Giroux is expected to play in 1,000th career NHL game tonight and each of those games came with the Flyers. He signed an eight year contract extension over the offseason which included a no move clause so it’ll be his decision ultimately on whether he wants to be traded.
A handful of NHL teams have also scouted the Flyers showing possible interest in Giroux. These teams include the Colorado Avalanche, Florida Panthers, Carolina Hurricanes, St. Louis Blues, and Minnesota Wild.
Back to the Flyers and their scouts. Here are some names they could be looking at acquiring for their future. Would you really want to see these guys in orange and black after Alex Ovechkin retires and we’re all going through a rebuild?
Aliaksei Protas, Alex Alexeyev, Lucas Johansen, Hendrix Lapierre, Connor McMichael.
Okay absolutely NOT on the last two. But losing Protas would be a big blow to the forward corps. There isn’t a big enough sample size of Alexeyev or Johansen yet but losing them could be a blow too.
#1 Do we really trust a division foe?
If the Caps and Flyers were indeed to make a swap, it wouldn’t be the first time. Back in 2019 the Caps traded Matt Niskanen to the Flyers for Radko Gudas. Who really won that trade?
In that season, which turned out to be Niskanen’s last before calling it a career, Nisky scored eight goals and 25 assists for 33 points. And I’m sure he brought valuable leadership to that Flyers locker room as they were a much different team than they are now.
Gudas had two goals and 13 assists for 15 points in Washington in 2019-20. He only lasted a season there. Last season with the Florida Panthers he had two goals and nine assists for 11 points. He currently has one goal and 11 assists for 12 points this season.
Case in point? The Flyers did better on that trade. But the Caps were also in a bad position with a limited salary cap and needed to shed some salary. If they were to do that it would be better to do it with a team outside the Metropolitan Division.
Hot. Three Reasons the Capitals Should NOT Make a Major Trade at the Deadline. light
I highly doubt the Caps go for Giroux as they’ve more recently been linked to other players which we’ll tackle soon.