Monday at 5 p.m. was the deadline for teams to submit qualifying offers to free agents. If a RFA doesn’t receive a qualifying offer, they’re automatically an unrestricted free agent that can test the open market. The Washington Capitals made an interesting decision.
The Caps decided to extend qualifying offers to prospect forward Damien Riat and defenseman Tobias Geisser. Both players are expected to play in Europe during the 2022-23 season. In the process, the Caps decided to issue a qualifying offer to goaltender Ilya Samsonov.
That last part shocked a lot of fans.
Just the other day it looked like they were going to keep Samsonov after deciding to trade Vitek Vanecek to the New Jersey Devils on the second day of the draft for two draft picks. But now with Samsonov having the right to now speak with other teams, it looks like they’ll be going in a new direction in the crease.
A qualifying offer would’ve been a 10 percent raise on Samsonov’s salary from last season which would come out to $2.4 million. Per Tarik El-Bashir of The Athletic said on Twitter that this was a financial decision by General Manager Brian MacLellan and they weren’t willing to give $3 or $3.5 million to a backup.
The decision not to qualify Samsonov was a financial decision. As an RFA (with arbitration rights), the #Caps projected that he'd come in at $3-$3.5 million per, which, in their view, was too much for a backup and not justified based on his performance to date.
— Tarik El-Bashir (@Tarik_ElBashir) July 11, 2022
Samsonov had career lows in both save percentage (.896) and goals against average (3.29) during the regular season while making 39 starts. He also saved 12.1 goals fewer than expected per Money Puck, which placed him in the bottom 10 in the league among goalies with at least 25 appearances.
With no goalies, the team has a few internal options at net. That includes goaltender Zach Fucale who would have a $750K cap hit. But this decision also allows the Caps to swing for the fences when free agency starts on Wednesday as they are trying to pursue Stanley Cup champion goaltender Darcy Kuemper.