Washington Capitals: Top 3 needs heading into free agency

Forwards

The Capitals have two forwards who are free agents this offseason. Ilya Kovalchuk is an unrestricted free agent while Travis Boyd is a restricted free agent. Kovalchuk’s cap hit is $350,000 (Montreal paying more) while Boyd’s is $800,000. Both will likely command a raise and out of the two they will likely bring back Boyd because he’s an RFA.

That means that Ilya Kovalchuk could be on the move in free agency so the Caps will once again have to address the third line winger position. There are a variety of big names on the market. Those include Taylor Hall, Ryan Callahan, Mikhael Granlund, Mikko Koivu, Nathan Horton, David Clarkson, Mike Hoffman, Wayne Simmnods, Alex Galenchyuk and Carl Soderberg.

There’s questions on what the Caps will need to do with their bottom six on the third line. Will they trade someone like Richard Panik or Carl Hagelin? The fourth line seems intact and was really good with Garnet Hathaway and Nic Dowd. Hathaway was brought in as a free agent last summer.

The Caps will also have to put into account how much money they want to spend with Ovechkin due a raise when contract talks begin come training camp time.