Four Free Agent Goalies The Washington Capitals Should Look At

Thomas Greiss

Greiss is a career backup. That may sound like an insult but it’s not meant to be. Greiss has been in the NHL for 10+ years, he’s only played the majority of his teams games in two of those seasons. One of those was the 2018-19 season where he played 43 games, just barely getting the majority of starts.

He has been a very good goalie for most of his career though. Since his second year in the NHL which was the 2009-10 season he has only had a save percentage below 91% twice. He’s only once had a season with a GAA over three, that was the 2017-18 season which was clearly his worst NHL season with a 3.82 GAA and a .892 save percentage.

The past two seasons Greiss has been a very good goalie for his Islanders teams. In 2018-19 he had a 2.27 GAA and a .927 save percentage in 43 games played. This past season, with 31 games played, his stats took a dip, but still OK. He had a 2.74 GAA, not great, but had a .913 save percentage. Pretty good for that GAA.

The problem with Greiss could be the cap hit. He’s still 34, so he won’t get big bucks and challenge for starting jobs much. His cap hit this past year was $3.33m though. I’m thinking a team out there would be willing to give him that and maybe a little more. If that’s the case it could be too expensive to bring him on board to be a backup.

But if he is cheaper this could be a very good signing to be Samsonov’s backup.