Washington Capitals: 3 contract extensions that should happen in 2020
3 contract extensions for the Washington Capitals.
The Washington Capitals have six free agents. Four are unrestricted free agents while two are restricted free agents. Not all of them will be back next season but we will look at the contract extensions that should happen this year.
The UFAs are Radko Gudas, Brenden Dillon, Ilya Kovalchuk and Braden Holtby while the RFAs are Travis Boyd and Jonas Siegenthaler. Next season the Caps will have two restricted free agents in Jakub Vrana and Ilya Samosnov and an unrestricted free agent in Alex Ovechkin.
Gudas will likely not be re-signed and he doesn’t think he’ll be back. We just wrote that they shouldn’t re-sign him. Brenden Dillon is a likely candidate to get an extension but that might be easier said than done. Ilya Kovalchuk will likely be on the move in free agency, a potential reunion in Montreal.
It is likely Ilya Samsonov and Jakub Vrana will be re-signed next year. The big question is Ovechkin’s contract and we heard he might be seeking Connor McDavid money.
The Caps may likely make a trade in their defense to free up cap space and dump salary. If that’s the case they’ll have more money for contract extensions.
#3 Jonas Siegenthaler
Jonas Siegenthaler is a young defenseman with a bright future. The restricted free agent carried a cap hit of $714,166. He is expected to make north of one to two million.
Siegenthaler came into the league as a 21 year old in 2018-19 and played in 26 games. He recorded four assists, was a +6, had 10 penalty minutes, and averaged 14:09 of ice time. He also had 44 blocked shots and 31 hits. Siegenthaler got a lot of playing time down the stretch after Michal Kempny was injured. In the playoffs, Siegenthaler averaged 16 minutes of ice time.
The next season Siegenthaler played in 64 games mostly on the third pair. He had two goals and seven assists for nine points. He also was a +11, had 43 penalty minutes, had 105 blocks and laid out 51 hits while averaging 15:44 of ice time.
Would the Caps trade him? Highly unlikely but we’ve seen what happened when they tried to take on Chandler Stephenson’s contract and failed. Now Stephenson had a season where he thrived in Vegas and the Caps bit the dust with that one.
Oh well. There’s nothing you can do about the past. But in the present, Jonas Siegenthaler is one contract you’d like to extend for next season. Hopefully there won’t be any arbitration needed.
#2 Travis Boyd
Travis Boyd is a versatile forward that can slot in at center or winger. He carried a cap hit of $800,000 per year and will be due a raise. Boyd will likely get a contract north of one to two million per year and he and his family deserve it. I doubt they will trade him but he will have to battle it out for a likely role at wing on the third or fourth line.
In 2017-18, Boyd had an assist in eight games and played in one playoff game. The next season he had five goals and 15 assists for 20 points in 53 games played. The next year he lost out on the fourth line battle to Garnet Hathaway and only played in 24 games. Boyd scored three goals and seven assists for 10 points in 24 games.
Boyd averaged a career high in ice time this past season with an average time on ice of 11:45. His previous ones were 8:50 in 2018 and 9:50 in 2018-19.
Boyd scored his first playoff goal in the Capitals Round Robin game against the Philadelphia Flyers in what was otherwise another brutal loss to the Broad Street Bullies.
That is two players down and now we’ve got one more to go.
#1 Alex Ovechkin
Number one is the biggest priority. Alex Ovechkin needs to finish his career as a Capital and he’ll need a contract extension at the end of this upcoming season. Talks started between Ovechkin and General Manager Brian MacLellan but those talks are now put on hold until training camp. My prediction is they figure it out before the season.
Ovechkin asking price is likely to be Connor McDavid money per this article from ian Oland of Russian Machine Never Breaks. Ovechkin enters the final year of his 13 year, $124 million dollar contract that he signed in 2008.
A report on Russian sports websites suggested that the Caps offered Ovechkin a contract with an average annual value of $9.5 to $10 million a season. Oland writes that his source said that Ovechkin may seek around $12 million per season.
Ovechkin also apparently lost money during the 2012 lockout which is another factor in him seeking an asking price as steep as that. It is unknown whether it’ll be Ovechkin and his agent or just Ovechkin helping construct the deal on his own. When Nicklas Backstrom’s contract got extended, the process was fully involved by Backstrom. He negotiated it himself.
More. Washington Capitals: Making the case to not re-sign Radko Gudas. light
Those are our three contract extensions that should happen in 2020. Hopefully, the Caps make it happen and extend all three contracts.