Washington Capitals: Top 3 free agents they must sign in 2020
Top 3 free agents for the Washington Capitals.
The Washington Capitals are entering a unique free agency situation. Soon fans will have to likely say goodbye to fan favorite and legend Braden Holtby. There might also be a trade to fix up the defense sometime soon that could break. I’m not saying it will happen but rather that it could happen.
The Caps have a ton of questions this offseason and now we have an answer to the question of who will coach the team. There’s more moves to be made.
The Caps have six free agents. Two are restricted free agents in Travis Boyd and Jonas Siegenthaler. The other four are unrestricted free agents such as Braden Holby, Ilya Kovalchuk, Radko Gudas and Brenden Dillon. It is likely they’ll try to re-sign Dillon as well as both RFAs. Here’s hoping we won’t need arbitration.
Other players will be on the move most likely. Not just Holtby but same with Gudas and Kovalchuk. That means there has to be players that can come in from outside to fill in their role. Over the next few slides we’ll talk about three.
Without further ado, let’s begin. Who do you think they should sign out of these three?
#3 Patrick Maroon
Patrick Maroon is a physical fourth line player. He can easily be an upgrade from Brendan Leipsic. Maroon is a clutch player in the playoffs as he’s shown this season with the Tampa Bay Lightning and last season with the St. Louis Blues. If the price is right, they could add Maroon to be a depth forward which will be one thing that they’ll need.
Maroon was drafted in the sixth round at 161st overall by the Philadelphia Flyers in 2007. He made his debut at 23 years old with the Anaheim Ducks in the 2011-12 season. He was traded to Anaheim by the Flyers in 2010.
Maroon scored his first NHL goal in the 2012-13 season. The next year he scored 11 and added 18 assists for 29 points. In 2014-15 he scored nine goals and added 25 assists for 34 points. The next year he got traded to the Edmonton Oilers. That season he scored a total of 12 goals and 15 assists for 27 points between Anaheim and Edmonton.
In 2016-17 he had a breakout year in his first full season in Edmonton. He scored 27 goals, a career high, and added 15 assists for 42 points. The next year he was traded to the New Jersey Devils. He had a total of 17 goals and 26 assists for 43 points between Edmonton and New Jersey.
In the playoffs with the St. Louis Blues last season, Maroon scored thee goals and added four assists for seven points. In the regular season he had 10 goals and 18 assists for 28 points.
This season for the Lightning he had nine goals and 14 assists for 23 points in the regular season and a goal and three assists in the Stanley Cup playoffs. He is currently trying to win a Stanley Cup with the Lightning.
Andrej Sekera
Like Maroon, Andrej Sekera is in the middle of trying to win a Stanley Cup. He’s with the Dallas Stars and a veteran that’s been in the NHL for 13 seasons. The 34 year old isn’t a top four defensemen but the Caps are looking for more of a bottom defensemen anyway. Dallas has over $15 million in cap space so there’s talk that they could re-sign him but the Caps should go for him if he’s available. He won’t cost too much.
He isn’t a guy that’s gonna blow you away with his stats. He doesn’t score very much and his advanced stats are average at best. Still he’s a good depth defenseman.
In 57 games played with Dallas he had a Corsi For percentage of 48.50 percent. That may be on the wrong side of 50 but his other numbers went on the other side. His Scoring Chance percentage was at 51.06 percent and his High Danger Scoring Chances percentage was 51.79 percent.
If the Caps were to sign him he won’t be asked to play top four minutes but he’ll be a good bottom two or depth guy that’s a reliable defenseman. He carries a cap hit of $1.5 million and he’s affordable. He can also leave room to sign Maroon who has a $900,000 cap hit.
#1 Anton Khudobin
When Brian MacLellan introduced Peter Laviolette, he had some news in the last minute that rocked Caps Nation. Fan favorite netminder Braden Holtby is hitting the open market.
MacLellan said to Tarik El-Bashir of The Athletic (subscription required):
“I would expect him to go to free agency. The goalie market is probably a little unusually deep this year. I talked to his agent last week briefly about where he’s at and the kind of opportunities he’s looking for. I would assume he goes to free agency and we’ll keep in contact with him throughout the free agency period to see if he’s getting what he wants.”
Like the other two, Anton Khudobin is competing for the Stanley Cup. He’s with the Dallas Stars. This season he had a 16-8-4 record with a career best .930 save percentage, a 2.22 goals against average and a .731 quality starts percentage. He carried a cap hit of $2.5 million.
Over the past two seasons with Dallas he has posted a combined .926 save percentage and a 2.42 goals against average which ranks tied for second and sixth, respectively, among netminders that appeared in at least 50 games. The question is will the Stars let him walk after he helped take them to the Stanley Cup Final? Another question is will his asking price go up or will it stay the same?
More. Washington Capitals: 3 Affordable Free Agent Defensemen. light
Those are our top free agents. Who are yours you think the Caps should go after? Let us know in the comments!