Washington Capitals: Breaking down their goalie situation for 2021

Breaking down the Washington Capitals complicated goalie situation.

The Washington Capitals had an interesting storyline in the beginning of October when they signed Henrik Lundqvist. Now with him out for the season with a heart condition, a backup goalie position has opened up for the Caps. It’s now Ilya Samsonov‘s net. It is his time.

With the solid rookie season Samsonov had it made things a little bit easier to say goodbye to Braden Holtby. In fact the Caps don’t face the Vancouver Canucks so we can still root for him. With Holtby’s departure, that was why the Caps initially went with Lundqvist.

Those plans changed on Thursday when Lundqvist announced he wouldn’t join the team with the heart condition that will keep him from playing. Let’s examine the options.

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If the Caps can’t bring in another goalie from outside the organization they could go with Pheonix Copley or Vitek Vanecek. Now with the taxi squad rule, teams are required to have three goalies. One of them should be going to Hershey while the Caps go look for another free agent veteran they could sign.

If the Caps went with Samsonov, Copley and Vanecek it would be the least experienced goalie tandem in the league. That doesn’t mean the situation would be bad, just unclear. Samsonov has all the tools and skill to be a starter. But we’ve never seen him do it over the full course of the season.

We also didn’t see Samsonov in the bubble. But he is back in D.C. training with the Caps at optional informal skates at MedStar Capitals Iceplex in Arlington. Vanecek and Copley meanwhile have spent the last five years playing in the AHL.

Copley has  a.911 save percentage in 176 AHL games while Vanecek has a .906 mark in 141 games. Vanecek was the more productive one in the split.

The Caps also have another hurdle in their goalie situation with no preseason games. The final decision should come in training camp which opens for the team on Jan. 3rd.

Now you might be asking, which veteran goalie is available that the Caps could be interested in? There’s Cory Schneider, Craig Anderson, Jimmy Howard, and Ryan Miller. all are free agent veterans that could make a great mentor to Samsonov.

Adding a veteran goalie while placing Vanecek on the taxi squad is the likely route the Caps will take. We’ll wait and see what they do.