Washington Capitals: Top 3 takeaways of the NHL Expansion Draft
#1 The Caps offseason just got more interesting
Nobody wants to lose young talent for nothing. It’s even worse when the young talent that enters the door doesn’t have a big enough cap hit to help your offseason spending. Now the Caps need to make a move and a trade could be on the horizon not just for Evgeny Kuznetsov.
The Caps set up their protected list to invite the Kraken to take a high priced defensemen. They didn’t despite the Caps exposing Justin Schultz ($4 million cap hit), Brenden Dillon ($3.9 million) and Nick Jensen ($2.5 million cap hit). Vanecek’s cap hit was the lowest on the team.
Now the Caps have to not only re-sign Alex Ovechkin and Ilya Samsonov but have to look for a number two goalie on the market as well. The Caps have been rumored to trade away Kuznetsov’s $7.8 million cap hit.
The Caps have just $9,735,407 money in cap space according to Cap Friendly. The rosters unfroze at 1 p.m. on Thursday and there’s been a flurry of NHL trades yet none involving the Capitals as of this writing.
Must Read. Washington Capitals: Breaking down loss of Vitek Vanecek in NHL Expansion Draft. light
With the first round of the NHL Draft hours away, things are going to get very busy in Brian MacLellan’s office this weekend.