Washington Capitals: 5 players who won’t be back in 2021
Brenden Dillon
No more Dilly Dilly :(. The Caps employed an interesting strategy in their protected list before the Seattle Kraken expansion draft. On the defense, they chose to protect John Carlson, Dmitry Orlov and Trevor van Riemsdyk. That third pick was a wild card but the Caps used this strategy in the hopes that the Kraken select one of their defensemen with a higher contract.
That plan didn’t quite work. The Kraken chose Vitek Vanecek and his small cap hit but the Caps were able to trade back for him after they signed Philipp Grubuaer in free agency. Still before all that madness happened, the Caps had to make a decision on which defensemen to let go and Brenden Dillon was the odd man out.
The Caps traded Dillon and his $3.9 million cap hit so they would have money to pay both Alex Ovechkin and Ilya Samsonov, both with contract extensions. Dillon brought a physicality to the defense that we hadn’t see in a while and he was never afraid to drop the gloves.
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Dillon scored two goals and added 17 assists for 19 points while appearing in all 56 games while having a 50.40 percent Corsi For Percentage. The Caps dealt him to the Winnipeg Jets in a salary dump move. Even though he only spent a season and a half here, we’ll all miss Dilly Dilly here at Stars and Sticks.