Top 3 reasons the Capitals should stay away from Claude Giroux

The Washington Capitals should not trade for Claude Giroux. Nope. They shouldn’t even think about it.

It is likely the Philadelphia Flyers are going to trade away their star captain as the franchise enters a rebuild or a retool. The Flyers are currently at the bottom of the Metropolitan Division with a 18-30-11 record which is good for 47 points.

Giroux has been a staple of some good Flyers teams. He’s been around the organization for all 15 of his seasons in the NHL. That stretch includes 10 as a captain. He’s also in the final season of an eight year contract which is why the Flyers could be open to shopping him. Here’s 3 reasons why Giroux in D.C. won’t work.

#3 Age

Giroux is 34 years old and it’s bad enough the Caps are stacked with many players in their 30’s in their lineup. Good teams need a balance of veterans and youth, especially on the Capitals forward front. Adding another player in his 30s that could be just a rental could be costly. We’ve seen it cost them in the past.

Now Giroux is putting together a productive season, don’t get me wrong. 18 goals and 24 assists for 42 points isn’t too shabby for a player at 34 but if the Caps want speed to burn some teams in the playoffs, adding a 34 year old midseason won’t help the equation.

#2 The assets they could give up sound suspicious

The Philadelphia Flyers have sent scouts to the last several Hershey Bears games. It’s clear that they are trying to move on from their captain Claude Giroux and get the ball rolling on their rebuild.

I don’t think anything will happen today as Giroux is expected to play in 1,000th career NHL game tonight and each of those games came with the Flyers. He signed an eight year contract extension over the offseason which included a no move clause so it’ll be his decision ultimately on whether he wants to be traded.

A handful of NHL teams have also scouted the Flyers showing possible interest in Giroux. These teams include the Colorado Avalanche, Florida Panthers, Carolina Hurricanes, St. Louis Blues, and Minnesota Wild.

Back to the Flyers and their scouts. Here are some names they could be looking at acquiring for their future. Would you really want to see these guys in orange and black after Alex Ovechkin retires and we’re all going through a rebuild?

Aliaksei Protas, Alex Alexeyev, Lucas Johansen, Hendrix Lapierre, Connor McMichael.

Okay absolutely NOT on the last two. But losing Protas would be a big blow to the forward corps. There isn’t a big enough sample size of Alexeyev or Johansen yet but losing them could be a blow too.