Top 5 concerns Capitals must address this offseason
#1 Goaltending
The number one concern for the Washington Capitals this summer is the goaltending. Who do they go with for the future: Ilya Samsonov or Vitek Vanecek?
They’ll have to decide between one of the two unless something crazy happens and they’re both on another team. If it comes down to that they do have Zach Fucale in house. Otherwise it looks like they’ll likely go for a veteran net minder in free agency.
In the regular season Samsonov went 23-12-5 with a 3.02 goals against average and a .896 save percentage. In the playoffs he took over after Vanecek struggled in Game 2. For the rest of the way he went 1-3 with a 2.97 goals against average and a .912 save percentage.
Vanecek went 20-12-6 in the regular season with a 2.67 goals against average and a .908 save percentage. In the playoffs he went 1-1 after winning Game 1 with a 4.21 goals against average and a .863 save percentage.
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The question is who the Caps go with to start or at least back up next season? Recency bias suggests Samsonov just beat out Vanecek based on the playoff performance. But then again it could all change over a month from now when free agency is set to begin.