The Washington Capitals have made a bunch of moves this offseason and they may not be done just yet. This post will focus on where the Caps stand financially as of this writing as we’ll take a look at their latest salary cap situation.
As we know, the salary cap is set at $82.5 million. It’s mostly remained the same the last couple of years as teams hope it goes higher in the future.
Per Cap Friendly, the Capitals are $6,321,666 over the cap. Their total cap hit is $88,821,666. The Caps began the offseason madness with three players on injured reserve, accounting for a total of $17,116,666. Those players are Carl Hagelin, Tom Wilson, and Nicklas Backstrom.
We move onto the goalies and bye bye Ilya Samsonov and Vitek Vanecek. Hello Darcy Kuemper and Charlie Lindgren. Kuemper, the new starting goaltender in town will make $5.25 million. Lindgren will make $1.1 million as a backup.
The defense features that $8 million cap hit of John Carlson. Orlov has a cap hit of $5.1 million and he’ll be due an extension by next summer as an unrestricted free agent.
From there the Caps will have a lot of decisions to make as the rest of them besides Carlson will also be free agents. Nick Jensen has a cap hit of $2.5 million and the rest all have cap hits of less than one million.
Now we move to the forwards and this group is more crowded than the defense. Being six million over the cap could mean a trade is coming soon even if it’s simply a trade for draft picks.
The Caps brought in Dylan Strome, traded for Connor Brown, and re-signed Marcus Johansson this offseason. They’re also banking on a solid young group that includes the likes of Connor McMichael, Axel Jonsson Fjallby, and Joe Snively.
With the Caps six million over the cap a trade is inevitable. The question is who will stay and who will go?