Washington Capitals: Top 10 worst free agents of all-time
The Washington Capitals have spent some offseasons making smart moves. Other parts of the offseason has brought on dumb moves and questionable moves. Especially in free agency.
This post will take a look at the worst of the worst. We always talk about the best of this and the best of that. Top 3 this and top 5 that. But this post will look at the worst for once.
So without further ado let’s look at the worst Caps free agents of all time.
#10 Gary Sampson
Gary Sampson was a left wing with a left handed shot. He was listed as six foot and 190 pounds. On Feb. 21, 1984 he signed as a free agent with the Capitals. In four seasons he had just 13 goals in 105 games.
He was 24 when he first started out with the Caps and had a goal and an assist for two points in 15 games in 1983-84. His best season came in 1984-85 where he had 10 goals and 15 assists for 25 points in 46 games.
The next season he had a goal and four assists for five points in 19 games. His final year saw him score just one goal and record two assists for three points in 25 games. He retired after four seasons due to injuries.
#9 Rick Bragnalo
Rick Bragnalo was a left shooting center listed as five foot eight and 160 pounds. He scored 15 goals and 35 assists for 50 points in 145 games played. Like Sampson, he spent just four seasons in the NHL, all with the Caps.
He signed with the Caps as a free agent on March 1, 1976. He played in 19 games that season scoring two goals and 10 assists for 12 points.
His best season was his next season which happened to be his first full season where he had 11 goals and 12 assists for 23 points in 80 games. The next year he had just two goals and 13 assists for 15 points in 44 games.
The next year saw him skate in two games and that turned out to be his final season in the NHL. Back then the Caps were also affiliated with the Hershey Bears.
Bragnalo spent the 1977-78 season with the Bears and had 11 goals and 17 assists for 28 points in 30 games. The next year he had 21 goals and 39 assists for 60 points in 77 games with the Bears.
The next year he played in just one Bears game before calling it quits for the AHL and NHL. He went over to the IHL with the Port Huron Flags and finished the rest of his career playing Italian hockey.
#8 Joe Sacco
Joe Sacco was a left shooting right wing that was drafted in the fourth round by the Toronto Maple Leafs. The six foot one, 190 pound forward signed with the Caps as a free agent on August 9, 1999.
Sacco spent three seasons with the Capitals. His first season saw him score seven goals and 16 assists for 23 points in 79 games. he had another seven Goa season the next year in 69 games to go along with seen assists for 14 points. His third season was his worst season where he had just seven assists in 65 games in 2001-02.
After that he played in 34 games with the Philadelphia Flyers before retiring from the NHL. He is currently an assistant coach for the Boston Bruins. He would find more success on the coaching ranks.
In 2005-06 he was first hired as an assistant coach of the Lowell Lock Monsters, an affiliate of the Colorado Avalanche. Then in 2007 he was named head coach of their new AHL franchise the Lake Erie Monsters.
He later became the head coach of the Colorado Avalanche during the 2009-10 season and coached them to the playoffs that year. He coached until 2013 as they had three losing seasons in a row since.
Sacco has been with the Bruins as an assistant since 2014.
#7 Andrew Cassels
Andrew Cassels was a center listed as six foot one and 185 pounds with a left handed shot. He was drafted in the first round at 17th overall by the Montreal Canadiens in the 1987 NHL Draft. His final season in the NHL was with the Caps.
Cassels signed on with the Caps as a free agent on August 9, 2005 and was released but he caps on Jan. 28, 2006. His time nonetheless was short lived.
In 31 games with the Caps, Cassels finished with four goals and eight assists for 12 points. He finished his career with 204 goals and 528 assists for 732 points.
Cassels also spent time with the Hartford Whalers, Vancouver, Canucks, Montreal Canadiens, Calgary Flames, and the Columbus Blue Jackets.
Part of the problem of Cassels time with the Caps and why it was so short lived was because that 2005-06 season was the season after the 2004-05 season was canceled due to the lockout.
That lockout messed up Cassels’ play and the age was catching up to him as he was on the wrong side of 36. He also had dealt with injuries during his final couple of seasons in the NHL.
Cassels was one player many fans don’t remember from Alex Ovechkin’s rookie season probably because he was barely noticeable.
#6 Michael Nylander
Michael Nylander is the dad of current NHL player William Nylander. The elder Nylander was drafted by the Hartford Whalers in he third round at 59th overall in he 1991 NHL Draft. The Caps knew about his skillset and twice brought him on board but he mostly blossomed during his time with the New York Rangers.
He spent two seasons in New York centering a line with former Cap Jaromir Jagr and Martin Straka making it a Czech connection. His first season with the Rangers saw him score 23 goals and 56 assists for 79 points and then the next year had 26 goals and 57 assists for 83 points.
The Caps signed him in the summer of 2007 to a four year and $19.5 million contract. He had a combined 50 assists in his only two seasons in Washington. Nope that’s not a typo.
In 2007-08 Nylander scored 11 goals and added 26 assists for 37 points and the next year had just nine goals and 24 assists for 33 points.
Nylander’s time with the Caps ended on Jan. 28, 2010 when he was re-assigned to Finland’s Jokerit Helsinki. The center easily wasn’t a Nicklas Backstrom nor Evgeny Kuznetsov and looking back I don’t think he was a Lars Eller or a Nic Dowd either.
#5 Roman Hamrlik
Roman Hamrlik was drafted by the Tampa Bay Lightning in the 1992 NHL Entry Draft. He played a season and a half with the Caps from 2011-12 to the 2013 lockout shortened season. His best NHL season came way before that.
It came in the 2000-01 season where he had 16 goals and 30 assists for 46 points with the New York Islanders. His first season with the Caps saw I’m score two goals and 11 assists for 13 points.
The next year during the lockout shortened season of 2013, Hamrlik only suited up for four games with the Caps before the team placed him on waivers.
He got claimed by the New York Rangers and helped them eliminate the Caps in seven games in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Back then Hamrlik was signed to a two year, $7 million contract and it turned out to be a waste. It was all that money for a veteran that eventually ended up going to waivers.
That 2013 season would end up being Hamrlik’s final season in the NHL. He spent 20 years in the league but seemed to do better when he was with the Tampa Bay Lightning and the New York Islanders. Two goals in 72 Caps games is pretty bad.
#4 Tomas Vokoun
Tomas Vokoun was a veteran netminder that the team needed badly at the time. Here’s hoping Darcy Kuemper is much better than him. Coming off of back to back 28 loss seasons, the Caps signed him in the summer of 2011 to a one year, $1.5 million deal.
He went 25-17-2 with a 2.51 goals against average and a .917 save percentage, a slight downgrade from Semyon Varlamov.
The question was why would the Caps want to gamble on a goalie who lost 28 games for two straight seasons. Especially when they had young goalies in Michal Neuvirth and Braden Holtby. Maybe they were desperate after Jose Theodore was more like Jose Three or More and didn’t work out.
Vokoun was drafted in the ninth round at 226th overall by the Montreal Canadiens in the 1994 NHL Draft. He spent 15 years on five different teams and eight of those seasons were with the Nashville Predators while four were with the Florida Panthers.
With the Predators he went 161-159-56 while with the Panthers he was 101-108-30. Not sure what the Caps were thinking here acquiring an above average goaltender at best.
He lasted one season with the Caps, then joined the Pittsburgh Penguins before finally hanging up his skates after the 2013 lockout shortened season.
#3 Wojtek Wolski
Wojtek Wolski was signed by the Caps in the summer of 2012 to a one year contract worth $600,000. It was a move that was supposed to add scoring depth to the bottom six. Unfortunately it didn’t.
Wolski was drafted by the Colorado Avalanche the same year Alex Ovechkin was drafted in 2004. He was also a first rounder with Colorado taking him with the 21st overall pick.
Wolski’s rookie season saw him score two goals and four assists in nine games. The next year he recorded 22 goals and 28 assists for 50 points. It looked like he was about to become a star.
Wolski spent two more seasons with the Avalanche before being traded to the Coyotes. He also spent time with the New York Rangers and Florida Panthers before landing in Washington at age 26.
In 27 games with the Capitals, Wolski recorded four goals and five assists for nine points. He never saw NHL ice again after that infamous 2013 lockout shortened season.
Wolski was signed as a free agent in May after the Caps were eliminated by Nizhny Novgorod of the KHL. The worst part about some of these players that we mentioned is their careers in the NHL ended after that 2013 season.
#2 Richard Panik
Richard Panik was brought in during the 2019-20 season to fill in the void left by Andre Burakovsky. Burakovsky went on to be a star with the Colorado Avalanche helping them win a Stanley Cup and will be joining the Seattle Kraken this upcoming season.
Panik didn’t quite live up to expectations. He had nine goals and 13 assists for 22 points in 59 games in the COVID-19 shortened 2019-20 season. The next year he had just three goals and six assists for nine points before being traded to the Detroit Red Wings in the Jakub Vrana for Anthony Mantha package.
Panik had just 12 goals and 19 assists for 31 points in 95 career games with the Capitals. This past season he played in four games with the New York Islanders before the team placed him on waivers.
It was a good move by the Caps including Panik in the Mantha package. It’s still too early to tell who won that trade but Mantha has been doing good since playing for the Capitals.
Vrana has also done well since playing for the Red Wings and embracing a bigger role. Panik I guess was getting up there in age even though he was just 30 when he entered waivers.
#1 Brendan Leipsic
Yup the top two worst free agents of all time came from that infamous summer class of 2019. The Caps were Brendan Leipsic’s fifth NHL team as he was a journeyman.
Leipsic started off with the Toronto Maple Leafs, then Vegas Golden Knights, Vancouver Canucks and Los Angeles Kings before finding a home in Washington, or so he thought.
Leipsic had three goals and eight assists for 11 points in 61 games. Not bad numbers and he wasn’t a terrible bottom six winger. He had speed and could get to the dirty areas of the ice.
But it was his dirty mouth off the ice that cost him a spot on the Capitals and number one on our worst free agents of all time list.
During quarantine when the league was paused, Leipsic found himself in a group chat making vulgar, misogynistic, demeaning and profane language including conversations about women, other NHL players and their significant others, and even insulting comments about his line mates Nic Dowd and Garnet Hathaway.
The Caps decided to terminate Leipsic by placing him on unconditional waivers. Once the team found out the screenshots and confirmed that they were him, they were ready to move on. He’s now in the KHL.
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That’s a lesson for you kids, be careful what you say on social media both publicly and privately.