T.J. Oshie One Of The Most Important Capitals Trades Ever

Washington Capitals right wing T.J. Oshie may be an untradable player. Usually when you hear that sentence it is not a good thing. When you hear that a player is untradable it is for one of two reasons. That player has a bad contract, or he is just not that valuable any longer. Or even a combination of those two situations.

With the Capitals in a cap crunch I have looked at their team plenty of times trying to figure out who they move to ease that pressure. Oshie is probably towards the top of that list, but every time I considered that option it seemed the quicker I dismissed it.

In the now seven seasons Oshie has spent in D.C. he has become one of the most important players on this Caps team. Forget about on ice for a minute. It seemed pretty quickly that Oshie turned into a dressing room leader for this franchise. That is something that is always invaluable. Whether your team is a cup contender or not.

Then we do move to the ice.

Before we fully move onto the ice lets revisit the trade. Oshie was traded to Washington early in the 2015 offseason. On the 2nd of July Oshie was sent to the Capitals by the Blues for Troy Brouwer and Pheonix Copley. A third round pick for the 2016 draft was also involved in the deal, however the Caps were able to reacquire that pick in a later trade.

Since then Oshie has played 457 games and has scored 325 points, 161 of those being goals. To compare that to his Blues days, he played in 443 games for St. Louis putting up 310 points with 110 goals scored.

In seven playoff appearances for the Caps he has 59 points and 29 goals in 72 games played. For the Blues he played in just 30 playoff games in five appearances and he had just 9 points and only 5 goals. Oshie has a .81 points per game in the playoffs with the Capitals and had just a .3 points per game with the Blues in the postseason.

It didn’t take too long for Oshie to make a big impact on this team. In his first playoffs with the team in the second round vs the hated Penguins he scored a hat trick, the third and final goal coming in overtime.

His career high in goals that season of 26 helped the Capitals win the Presidents Trophy, a trophy that deserves more respect in my mind. Then the very next season the Capitals won that trophy again and Oshie was again a big part of that. That season he scored 33 times, that being his first, and to date only thirty goal season of his career.

We all know what happened the next season. Even though Oshie himself had a down year, arguably his worst season statistically as a Capital, he helped the team win the first Stanley Cup in franchise history.

In that postseason he was nearly a point per game player. In the 24 games he played he scored 8 goals and put up 21 points. He was tied for fifth in playoff scoring that playoff year.

Oshie also gave us a nice moment after winning the Cup. During an interview for TV he mentioned that his father had Alzheimer’s and didn’t remember much, but that he wouldn’t forget this. Writing doesn’t do it justice, if you haven’t seen it, you need to. A great moment from something that is less than ideal to say the least.

The final accolade that Oshie has achieved while being a part of the Capitals is during the 19-20 season he was named to his first all-star game. That year he joined John Carlson and Braden Holtby in St. Louis. Poetic, going back to the city and team that drafted him into the NHL and going back as an all-star.

Looking forward, Oshie has played in exactly 900 games. If he is able to remain a Cap and stay healthy, in the next two years we will be celebrating 1,000 career games. At some point it seems likely that he will also be celebrating 300 career goals. He currently sits at 271. Both of those accomplishments and milestones are very impressive.

Statistically and on the ice Oshie has given Caps fans plenty of memories already. At the end of the day, and more important in my book, he seems to be loved by both his teammates and the fans. Unfortunately I have never had the pleasure to meet him, but he seems like an overall great human. A great person who happens to be a very good hockey player.

When you combine all the facts, off ice, on ice and personality. When you revisit the trade for T.J. Oshie I don’t know how you would ever not call this one of the best trades in Capitals history.