Answering the toughest NHL Trade Deadline questions of the Capitals

The NHL Trade Deadline isn’t until March 3rd but that hasn’t stopped numerous NHL teams across the league making moves to either improve or retool their roster. Where things stand with the Washington Capitals isn’t good. They need to realize this current roster won’t work and it hasn’t worked the last four years.

The biggest change to the Capitals could come on the blue line. Only John Carlson is under contract for next season. The rest are all unrestricted free agents except for Alex Alexeyev and Martin Fehervary, who are restricted free agents.

The big name out of the group of unrestricted free agents is Dmitry Orlov. Rumors that I’ve been hearing is that the Caps and Orlov have had a hard time agreeing on a contract extension.

Orlov has a $5.1 million cap hit this season. He’s due for big money perhaps like the extension John Carlson got after the Caps won the Cup in 2018. Carlson makes $8 million a season through 2025-26.

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. The Caps have basically done the same thing for the last four years and it’s ended with the same result: a first round exit.

Now the Caps are in a five game losing streak for the first time since January 2014. That season was the last time the Capitals missed the playoffs. The big issue with Orlov’s camp and the Caps is that they’re having a hard time agreeing to the term of the extension.

Chris Johnston of TSN reported on Tuesday that the talks between both sides are going “nowhere”:

“This is a potentially significant development because Orlov’s name has started to emerge in trade chatter, and I think there’s a couple reasons for this. The one that you key on there, the fact they’re sputtering a bit in Washington… if they get either a strong offer right now or he’s unsigned at the end of next week, I think they have a very interesting decision on Orlov.”

Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet noted in his 32 Thoughts column that Capitals general manager Brian MacLellan has “signaled he was open to ideas.” Friedman added, “He’s willing to discuss their unrestricted free agents.”

Not only is Orlov rumored to be shopped so are defensemen Nick Jensen, Trevor van Riemsdyk, and Erik Gustafsson as well as forwards Garnet Hathaway, Conor Sheary and Marcus Johansson.

Could something be in the works soon? Highly unlikely but if the Caps were to falter tonight even with Alex Ovechkin returning to the lineup, changes could come soon.