What Would It Take For The Capitals To Trade Tom Wilson?

Tom Wilson is potentially one of hockey’s unicorns right now. That’s not to say there has never been a player like Wilson. For now though, when you look around the NHL, there might not be another player like him.

First off, he is a big dude. The official site of the NHL has him listed at 6’4″ and weighing in at 220lbs. He is not big for nothing either. He will use his size in plenty of ways, and that definitely includes punishing his opponents. He will hit, and he will hit hard. Sometimes crossing that unforgiving line, but as a opposing player, you have to know when big number forty-three is on the ice.

Also, as much as other fan bases want you to think he is just a goon, he clearly is not. While goal and point scoring was not something he did a ton of early in his career, in the last several seasons he has proven he has a very good scoring touch. Over the past five seasons Wilson has scored a total of 191 points in 289 games played. That includes 22 goals in 2018-19, followed by 21 goals the following season, 24 goals in 21-22 and 13 goals in 33 games played this past season. If Wilson kept up the goal scoring pace he was on last year and he played a full season he could have scored 30+ goals for the first time in his career.

He’s potentially a hockey unicorn, but more importantly, he is incredibly important to the Washington Capitals right now.

Most believe, myself being included, that Wilson is lined up to be the next captain of the Capitals when Alex Ovechkin hangs up his G.O.A.T skates.

Why would you trade a player like Tom Wilson?

Well, that’s where I think a lot of peoples thinking stops. Why trade Wilson? A great player, important to the franchise, fans love him. It is obviously and understandably very hard for fans to even contemplate that kind of player on a different team.

When thinking about this, you need to think about everything though. Is Tom Wilson a Capital for life? He could be. I  am not here to tell you he will be traded or he will be in D.C. for his entire career. What I am here to say is simply this. Before you hear a Wilson trade rumor and run over to social media to say something mean, or post a laughing emoji I think you need to think about a lot of things that could potentially, and I should stress the word potentially, lead to a Wilson trade.

The Capitals are in a weird position. As of right now, they are not the most competitive team. Going into next season there are a lot of questions. For the Capitals to be a contender again there are a lot of “ifs” that need to turn into “yes” answers.  Lets just take a look at some “ifs” shall we.

The Capitals could return to contender status if…

Alex Ovechkin does not take a step back. He’s 37 right now, he’ll be 38 before next season starts. The decline is coming at some point. He won’t be a a fifty goal scorer at fifty years old. If he takes a step back do the Caps have enough offense to make up for him?

Nicklas Backstrom can turn into a top six center again. He is 35-years-old. Will be 36 early next season. He has clearly lost a step, and he was never really the fastest to begin with. He has also had major hip surgery. Last season was not very pretty, at least in my opinion. Production wise, he scored just 7 goals in 39 games. In total he had 21 points, which is just about half a point a game which is the worst of his career. Maybe a full summer of training and not a summer of rehab will help him get back to a more Backstrom like game? That is the hope.

Evgeny Kuznetsov can be interested for an entire season. Assuming he is a Capital at all. You could go on forever about this guy, but I’ll leave it at this. With the skill and talent this guy has 12 goals and 55 points in 81 games will not get it done. Maybe a new coach gets him motivated for 82 games plus a potential playoff run? I don’t know. He hasn’t been motivated by the previous two guys. I’m not holding my breath on that. Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me, fool me three times I’m just a full blown dumb A. Combine Kuznetsov turning back into a number one center WITH Backstrom returning to a good form, the Caps suddenly have some center depth, especially with Strome still in the fold, and could be good again.

Prospects step in and turn into key players. Capitals prospects have to stop wasting their chances, specifically the forward prospects. Connor McMichael needs to cement his spot on the team. Hendrix Lapierre needs to start taking a run at a roster spot. What is Ivan Miroshnichenko? Can be be a key player in the not so distant future. At some point the Capitals are going to need to get younger. At the same time, the young players need to capitalize on the chances they are given.

The Capitals can avoid the injury bug next season. This can go with the last thing we discussed. If the Capitals continue to get hit by the injury bug you will need to young guys to come in and contribute. This is an older team though. There are a lot of key players on this Caps team that are over 30 if not over 35. Ovechkin, Backstrom, Oshie, they are over 35. John Carlson and Kuznetsov are over 30. Wilson will be 30 at the end of next season. I have been saying it a lot in recent years about this team. The older you get the harder it is to fight off injuries. When you get older a one week dinger takes maybe two weeks. Something that takes two weeks might take closer to a month now. This is a team that will need to stay healthy and I’m not sure I would count on that happening.

I am going to stop there, even though there are even more “ifs” for this team. Without going into detail, Mantha, goaltending, who the heck is even going to be on this team, what can this new head coach and staff do with this team? There are a lot of ifs for this team next season.

The point being, if all of those “if’s” turn into to no answers or go in a negative direction, then what? The Caps will probably get off to a bad start. If the prospects don’t start showing something at the NHL level while the Caps struggle out of the gate, you could be looking at a bad team with not a lot of hope for the future.

IF, that were to happen, do the Capitals re-sign Wilson? Is that the smartest move? Or do you try to trade him and get assets for him. Wilson would get you a lot in return I would think. What team trying to make a run in the playoffs wouldn’t try to go after a player like him?

You have to think about Wilson too. Again, IF, most of those questions result in bad results would you re-sign in Washington knowing a longer rebuild could be in the cards. Wilson will get his money somewhere. He is too good, someone will give him a ton of money. The question for him is will contending mean anything to him if the Caps need to start a rebuild?

I really do want to stress this point. There are a ton of questions here. I will not say that a Wilson trade is likely. If you asked me right now I would bet that Wilson stays a Washington Capital for a long time. But when I see people dismiss the very discussion that Wilson could be traded or could go somewhere else I get a little confused.

We have to think about everything in these types of situations.

All of the ifs that we talked about earlier could easily turn into negatives for the Capitals. If they turn positive then terrific. The Caps could be very good again and Wilson would likely remain a Cap for a long, long time. If things go bad you need to think about everything. And Wilson is included here.

So before you go and send your little rage post about Wilson being a Capital for life, or sending out laughing emojis anytime you see a trade rumor, step back and take a look at the whole picture.

Would it be great for Wilson to be a Washington Capital for life? Yes. Is there a path to him being traded at some point? Yes. I think there is. And for that path to be blocked this team needs a lot of their questions to have a positive answer. If those question have bad answers then that path will probably have to be explored at the very least.