Don’t expect Capitals to trade for these 3 players
I’ve been telling you the last few days who I would trade for if I was the Washington Capitals. Tonight I am going to do the opposite by telling you whom they should NOT trade for.
These players will probably be up there in age anyway or might be in a position the Caps are good and set on.
#3 Connor Hellebuyck
Connor Hellebuyck and the Winnipeg Jets are at a standstill but it is likely he’ll get moved. But we’re starting this list with the obvious in that the Caps are not trading for a goaltender. Darcy Kuemper and Charlie Lindgren deserve to run it back.
Hellebuyck went 37-25-2 with a 2.49 goals against average, a .920 save percentage and four shutouts. Kuemper went 22-26-7 with a 2.87 goals against average and a .908 save percentage. Not good but not bad either especially with the hand his new team was dealt.
Lindgren went 13-11-3 with a 3.05 goals against average and a .899 save percentage.
Hellebuyck was one of the best in the game but that’s a move you go for if you stuck with Ilya Samsonov and/or Vitek Vanecek a summer ago instead of parting ways with both. It’s also a move they make if they swung or missed on Kuemper which they didn’t.
#2 Erik Karlsson
This move will not happen for two reasons. The obvious one being the Caps already made their trade for a defenseman in Joel Edmundson. And two, Erik Karlsson comes at an expensive price.
The San Jose Sharks defenseman’s cap hit comes out to a whooping average annual value (AAV) of $11.5 million. Caps don’t even have close to that. Unless of course they trade Evgeny Kuznetsov and Anthony Mantha. But why would you trade two forwards for a defenseman?
Karlsson’s stats are out of this world though. 25 goals and 76 assists for 101 points as a defenseman is simply insane. John Carlson may have given him a run for his money if he didn’t suffer that severe injury in December.
Maybe move him to forward?
#1 Mikael Backlund
Mikael Backlund is a center for the Calgary Flames. The Caps won’t trade for him for two reasons. The first is that they’re good on centers. Well, sort of. They got prospects.
But even if they wanted to trade for a center, Backlund isn’t the option. Because the center turned 34 not too long ago. He did score 19 goals and he’s a decent player. But he’s on the wrong side of 30 and the Caps should be all set on those types of players.
The most goals he scored was 21 in 2018 19 when he was 29. He carries a cap hit of $5.35 million. Mantha has a bigger cap hit and would’ve done a backflip if he even scored 15 goals last season. He had 11 goals.
Now Kuznetsov, here’s where things get crazy.
The Russian center has a big cap hit and apparently wants out. The Caps on top of the stress of finding one more assistant coach to fill out Carbery’s staff has to act on the Kuzy trade sooner rather than later.
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These are the top 3 players I would not even pick up the phone for.