Who is the lowest paid player on the Capitals?

The offseason means player contracts and boy do fans look at them no matter the sport. When it comes to the Washington Capitals there's been a hot debate going on as far as which contracts worked and which ones haven't. But who gave the Capitals the most bang for their buck? Why that was none other than Charlie Lindgren who was the reason the Caps made the playoffs in the first place.

If you look at the surface and how he was the subject of trade rumors midseason you can see how he became a bargain for the Capitals and was MVP throughout the entire season. Lindgren finished with a 25-16-7 record with six shutouts along with a 2.67 goals against average and a .911 save percentage.

In his career with the Caps which has spanned two seasons, Lindgren is 74-38-27 with 10 shutouts. That previous season he was a backup to offseason prize Darcy Kuemper. We talked about his Linsanity run that got the Caps back to the playoffs. But we never talked about the contract.

Lindgren enters the final year of his three year, $3.30 million deal. That's a cap hit of $1.10 million and the 31 year old is an unrestricted free agent next summer. To say this is a big season coming up for him is an understatment not just for the contract but to help keep the Caps on their culture of excellence.

Alright let's talk about the run again

Lindgren went on a five game tear in early November with some big wins on home ice and a win on the road over the NewJersey Devils. Then after Thanksgiving when the Caps needed a lift he gave it to them with a 38 save win.

In the six game run it included stopping all 35 shots that he faced against the Vegas Golden Knights. In February he got a shutout in Boston over the Bruins and he shutout the Bruins again three months later on home ice to catapult the Caps back into the big dance that is the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Keep in mind we excluded rookie contracts in this exercise. We did this as there's been a hot debate on who the MVP of the season was whether it was Dylan Strome or Charlie Lindgren. Stromer didn't make the cut since he's got a higher cap hit than Lindgren. We are thankful to have Chuck in net for another season.