Who's Bittner? Why are the Caps letting Backstrom, Burakovsky, Vrana, and Connolly walk for nothing if they have 10M in cap space, with one year left on Ovechkin's contract? Are they letting Backstrom walk to bank cap space and pay Ovi 19M/year? It'd be a lot cooler if each decided to stick around on a Carlson-like extension, and just play as long as they felt they could contribute. That Usually seems to work out okay for the Wings.

Happy to see some talent moving up from the AHL, but Shumakov, Walker, Stephenson, and Boyd are already on the bubble, and likely to stick. Could trade some of them for picks.

Pay cuts for Holtby and Bowey seem unlikely.