You'd honestly rather have Jamie McGinn, Chandler Stephenson, and Travis Boyd over Carl Hagelin? To clarify, you'd rather have a bad forward, a worse forward, and a competent-but-defensively-terrible forward instead of a guy who drives play like few others in the league? I understand that fits under the cap but come on man

I can understand both Hagelin and Panik over Hathaway. Without Hathaway's contract, we're fine, and he's a 4th liner that is replaceable enough.

My guess is that Eller is on his way out. He's the only expendable forward with a large enough cap hit that didn't just sign his contract this summer. Caps aren't going to trade a player they just signed. That's a sure-fire way to ensure no free agents ever sign with the Caps again.

Those contracts are both solid.

Hagelin is an offensive black hole.

Panik's cap hit was projected to be ~$4.8M and Hagelin was projected right around what he's currently signed for, so I agree wholeheartedly; sounds like a lot of revisionist hoopla

(projections via noted geniuses @ Evolving Wild)

By offense do you mean points, or do you mean actual offense (shot attempts %, xG%, etc)? If you mean the latter then you know you're dead wrong.

Backstrom like Johanson before him will be leaving soon whether its trade or as a free agent .

Eller's consistency on 3rd will allow them time to replace backstrom after likely trading him at the TDL unless they're on a playoff push then they'll just lose him for nothing as a UFA because they wont pay a 32 year old term .

i think if WSH is smart they keep Eller
i know MTL regrets moving him
3 consistent years of growth from Chucky beside eller
the moment we trade him Chucky goes from 30 goal scorer on the rise
to problem child who cant hit 20 goals 3 straight seasons and is now on his 3rd team in 3 years .

Eller's Mentor ability as a player /coach is hard to replace
we brought in Shaw trying to do it
now we got a hole that needs filled .

I just don't see how else they get under the cap. I can't see them moving Backstrom right now. I guess they could move Jensen and replace him with an ELC, but then they have a RHD problem.

5,000 shots and $2 will get you a cup of coffee from the mini mart.

By the way... "moneyball" doesn't work.

Backstrom isn't going anywhere. The fan base would storm the front offices with pitchforks and torches.

if Plekanec at 33 got us a 2nd round pick we used to draft a great bottom 6 power forward in Jacob Olofsson and the piece we used to acquire Brett Kulak our 2nd pair LD most of last year then Backstrom can land WSH a 1st plus a Roster player due to his elite ability as a PP Center .

if you were to move him out to a team like CGY for example for Jankowski , a 1st and a later pick then WSH helps itself immediately as Janko's a solid 3rd line Center who's 25 or 26 who could play a 2nd Center role for WSH for a couple years. that 1st could help re-stock a weak depth pool spent on getting you cup victory .




but the main point was to keep Ovechkin,Oshie and Kuznetzov together you gotta make sacrifice's
Backstroms good but Eller can help carry bulk faceoffs it will be on the new guy to provide offense
a perfect fit for WSH would be Barbashev fresh off a cup ,reliable and hard worker who create's space.

i mean you could sacrifice Holtby to re-sign Backstrom but that would be foolish .
it will be a decade before you find another goalie as good as Holtby MTL knows it took us almost 10 years just to draft price another 3 before we seen his true potential .

Backstrom has to go just like Plekanec had to go
maybe he comes back as a UFA on a team friendly deal
but you always have to move your UFA's to get value

more so then if you let Ovechkin , Kuznetzov ,Oshie and Holtby together Backstrom has to go .
you cant re-sign a 32 year old Center next summer to a deal worth 7m+ if he doesnt ask for a big raise and term
Eller was signed longterm exactly for this reason

I would sacrifice Holtby to resign Backstrom and the team would be foolish to do otherwise. Holtby is replaceable.
Our future goalie is sitting in Hershey waiting for the call. He won't be ready this season but will be for next. The team has no replacement for Backstrom. I love Eller but he is exactly what he is - a very good 3rd line center. Not to mention that Backstrom and Ovechkin are the faces of the franchise and should retire in Caps Jersey.

That escalated quickly.

Where can the Caps clear a million dollars of salary cap overage without trading the guys they just signed? I mean.... if they get through all of training camp without an injury, they can trade Gudas, Stephenson, or Djoos? They can waive Leipsic.

Does that mean they need to trade Nick Backstrom?



^best of CapFriendly?

If Thornton, Crosby, the Sedins, Malkin, Zetterberg, Datsyuk, Doan, Kopitar, Giroux, Toews, or Stamkos get traded, let us know. Backstrom already has 200 more points than Plekanec or Saku Koivu, and is still in his prime. He's not a faceoff specialist. He's a #1 center. Montreal hasn't had a player that compared with Nick Backstrom since Henri Richard.

http://www.nhl.com/stats/player?aggregate=1&reportType=season&seasonFrom=20002001&seasonTo=20172018&gameType=2&filter=gamesPlayed,gte,1&sort=points,goals,assists

Is there a trade for a guy like that? Sure... Gretzky got traded for Jimmy Carson, a lesser #1 center who was briefly producing almost on the same level as him, was ten years younger, and logically should have gone on to outscore him over the next five years, once he played with better wings on a stacked team like the Oilers. People say it was about the money, and maybe that was a big part of it, but that's also not an issue in Washington.

Jankowski and a first lands Eller, not Backstrom.