As good as Carlson is, he’s not bringing in Laine. Too much of an age gap. Oshie for risto could work but boy that oshie contract is gonna stink one day

I have a feeling Laine wants more than 8 no matter the length of the contract. He may end up with a bridge deal in WPG.

And yeah I think the Caps would have to add a bit more since Carlson is several years older.

As much as I love Oshie, if the Caps can get out of the second half of that contract, I think they do it. That contact is going to suck the last few years of it.

Payment drops each year. He gets a $2M signing bonus in summer '22. If a rebuilding team gets him after it's paid, at 35, they have him as a leader and on-ice coach for three years, at a 5.75 cap hit, but pay him only two thirds of that. He's an Olympic hero, a shootout genius, Cup winner, 30 goal scorer and he's gotten Selke votes. I feel like that and the almost six million dollars of cash-money savings below the salary floor are gonna make old man Oshie fairly easy to move, for whatever team has him, at the time. https://www.capfriendly.com/players/tj-oshie

How much more, each way? Laine only averages 3 points per year more than Carlson, and he plays forward.

If they trade Laine I think they’d want a younger centrepiece of the deal

One Jets fan asked for Orlov + Oshie. ????? I didn't see the Caps wrecking their defense to keep the same number of 30 goal scorers. Then another Jets fan casually added on Vrana, Alexeyev, and a 1st. Never read the comments.

Lmao wow those are low balls, surprised jets fans said that. Then again there’s some pens fans on here who defend jack Johnson and say he has a little trade value lol

If not for the cap, he'd totally get you Stephenson!

No matter how bad the back half of Oshie's contract ends up being, I'd rather play him 20 minutes a night for the remainder of his deal than let Ristolainen play a second in a Caps sweater. Risto is hands down one of the worst defensemen in the league who is consistently given top pairing minutes while never once justifying that billing in any one of his six (6!!!!) seasons of NHL hockey. Chandler Stephenson is actually a pretty good analogue for Risto at this point; both are guys who have never proven their worth at 5v5 despite being given every chance to do so, and both are only good at one area of special teams (Risto PP and Stevie PK).

Bottom line: Oshie might be bad in a few years, but Ristolainen has only ever been bad, and trading one for the other would be an unprecedented show of insanity on the part of GMBM.

Honestly I might do this if I were the WPG GM. Vrana is going to hit 30 goals this year if he continues to develop and stay healthy, without the PP time. Laine only scored 30 goals with a lot of PP time. Vrana scored more even strength goals and points. Vrana is also a better two way player right now. He's a 2 way forward based on some advanced metrics and we obviously know about his superb sniping ability.

You can counter and say that WPG would be potentially giving up an elite goal scorer. That's true and that's a hard call to do, but he isn't that yet. Vrana is a good top 6 two way forward right now and is only a couple years older than Laine.

Not to mention you're also getting a top 4 D prospect and a first round draft pick. It makes your team potentially better all around in a couple years.

Honestly not worth it for the Caps to do.

Lol.

edit: Of course you're mostly right. Risto's a career -143, and he would be a really big project. A change of scenes and a new coach who plays him in a bottom four role couldn't possibly make him any worse, though. Might even help out a bit. Karlsson went plus a couple, last year, so guys can change. Carlson is pretty unique in being an effective two way player at 26 minutes a night all year. Risto will never replace him. But as a 3RD behind Jensen and Gudas, he'd only be about $2.5M overpaid. And if he develops chemistry on the power play with Laine, and moves up to the top unit with him, after Ovechkin retires, then it allows the Caps to trade Orlov after two seasons as a #1 defenseman/PP1D, and get back another good player to build around.

on ice coach? Dude has CTE, captain blink a lot. He'll be on LTIR before that contract ever goes bad most likely

The salary is irrelevant, the cap hit will suck more each year.

Uh, Oshie just got 25 goals for the third time in four years. That's a bargain at almost any price.

And he makes less than Mats Zuccarello: https://www.capfriendly.com/players/mats-zuccarello

Zuccarello got 25 goals once, but it was in the Norwegian league.

Say you desperately need to sell a house in the next week or two, and the backyard needs improvement. It'd be a sensible idea to simply mow and weed the lawn and make it look nice, but you'd be certifiably insane if you instead decided to suddenly start digging a hole for an inground pool with your own bare hands, right? Sure, it might be worth exploring if you had room to royally screw up (which is the most likely outcome), but there's simply no way to justify the risk involved in such a, uh, let's say bold undertaking when time is of the essence.

Remember, the big trades don't necessarily do the most for a team. Caps gave STL a bunch of stuff for Shattenkirk, and that ultimately failed. Caps gave CHI a 3rd round pick, and all they got was a previously unknown defenseman and a Stanley Cup.

Yeah. MacLellan has some kind of a sixth sense to find Kempny on the Hawks' third pair, and see the possibilities for him as an immediate top four guy.

I can see where the risk/reward isn't nearly as great on a guy like Ristolainen who, if they do turn around to a plus player in more sheltered minutes, probably still doesn't live up to his current contract, and then still probably expects a raise when he hits UFA. Risto's big and he hits a lot, but for him to turn into Gudas would be Reirden's greatest coaching success since Matt Niskanen, and Risto already earns a bunch more than Gudas. Probably better to just keep the top power play that works, accept the inevitablity of a rebuild, and maybe still consider peripheral projects at lower price tags, like a Honka or a Puljujarvi. Same reward, just less chance of it happening; no risk. More like Connolly and Smith-Pelly, who also helped MacLellen put the Caps over the top.