I see that Galchenyuk is not working out in Pittsburgh too. Just like Panik here. Caps need to move him out this year somehow and try another winger if only to see if it can spark the 3rd line chemistry back to life. I really hope BMac realizes this and puts away his pride and see that it's not working out. Fingers crossed.

If Pittsburgh retained half, that could be a fair swap. Galchenyuk can't backcheck or kill penalties like Panik, and he's got no offense on a team with better centers than Washington, but if it's just as a rental with no cap difference, it could work. Of course, I posted Hags, Panik and Johansen for Galchenyuk and two decent forward prospects a couple weeks ago, and PIt fans shot it down pretty hard, in terms of taking on too much salary for too long. You can try a simpler, cheaper version.

For a scoring touch to the 3rd line that has proven chemistry, I wonder what it would take to have Connolly come back to DC? I have seen several AGMs mentioning Hoffman but for the cap hit, I'd rather have Connolly, who is a known commodity on the team. I expect the real issue there is going to be term and committing the dollars outside of this year and next. But for my money, I think he's a safer bet than the majority of the open market.

If the price is the same? Of course. Connolly obviously can score 20 goals in Washington, but it looks like he can score 30 in Florida, where there's a steady top-six spot for him, so he'd probably be more valuable to Florida, and pretty expensive to get back. At the same time, it took injuries in the top six and significant time at 2L for Connolly to break 20G in WSH. I wouldn't expect him to fix line 3. It was Burakovksy's and Oshie's puck movement that got Eller close to 20G. Moving Vrana back should get Eller and Panik going. If Hagelin can move up to 2L, and work well with Backstrom, it might not hurt Oshie much? Coleman and Labanc are certainly just luxury ideas, but Coleman is showing improvement, year to year, and Labanc is having a down year so he might be cheap to re-sign, as a guy young enough to still improve on the offense he put up last year.

The trick is to find the next Connolly.

Definitely fair points, and I probably didn't explain my idea in totality or very clearly aside from the immediate "how to get Connolly" - I was thinking that this is a long-term move as well, with Oshie likely to move on in the next year or two due to trade or expansion. What about something centered around an Oshie for Connolly swap where Connolly plays the middle six this year and moves into a permanent 2nd line role when Oshie departs? This assumes, of course, they are retaining Backstrom (which they will), and extending Vrana at a workable cap hit. I'm sure there is something I'm not thinking of, though.

EDIT: I guess he'd move into that permanent 2nd line role immediately, eh?

I mean, it sounds expensive. After expansion, if Seattle doesn't play nice, the team is going to want to have some prospects in the tank. Oshie for Connolly is pretty even, on the ice, but Connolly's contract is cheaper and he's younger, so I'm sure Fla only does that for futures. And like you said, with expansion coming up, every team has some uncertainty to prepare for. If Oshie's gone, the Caps don't have any idea whom Seattle goes for. Unless they protect Samsonov and Seattle takes Holtby, but would they take him? Depends on cap hit, next year's stats, and whether they take Price/Bob. If there's a straight up Oshie for Connolly on the table, yeah, the Caps probably take that. But when they start having to add a 2nd and a prospect, it gets questionable. Better to keep Oshie in position to break 30 goals this year, and get a pair of 2nds for him in August, or a little more if there's a short term contract coming back. Did you see the Isles post going for Zuccarello today? Don't want any part of it, but Oshie's better than Zuccarello...

All good stuff. I think I'm having a hard time reconciling the idea of the Caps staying competitive for a Cup through 2025(ish) and also setting the team up for a short rebuild cycle afterward, maybe a down year or two. I do think there's a longer window to build the prospect pipeline than most others think, because while the farm system may not have great depth today, it has enough to keep the NHL side in playoff contention after No. 8 & 19 have hung up the skates. It's going to be the wave after that where we really see a drop off, in my opinion - where the likes of Wilson and Vrana are starting to get into the tail-end of their primes and guys like Carlson, Orlov, maybe Kuzy (he's older than I thought) are considering retirement after their contracts expire, if they are even still here.

TLDR: I'm wondering how the Caps maintain their current trajectory while dropping the average age of their top 6 F / top 4 D by about 2-3 years to extend the window. Probably not possible, all things considered.

Just looked at that Zuc post...yikes.