Johansen was drafted in 2016...as a prospect, he won't really hold that much trade value.

Just make it Kempny for a 3rd or something like that.

Ekholm will be lost in expansion

Josi Ellis Ehkolm Fabbro Forsberg Johanson Ardvidsson Duchene Saros

Ha ha ha ha ha. No thanks.

While I can imagine that NJ pick might not be moving, Kempny's currently worth more than a 2nd, less than a 1st.

Kempny tied for 38th among LHD in even strength points this season: http://www.nhl.com/stats/skaters?reportType=season&seasonFrom=20192020&seasonTo=20192020&gameType=2&position=D&shootsCatches=L&filter=gamesPlayed,gte,1&sort=evPoints&page=0&pageSize=100

He tied with Chychrun, Giordano, Brodie, and Morrissey. Try getting any of them, at a $2.5M cap hit, for a 3rd round pick. Good luck.

He was also 7th in plus/minus, although I know that's out of style.

My thought process here is Kempny for an almost-1st rounder, if Nashville wants defensive depth to win right now, Afanasyev for Johansen and a 4th if they want a solid LHD prospect who will do better in NSH than WSH, and then Harpur or some other contract moving back to keep Nashville below the limit. Actually prefer someone at a different position, if that's an option, or really prefer no one.

Did you watch him play this year? I don't think he ever got to 100% from the injury in 2018-19, but he was still nowhere near his 2018 self. He was so bad that he got healthy scratched at the end of the playoffs. A big part of why we traded for Dillon is because Kempny was no longer playing like a top four defenseman. He's worth nowhere close to a first round pick. He's worth a third, maybe.

That's an overpay by NSH

In general most people trade Kempny for 4th rounders here.

You seem to be a fan of the guy - good for you then. But literally no one thinks he's worth more than a low 2nd.

Radko Gudas and Nick Jensen also got health scratched on these Caps, after being top four defensemen with non-playoff teams, the year before. Yeah, Kempny slumped here and there, but overall, his weak year resulted in as much even strength offense as a weak year from Mark Giordano. I'll take it.

He also, over the last two seasons, has blocked 207 shots, which ties him for 31st among LHD with Ekholm.

I don't think the Caps need to make any cuts on defense. If Kempny plays as badly as he did last year, he's still a top-four defenseman on half the teams in this league.

I'd love to see Washington add a star forward, and that could require cap space, but they could stick with the guys they've got and win the division again.

I'm a fan of looking at what guys achieved, rather than just getting swept up with whoever shouts their opinion the loudest. Whatever anyone on here thinks he's worth, the guy was last traded as a 3rd pair shot-blocker. Now he's a top-four puck-mover. The value has changed. Low 2nd is possible if they have a great opportunity to add a star forward and are in a hurry for cap space. If they don't need to move him, high 2nd still gets it done.

Gudas got scratched for most of the playoffs and he's pretty much guaranteed to be moving on (he's even said as much in an interview with the Czech media during the shutdown). Jensen on the other hand was scratched just once back in February when the whole team was playing like dog**** and they were rotating guys on the 3rd pairing to try out Fehervary, and he didn't miss any of the playoff games. Kempny was benched for the last three games in the Islanders series after going -3 in the first two, which shows a pretty significant loss of confidence in him. I'd be pretty surprised if he isn't traded. Even if he can still produce at ES, he's just not good in his own end, and defense is the Caps' biggest problem.

Also, blocked shot totals don't mean a whole lot. Mark Borowiecki is 3 slots ahead of Kempny with 213 blocked shots in the last two years, but that doesn't make him a good defenseman.

Boro's good at what he's good at.

Kempny had two bad games in the playoffs, after getting one more even strength point than Trouba last year at less than a third of the cap hit, so he has to be traded at a steep discount?

This is why we can have nice teams.

It's a lot more than two bad playoff games. That benching was a long time coming cause he'd been struggling defensively all season. I really hoped it was just lingering effects from the hamstring injury, but he had plenty of time off during the shutdown and supposedly got back to full health but still had the same problems in the playoffs. Trouba's value comes mostly from his play in his own zone, and I think the consensus is that he's pretty overpaid anyway, so he's a weird player to bring up.

Kempny should be traded because as you said, the Caps have a logjam on the left side. It sounds like the Caps want to bring Dillon back, so between him, Orlov, Fehervary, and Siegenthaler there's just no spot for Kempny, and his cap hit would be better spent on a 2RD.

Kempny was a lights-out penalty killer all year, and finished seventh among LHD in plus/minus. Trading Kempny because you think he's bad at defense, because sometimes guys get by him, is like trading Ovechkin because he missed a lot of shots.

Growing up, I thought Calle Johansson was bad at defense because I always noticed guys getting around him on odd-man rushes.

It was only years later that I wondered why he was always the one back to defend against the odd-man rushes, and I realized that actually Johansson was fine. Kevin Hatcher was out of position a lot, in order to get points, and Johansson was back to cover for him.

Do you think maybe that's what's happening with Carlson and Kempny, and that's why casual fans are scapegoating Kempny as being bad at defense?

I'm not opposed to trading Kempny, if Dillon wants his spot, or if Alexeyev is ready to play a top-four role, but the return starts with a 2nd round pick.

If you don't trust my eye test saying he's bad just look at how the Caps have handled him lately, cause the organization clearly doesn't share your opinion of Kempny's defense. If the Caps thought Kempny was a lights-out PKer and fine in his own end at ES, they wouldn't have traded for Dillon in order to bump Kempny to the third pairing and take him off the PK, and they wouldn't bench Kempny in the playoffs after going down 2-0. The Caps have clearly shown a growing lack of faith in Kempny at both the GM and coaching level, and other teams will have noticed that. If the Caps can get a 2nd for him that'd be great, but I don't expect that for a guy who's fallen so rapidly out of favor.

My assessment of the Caps' defense last summer was that Carlson is a solid #1, Orlov is a 1/2, and then Jensen, Kempny, and Gudas are all #4's. Adding a #2/3 in Dillon with experience playing big minutes and checking opponents' top guys would have made sense from that. Kempny moved up during the year, and so did Siegenthaler, but you can still never have too many good defensemen.

If we're going by how the coach used the guy in the last couple weeks before the coach got fired, I'm not sure that counts for much.