Équipe: 2017-18 Capitals de Washington

Date de création initiale: 26 juill. 2017

Publié: 26 juill. 2017

Mode - plafond salarial: Basique

I'm going to start off this by saying that I am a huge fan of Braden Holtby. He is one of the truly elite goaltenders in today's game. I know that this wouldn't have happened, but it was an idea that I had tonight while I was thinking about our organizational goaltending depth. Again, I'd hate to see Braden Holtby in a different uniform, and I'm not suggesting it either. It was simply an idea that I had.

This takes place before the draft, before the Coyotes acquire Anti Raanta from the Rangers. The thought process behind this was thinking about what our organizational needs are right now -- high end forward prospects and NHL-level depth (plus cap space). We get all those things with this trade. We can only do this because we have someone that can be a #1 goalie for us in Grubauer, and we have Ilya Samsonov coming soon, who projects to be an elite goalie in the NHL.

Caps fans, think about it this way: would you rather have the goaltending of Holtby for 55-60 starts and Grubauer for 20-25 starts, or Grubauer for 60 starts and Copley for 20, plus the production of MOJO and Clayton Keller, plus another high end prospect in the system?

I'm not sure this is something that the Coyotes would accept, but I feel the value is there. A young, elite goalie on a more than reasonable contract won't come cheap. I feel that the production we get from Keller not only now, but in the future he can really help replicate some of the production we'll lose from Ovechkin as he ages. Not to mention that we don't have to dump MOJO, so we'd get another 55 points from him.

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