Here’s where all the action happens. Lots of things cooking today.
Japers’ has a great primer on who in the Caps system is up for grabs: Arnott, Sturm, Hannan, Gordon, Brouwer, Bradley, Alzner, Varlamov.
We’ll update this post with each development relevant to the Caps, and you can share your panic-struck ravings in the comments.
- Boyd Gordon to Phoenix: 2 years, ~$1.3M per. That’s a big raise.
- Jeff Halpern returns to the Capitals! 1 year, $825k. Clear the parade route.
- Jose Theodore to Florida: 2 years, $1.5M per. Nice deal for JT60 at a team reaching up to the salary floor.
- Jaromir Jagr to Philadelphia: 1 year, $3.3M. Haha, Pittsburgh.
- Hershey Bears sign Paul Baier of Rochester. Need pronunciation check on last name.
- Semyon Varlamov to Colorado for picks! (And not per anyone’s Russian agent.) $2.75 per year, which is $1.60M more than what Michael Neuvirth currently makes.
- Not strictly Caps-related, but Max Talbot to Philadelphia, 5 years, $9 M. Philly has gone insane.
- Caps sign RW Joel Ward (ex-Preds)! 4 years, $12M.
- Caps sign D Roman Hamerlik (ex-Habs)! 2 years, $7M
- Marco Sturm to Vancouver. 1 year, $2.25M. Can’t keep ’em all!
- Caps sign AHLer Ryan Potulny. 2 years, 2-way deal. Go Bears.
- Panthers sign Tomas Fleischmann. 4 years, $18M. This is a joke right?
- Sheldon Souray returns to the NHL with 1 year, $1.65 deal from the Stars. That’s a lot for a guy who didn’t even dominate in Hershey.
- Columbus signs Bears captain Andrew Joudrey to a two-way, two year deal. Sounds like he’ll be in Springfield of the AHL. Great guy. We wish him all the best.
- Caps re-sign Sean Collins to a 1 year deal. Say hello to next year’s Tyler Sloan.
- Washington signs former Bear and Cap Chris Bourque to a one year contract. The 2010 Calder Cup Playoff MVP spent the past year playing in Russia and Switzerland.
- The Florida Panthers have signed Matt Bradley to a two year deal.
Developing… This post will be updated. Go freak out in the comments.
UPDATE, 4:00 PM – Tons and tons of movement from the Caps today. Salary cap room is quickly evaporating and we still have no word on Brouwer or Alzner. Are some big-time trades imminent?
UPDATE, 6:30 PM – One of Neil’s tweets just got read out loud by EJ Hradek of ESPN. Really, we’re not kidding:
Please knock Neil down a peg in the comments. He’s going to be unbearable.
UPDATE, 7:00 PM – George McPhee just spoke to the media about today’s moves: “We wanted to complete our team. Didn’t get where we wanted it last summer. I felt we needed to add a defenseman last year in the summer and we didn’t do it. We made the trade the during the year but it’s a hard process to go through. I’d rather complete it now and we’re in good shape now. We have good depth — all the holes are filled — and I think we have a good, strong team.”
A few other notes from McPhee via Sky Kerstein: The Caps were hoping to get value for Semyon Varlamov back next summer and were surprised they were able to get it now; McPhee said Washington was close to a deal with Varlamov last week, but Varly wanted to be guaranteed the number one spot and the Caps wouldn’t make that assurance; according to the GM, Braden Holtby and Michal Neuvirth will be in net next year and the Caps are pretty much done with the free agent pool; Tom Poti’s status is still unknown which is why they signed Hamrlik.
Looks like that’s it for the day. We’ll keep you posted if anything else breaks.
