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Brian MacLellan: Capped-out Capitals going through championship ‘hangover’ without the championship

By Ian Oland

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July 3, 2017 12:05 pm

Monday morning, Capitals general manager Brian MacLellan met with the press to discuss the state of the team after several big re-signings and a lopsided trade that saw the Caps salary dump their third-leading goalscorer to the New Jersey Devils.

“We spent the last three years building that team to where it was last year,” MacLellan said. “We maxed it out player wise and salary wise, and I think we were expecting to run into some issues here, going forward. It’s no different than the teams that have won in the past. We have the same kind of hangover, but we haven’t won a championship, and we’re dealing with it now.”

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Sunday night, the Capitals announced the re-signing of young star Evgeny Kuznetsov to an eight-year, $62.4 million contract (AAV of $7.8 million), which made the Chelyabinsk native the eighth-highest paid center in the game. According to MacLellan, the contract came in higher than the team anticipated because, as he hinted, an expensive two-year deal Kuznetsov was offered in the KHL.

That left MacLellan between a rock and a hard place, having to choose between Kuznetsov or Johansson.

In May, Kuznetsov was reportedly offered a three-year, $18 million contract from gas-rich SKA St. Petersberg during a narrow KHL window when teams can offer contracts to other teams’ restricted free agents. Kuznetsov turned down or did not respond to the initial offer. SKA St. Petersberg responded by acquiring Kuznetsov’s KHL rights from his hometown team, Trakor Chelyabinsk, for approximately one million dollars to continue negotiating. That KHL rights transaction appears to have happened sometime at the beginning of July (it was announced officially by the team on July 3), allowing Kuznetsov to negotiate with both SKA and the Capitals.

While the KHL as a whole is struggling financially, SKA is one of the richest teams in the country. With the NHL not participating in the Olympics next season, the KHL could also promise a spot on Russia’s national team during the 2018 Winter Olympics.

“We had to comply with his demands,” MacLellan said. “[Johansson] was making the money we needed to shed in order to sign Kuznetsov.”

This comes on the heels of Dmitry Orlov’s agent Mark Gandler admitting that the Caps defenseman came within one day of signing with CSKA Moscow.

“CSKA made a very serious offer to Orlov,” said Gandler. “We considered it very carefully. If it hadn’t worked out for Dmitry with Washington, then, as I told CSKA’s front office, we would have called them on July 1 and begun to finalize a contract.”

Orlov signed a six-year, $30.6 million contract with the Caps the day before free agency.

A source confirms to RMNB that Kuznetsov and Orlov both seriously threatened to leave for the KHL, leaving the Capitals without much leverage on the pair despite holding their RFA rights in the NHL.

Kuznetsov’s contract then in turn pushed the Capitals to have to deal Johansson with the team projecting itself to be several million dollars above the NHL’s mandated $75 million cap ceiling for next season.

The New Jersey Devils, knowing the Caps were in salary cap hell, offered the Capitals only a second-round and third-round pick for Johansson in exchange.

MacLellan says the Capitals will now look to re-sign restricted free agents Andre Burakovsky and Philipp Grubauer to new deals and are not expecting any more moves.

The team will not buy out 36-year-old defenseman Brooks Orpik and instead integrate potentially two rookie defensemen into the lineup next season.

“I don’t know if we ever really considered [buying him out],” MacLellan said. “I thought Orpik had a good year last year. I thought him and Schmidt played really well together on our third pair. I think we value what he brings to young defensemen. I think he was very good for Schmidt and Schmidt was very good for Orpik. I think we have a bunch of young defensemen coming up. We have ten or twelve guys that are all under 22 and they’re all pretty good players. We’re going to value the ability of Opik to mentor these guys. I didn’t want a buyout on our salary cap going out four years. I didn’t think that made sense for us.”

Grubuaer will also remain with the team as the Caps will depend on its talented goaltending duo to protect its young defense next season.

MacLellan was also asked about the expansion draft, where the team lost inexpensive top-four defenseman Nate Schmidt to the Vegas Golden Knights. The team chose to protect seven forwards, three defensemen, and one goaltender, likely hoping Vegas would go after their backup goaltender.

“We went over it whether to do the 4-4-1 or the 7-3-1,” MacLellan said. “I did anticipate a little more trade activity during that expansion time. I think there would have been a bigger distribution of players that changed teams but it seemed to just freeze right up. I think everybody in general was a little bit surprised, even Vegas themselves, about the lack of trades going into that. We were comfortable with our 7-3-1 strategy.”

MacLellan also revealed that the team called Shane Gersich’s representatives, but prospect is returning to North Dakota next season for his junior year.

Top forward prospect Jakub Vrana will get an opportunity to play in the top six next season.

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