The Washington Capitals head into Training Camp $1.36 million over the salary cap after a somewhat busy offseason by Brian MacLellan. The general manager brought back Carl Hagelin, signed three bottom-six UFAs to contracts (Richard Panik, Garnet Hathaway and Brendan Leipsic), inked a bridge deal with Jakub Vrana, and saw restricted free agent Christian Djoos come in at a higher salary ($1.25 M) than anticipated during arbitration.
Those moves combined to push the Capitals over the mandated $81.5 salary-cap ceiling, which they must get under before opening-night rosters are due at the end of the preseason.
According to the MacLellan, the Capitals may have to solve this problem by dealing a player before their October 2 game against the St. Louis Blues.
“I think we’ll probably have to move someone,” MacLellan said to NHL.com’s Tom Gulitti. “Injuries and all the stuff that happens in training camp and exhibition season probably dictates it a little bit, but we’re going to be patient. We’re not in a rush. We’ll wait and let it play itself out.”
According to Gulitti, MacLellan did not rule out starting the season with a 21-man roster. In that aggressive scenario, the Capitals would be down two players and have only one player as a reserve to get under the cap. It would force the Caps to be without depth during a busy first week of the season which sees the team start on the road against the reigning Stanley Cup champions before playing back-to-back games days later.
The Capitals currently have 14 forwards (two reserves) and seven defensemen (one reserve) on their NHL roster. As of right now, the most obvious candidates to move or put on waivers would be either Chandler Stephenson ($1.05 M) or Christian Djoos ($1.25 M). Then the Capitals would have to find a way to shed either $310k or $110k worth of salary, respectively. And that’s the tricky part, which will take some creative thinking.
One player that will potentially give the Capitals some flexibility is Jonas Siegenthaler ($714k). The talented Swiss defenseman is still on his entry-level contract and waiver-exempt, meaning the Capitals could hide him in Hershey until its financially feasible to have him on the NHL roster. Tyler Lewington then could start the year in Washington ($675k) as a reserve, saving the Capitals $39k.
In July the Washington Post’s Isabelle Khurshudyan mused that the Capitals could turn to Hershey Bears players like Shane Gersich ($700k) or Liam O’Brien ($700k) to replace Travis Boyd ($800k) on the active roster, which combined with another move, would get the Capitals to where they need to be.
Options for the Caps:
— make a trade
— swap out some depth players for guys making the league minimum or less. As an example, Lewington has a cap hit of $675K, and Gersich/O’Brien both make $700K. Maybe those guys end up getting spots to start over Stephenson/Boyd/Siegenthaler— Isabelle Khurshudyan (@ikhurshudyan) July 24, 2019
Logically, it would be Djoos. Caps like him, but Siegenthaler was ahead of him by the end of the postseason and organization already has a good pool of young defensemen. https://t.co/uhnJgz8qNI
— Isabelle Khurshudyan (@ikhurshudyan) July 24, 2019
All of this means that Capitals’ Training Camp will be rife with competition among the team’s bottom-six forwards and bottom-pairing defensemen.
Headline photo: @Capitals
