Washington Capitals 2018-19 Season Preview

Washington Capitals

49-26-7, 105 points, 1st in the Metropolitan Division

2018 Stanley Cup Champions, defeated VGK 4-1

Additions: F Nic Dowd, F Jayson Megna, D Brooks Orpik (technically– traded to COL, bought-out by COL, signed by WSH as an UFA), F Sergei Shumakov, F Michael Sgarbossa

Subtractions: F Jay Beagle (signed with VAN), G Adam Carlsson (signed with Rapid City Rush, ECHL), F Alex Chiasson (signed to a PTO with EDM), F Tyler Graovac (signed with CGY), G Philipp Grubauer (traded to COL), D Jakub Jerabek (signed with EDM), F Tim McGauley (signed with Colorado Eagles, AHL), F Anthony Peluso (signed with CGY), F Zach Sill (signed, ELH), F Wayne Simpson (signed with Rochester Americans, AHL)

Still Unsigned: F Adam Chapie

Re-signed: F Riley Barber, D Madison Bowey, F Travis Boyd, F Liam O’Brien, F Devante Smith-Pelly, F Tom Wilson

Offseason Analysis: For the first time since the 2002 Stanley Cup champion Detroit Red Wings, the defending champion of the National Hockey League has a new coach behind the bench. Scotty Bowman retired from coaching after going out in style with the Cup in hand in Detroit.

The 2002 Red Wings lost their first two postseason games on home ice that year. Coincidentally, the 2018 Washington Capitals also lost their first two playoff games– on home ice too– en route to winning the Cup.

Unlike 2002, Barry Trotz did not retire. He took a higher paying job as head coach the New York Islanders, leaving Todd Reirden to assume the duties as the head coach of the Capitals after spending the last four seasons as an assistant coach.

Trotz left Washington after he would have received an automatic two-year extension and $300,000 raise. Given what top-NHL head coaches can make on the free agent market these days, let alone what some might get in a large market, Trotz resigned as the Caps head coach and more than doubled his salary with the Islanders in one offseason.

Reirden, 47, will be making his debut as an NHL head coach this season and will do so with a Stanley Cup winning roster still largely intact.

Gone are Philipp Grubauer (traded to Colorado), Jay Beagle (signed with Vancouver), Alex Chiasson and Jakub Jerabek. In their place are Pheonix Copley, Nic Dowd and other depth players from within the organization.

General Manager Brian MacLellan made ~~two~~ three big moves this offseason. First, MacLellan traded Grubauer and Brooks Orpik to the Colorado Avalanche for a 2018 2nd round pick at this year’s NHL Draft in June. The Avalanche signed Grubauer to a three-year extension and bought-out Orpik’s final year of his contract– keep that in mind in a few minutes.

MacLellan’s next big move this offseason was taking care of RFA Tom Wilson. Wilson signed a six-year extension worth $5.167 million per season that’ll keep him in a Caps sweater through the 2023-24 season, despite producing 35 points in 78 games played on a line with Evgeny Kuznetsov and Alex Ovechkin.

In 391 career NHL games since entering the league in 2013-14, he has 104 points (35 goals, 69 assists). That’s .266 points per game, for anyone keeping track at home.

Based on his playing style, Wilson draws comparisons to Boston Bruins winger, Brad Marchand. In Marchand’s first five years in the league (300 games played, 2009-14), he had 186 points (92 goals, 94 assists). That’s .620 points per game, for the record.

If you take into account that Marchand’s first season in the league was only 20 games in 2009-10 and add on the 2014-15 season (77 games played) to his numbers to truly reflect Wilson’s first five full-seasons, you get 228 points in 377 games from 2009-15 for Marchand. That’s only .605 points per game– a difference of .015 points per game in 77 additional games.

Regardless, up through this point in Wilson’s career, his “comparable” has had more points per game. Playoffs be damned.

Marchand had 39 points in his first four years of postseason play (2011-14, 66 games played). Wilson had five career postseason points in 41 career Stanley Cup Playoff games prior to 2018 (Wilson appeared in at least three playoff games in every postseason run except for 2014– zero playoff games played).

Including Washington’s Cup winning run, Wilson has 20 career playoff points in 62 games.

Once again, that’s a .591 points per game measure for Marchand in postseason play from 2011-14 and only .323 points per game for Wilson in his entire career’s worth of postseason action (2012-18).

Marchand broke into the league at 21-years-old. He’s now 30. Wilson entered the NHL as a 19-year-old and is now 24.

The only point to takeaway here is Wilson’s contract extension is a big bet on behalf of MacLellan. Luckily, if things work out, MacLellan will look like a genius for locking up Wilson through the first few years of potential unrestricted free agency.

But if things go south, not only will this contract be ridiculed, but it could prove difficult to move, despite not including a no-trade-clause. At $5.167 million per season, it’s not a terrible cap hit, but it’s certainly one in which Washington would likely have to retain some salary if they were ever to move Wilson.

Oh and about Orpik– he signed a one-year, $1.000 million contract with the Capitals shortly after free agency began and the defender wasn’t receiving many offers. The league reviewed MacLellan’s process of trading the veteran NHLer, Colorado’s buyout and Washington’s new deal and deemed it was not circumventing the collective bargaining agreement.

So Washington remains an unlikely Stanley Cup contender by default, having become titleholder to the term “defending champion” in addition to the retention of (without doing the actual math) 95% of the Cup-winning roster. The question remains, can they repeat?

Or more accurately, can they do what their biggest rival– the Pittsburgh Penguins– most recently did in 2016 and 2017– in 2019?

Offseason Grade: B+

It could’ve been an “A-“, but then the Caps just had to sign Tom Wilson at that length and term without having any proof of being an effective scorer in the regular season and playoffs.

For all intents and purposes, Wilson got lucky in the postseason like how Devante Smith-Pelly got lucky and went on a hot streak matching his goal scoring output (seven goals in 75 games) from the regular season in this year’s playoffs (seven goals in 24 playoff games).

2018 Offseason Preview: Washington Capitals

Our offseason previews for all 31 National Hockey League teams concludes with the Washington Capitals and their outlook for the summer– headaches, lots of headaches and not the salary cap related kind.

It only took 13 NHL seasons, but Alex Ovechkin is finally a Stanley Cup champion– and once you’re a Stanley Cup champion, you’re a Stanley Cup champion. No more “annual Second Round exit” jokes, no more counting the number of seasons or games until Ovechkin finally wins the Cup.

Instead, we’re left counting the number of beers all of the Capitals can consume in one offseason– and that’s from winning, not being eliminated this time around.

Kidding aside, Barry Trotz led the Caps to a 49-26-7 record and 105 points on the season. That was good enough for 1st in the Metropolitan Division in a season when most thought they’d never be as competitive as years past.

This team wasn’t “supposed” to win the Cup. But they did.

Now, Trotz’s two-year extension clause that would’ve kicked in having won the Cup led Trotz to resign as head coach, leaving General Manager Brian MacLellan searching for the next best coach available to step in behind the bench.

Trotz has every right to test the waters of free agency like players can and coaches salaries have risen for top-notch talent (Claude Julien makes $5.000 million a year– guaranteed, while Mike Babcock and Joel Quenneville both make at least $6.000 million a year).

He’s the first head coach to not return to his team after winning the Cup since Scotty Bowman retired after winning with the Detroit Red Wings in 2002 and Mike Keenan left the New York Rangers after winning in 1994 to take the job as head coach of the St. Louis Blues.

2018 NHL Entry Draft

Washington has the 31st overall pick in Friday’s draft thanks to winning the Cup.

They’ll either a) keep the pick and use it on a player inside the first or second round rankings, then overcook said prospect until he is ripe for an NHL debut or b) trade the pick for some assets (more picks in lower rounds or replenish some holes on the roster within the tight cap space that they have.

Pending free agents

The Capitals currently have about $11.200 million free in available money to spend this summer. There’s good news and bad news that comes with that.

Good news, Washington will keep some of their glue guys. Bad news, John Carlson is for sure gone because he can make bank (probably around $9.000 million per year) with his next contract elsewhere and MacLellan’s going to trade backup goaltender and pending-RFA, Philipp Grubauer.

This begs the obvious question, can the Capitals go back-to-back?

Yes and no.

Trotz plays a huge role in the postseason run that Washington had. The buy-in, the chemistry in the lineups and the changing strategies that got them further than they had ever gone under Trotz’s tenure– all of that comes under a combo of Trotz and the roster MacLellan built (okay, tweaked, since most of the Capitals were drafted by George McPhee anyway).

And no, because Washington’s run might just be one of those one-off acts where a team slays the competition in the playoffs, then stays competitive in the first or second round(s) for another year or two before returning to Earth.

MacLellan has two pending-UFAs to consider re-signing in Alex Chiasson and Jay Beagle.

Chiasson, 27, had nine goals and nine assists (18 points) in 61 games in his first season in Washington. He’s been around the league (Dallas, Ottawa, Calgary and D.C.) and likely will find a new address for 2018-19.

Beagle, 32, had 7-15–22 totals in 79 games played this season. Compared to Chiasson, that’s not that much better in 18 additional games. Beagle’s been part of the bottom-six soul of Washington’s forwards, but in an increasingly younger and faster game, he may be outpaced and outdone by the salary cap for the Capitals to retain his services.

Pending-RFAs Devante Smith-Pelly, Tom Wilson and Travis Boyd should all see expanded roles if they stick around.

Smith-Pelly, 26, had seven goals in 75 games in the regular season. He had seven goals in 24 gams this postseason. There’s no greater time than now for Smith-Pelly to cash in as one of the most important glue guys to any roster and given Washington’s cash strapped outlook, only time will tell if he’s rocking the red next season.

Wilson, 24, has his antics, reputation and scoring ability? The controversial forward and 16th overall pick in the 2012 NHL Draft had his best season in 2017-18 notching career-highs in goals (14), assists (21) and points (35). Washington’s going to want to lock him up if they can, while Wilson may opt for a bridge deal to drive up his value with another productive season or two.

Boyd, 24, hasn’t had a fair shake at the NHL level, having finally reached the Capitals roster in eight games (one assist) this season. He’ll be a low-cost, potentially high-reward (though anything more than one assist is automatically more rewarding) extension if a deal gets done.

28-year-old pending-UFA defender, John Carlson, will be the hottest blueliner on the market and unless MacLellan dumps some salary in a trade, Carlson won’t be back in the U.S. capital.

Michal Kempny, 27, on the other hand, has the chance to become more than a rental player, proving his worth over the course of 22 games in the regular season with Washington after being traded by the Chicago Blackhawks and 24 games in the postseason. He’s a top-6 defenseman that can play top-4 minutes, but like everything in Washington, only time will tell.

Given when this post runs, maybe some of these guys will have signed their name on the dotted line to stick around?

In a lesser sense, near-trade deadline acquisition, Jakub Jerabek, 27, could become more important this season if he’s re-signed as a top-6 guy to fill in behind Kempny, as Kempny fills in for Carlson (assuming both Jerabek and Kempny re-sign).

Madison Bowey, 23, is the only pending-RFA defender for the Capitals.

Star-goaltender, Braden Holtby, 28, has two-years remaining with a $6.100 million cap hit on his current contract and is Washington’s surefire starter for at least another seven years (probably).

Pheonix Copley, 26, likely will inherit the backup role with one-year remaining on his current contract ($650,000 cap hit) as MacLellan finds a trading partner to send 26-year-old backup turned probable starter (and pending-RFA) for a team in need of a goaltender, Philipp Grubauer.

While the Caps have to make the move for salary reasons, there’s a big potential to nail the perfect return.

Other pending free agents throughout the organization include:

Wayne Simpson (UFA), Adam Carlson (RFA), Adam Chapie (RFA), Tim McGauley (RFA), Zach Sill (UFA), Liam O’Brien (RFA), Riley Barber (RFA), Tyler Graovac (UFA), Anthony Peluso (UFA)