Thursday, August 10, 2017

Offseason Report for Washington Capitals

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The offseason has been a busy one for the Washington Capitals, who made many changes to their roster following a brutal playoff loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins in which they went out with a whisper in Game 7 of the second round. 

The Capitals entered the offseason with 14 free agents that needed to be re-signed, and it was inevitable that some of them would have to go. In addition to this, the expansion draft was coming up and the Capitals would lose a player. With all of this adding up, many experts have said that the Capitals had the worst offseason in the NHL and that they would be much diminished from their outstanding regular season last year.

Here is how it all started:

During the expansion draft, the two best players that the Capitals left unprotected were defenseman Nate Schmidt and backup goaltender Philip Grubauer. They figured that the Vegas Golden Knights would want to take a goaltender; however, they failed to realize that Penguins goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury as well as several other elite goaltenders were available. Because of that, the Golden Knights picked Schmidt, leaving the Capitals with one less defenseman, who would have been the team's future on the blue line.

The Capitals already had a depleted blue line, with Brooks Orpik being older and slower, as well as Karl Alzner and Kevin Shattenkirk sure to leave via free agency. 

Next, the Capitals resigned TJ Oshie to a huge, eight-year deal, and ended up signing (and overpaying) Evgeny Kuznetsov because he had apparently made a deal with a KHL team. He also had to re-sign Dmitri Orlov, which led to him having to trade Marcus Johansson, who scored the series-clinching goal again Toronto in the first round. In addition, Justin Williams, a solid player for the Washington Capitals, was gone.

Although this was just a report of the offseason, expect an opinion piece on this offseason coming soon.

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