Living in the Past

No, Yvan Labre, Greg Joly or Tom Williams?

LOL. Trying to pluck from the ranks of the possibly retiring, rather than the obviously retired. Otherwise there's no way I put Niskannen ahead of Iafrate or Langway. We already know these guys can set Ovechkin up for a fifty goal year. We just don't know if they have the durability left to play 82 games, or the speed to still perform like they used to. Ribeiro played 3rd line/healthy scratch minutes last year in the playoffs and didn't keep NSH out of the Finals. Semin had an inconsistent season that still put him among KHL first liners in goals. Ordinarily, I'd mock that, but... Panarin seems to have translated that performance to the NHL pretty well.

I'd give each a PTO to see if they can still outskate Barber and Stephenson. Then, if they end up on LTIR, the Caps still get to take turns developing Barber, Walker, Stephenson and Boyd, like they planned. I'd also audition Boyd between Ovechkin and Semin. He led Hershey in scoring and represented them in the AHL's skills competition for stickhandling. If he has any potential as a playmaker, that should be a place to show it. If neither Ribeiro nor Boyd gets the job done, move Eller up, and just accept that he will get too many points for the team to re-sign him. Either way, Backstrom sets Oshie up for another 30 a year on line 1c, maybe even 40 against weaker competition. And that's the kind of depth that makes a Penguins series even up front, so the Caps' defense and goaltending get a chance to shine.

But... since Vrana has yet to show much at the NHL level, and is still waiver exempt this year, why not sign one one more potential retiree at 1M? Jagr, Iginla, or Vanek could make the 4th line a bit more of a scoring threat, and help teach Tom WIlson how to play with a "puck." [edited above to reduce Semin's salary to be exactly the same as his last NHL contract, demote Vrana, and sign Jarome Iginla with the resulting 1M in cap space]

in the caps first year, I think they won 8 games all seasons. tom Williams was a veteran, after a victory, every three weeks, he made a Stanley Cup made of tin foil and paraded iaround the dressing room.
one of his inspirational speeches to his frustrated teammates, "Guys we are a GOOD team. We're just in the the WRONG league."

https://www.russianmachineneverbreaks.com/2013/05/15/mike-ribeiro-alex-ovechkin-has-a-lot-to-learn-about-the-game-and-how-to-play-it/

Here's a link to Ovechkin and Ribeiro praising each other, and Ribeiro acknowledging that losing Alzner and Johanson to sign him would be a rough summer. Five years ago.