For all the times this old dead horse gets beaten, I've never seen anyone question the idea that the Caps would still have Daniel Winnik, who made $2M last year, and would have expected a raise, to forego free agency. Winnik is having another solid offensive year, but his corsi is falling off a tad (
https://www.hockey-reference.com/players/w/winnida01.html), but it doesn't matter, because the Caps wouldn't have re-upped his deal at more than 2M, any more than they would have bet on Nate Schmidt over Brooks Orpik to play over 20 minutes a night for a whole season this year, just because he went on a hot streak last year around playoff time. It'd be cool if they could have known he had arrived full-time, but there's no way they could have known that.
They clearly thought he was a fluke. When reporters asked MacLellan whether he was talking to McPhee about a trade, he said he was talking to him, and thought McPhee would take Schmidt. Then he talked up Schmidt as a likely top four defenseman this year,something you wouldn't do if you didn't want McPhee to take Schmidt. McPhee might have even thought he was going easy on MacLellan in making that pick, and not picking Alzner, Shattenkirk, or Grubauer, who were all exposed.
More likely he just had his philosophy in place, had scouted relentlessly, and decided Schmidt was worth the gamble for his potential, would come at a low cap hit, and likely stay there, and might clear waivers if Garrison, Sbisa, and Stoner had lived up to expectations. Meanwhile, Grubauer probably didn't have enough games played in the NHL to justify taking him over Pickard or Fleury, and the trades McPhee was able to get for Grubauer weren't any better than just picking Schmidt and seeing what happened.
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