ROR has no value to Washington. He would be 3rd line center on this team making over 7 million a year.

Perfectly reasonable position. Washington is not a good fit for ror because of his contract.

ROR at 3C is an answer to Brassard at 3C, and Holtby's next contract will be 8M in two years. If Grubauer and Copley can get through most of next season, with maybe 10 games of call ups for Samsonov/Vanecek, the Caps should do this. Moving up a dozen spots in the second round is pretty cool, and Scandella is already 80% as good as Johansen is likely to end up, sometime after Ovechkin retires.

I'd have to see the cap hit picture from the Caps' side, but I think that they've given out 12M in salary, taken back 12M in salary, and converted a surplus of excellent goalies into a surplus of excellent two way centers and defensemen.

That can make goaltending less of an issue.

Great concept! I’d like to make the caps version and give you credit.

I hear you, but the salary cap is going up, and O'Reilly for 5 years at 7.5 is cheaper in term and AAV than what Holtby will get in two years on the open market. Taking on Orpik without dumping back a salary means Buffalo is making it pretty possible for Washington to re-sign Carlson. As the Caps fan who started nagging Buffalo fans about how much ROR would cost, sometime around November, based on reading the kinds of centers Pens fans were trying to add and just hoping to keep up....

I think this works pretty well for Washington: https://www.capfriendly.com/armchair-gm/team/645384

My only concern is a lack of playoff experience, and that ROR got most of his goals in the first half of this season. I'd want to check whether that's a fluke or a trend before pulling the trigger, but in terms of points, faceoffs, and goals, he's a solid second line center, and with the salary cap going up, teams can't win it all with just one of those, anymore.

Beat you to it.

Sabres are giving up way to much here still. No matter how good Holtby was in the past, the fact of the matter is right now, he is no better than Lehner. You give up you 2nd line center for a goalie who is playing as well as your current starter, on a significantly better team, and they have the same stats, with 0 evidence or reason to believe he will improve other than his performance in prior years. It is not worth giving up that much for a goalie and it is certainly not worth paying so much for one. Good forwards and good D make average goalies look stellar. Improve the Sabres positions of need, Ullmark/Lehner are good enough