Goalies do not get that kind of return in trades. Colorado already has a 6 million dollar goalie too

The value's almost there, but Zadorov's left handed. Defensive specialists play more effectively on their strong side, so let Kempny walk, stick Hobbs and Gersich in the AHL, note that the board of governors in the middle of winter estimated next year's cap as rising to somewhere between 78M and 82M and sign Carlson.

Zadorov led the league in hits, in his first year over 200... just jumped up to 275, and added 20 points. Huge improvement from a decent young defenseman. Might keep improving. Certainly interested! Happy to see more discussion about how that could shape up, and five stars for finding a way to add him and keep Orpik to mentor him and help him improve his positioning.

Holtby's third all time in career playoff save percentage, fifth active in career playoff wins, and the active leader in career playoff goals against average, and the first goalie since Quick in 2014 to author all sixteen wins of a championship. He's the last great student of the retiring goalie coach who mentored Hasek to greatness, and yes, Zadorov plus a first is pretty close, but it's not quite there, and I'm not certain the Caps consider it, even if it were, and even if Grubauer agrees to such a team-friendly deal.

When's the soonest, under this CBA, that a goalie has been traded after winning a Cup? I'm thinking it's Fleury, after contributing only one win out of 16, traded to Vegas with a 2nd round pick, essentially for Justin Schultz, a young top 4 defenseman, looking at the time like a rising #1 offensive defenseman. The year before the expansion draft Schultz was in the top 31 defensemen in points. Fleury was barely in the top 31 playoff goalies in wins.

Intangibles like hits can help a team, but only in conjunction with points. The Caps won this year by having three of the top 31 defensemen in regular season even strength points. Losing one of them to add another big hitter is a huge loss. Losing a goalie, too, means Washington passes.

Great analysis, how would you rate Zadorov v Adam Larsson. I was so upset then DATM traded Nikita, my head exploded. When I see how well he is doing in Colorado, and my Sabres are lost and last, I feel I should get a partial refund on my season tickets. Zadorov, Myers, McNabb, Pysyk and Ruhwedel all better than choices than what was left.

Thanks. yeah. Hard to say. Larsson's been more consistently solid, but this year they were about neck and neck, with AL playing a few more minutes and getting a slightly better plus minus, but NZ playing tougher zone starts and getting more points. Compher and ROR will be the ones to determine who won that trade. ROR started off last season with twenty goals in the first half and I wanted the Caps to trade for him. His second half did not feature twenty goals. So he joins Zadorov in some inconsistency, but hasn't been quite as bad as Zadorov's last couple years. Still, Compher's likely to put something together, eventually. I agree with your viewpoint that that trade rushed things and lessened the impact of the Sabres' developing core, overall, but not quite to the extent of wanting to panic-trade ROR. He's frustrating and uneven, but Compher still hasn't made the league, and Zadorov only has one season above ten points or 200 hits. He could build on it or fall apart. He's someone I'd want to add to the Caps while I could stick him with a Niskanen or Orpik full time to work out the details and keep improving his positioning, shot-blocking, takeaways, etc. I think he's played with a couple of really solid veteran guys in COlorado who may have had a similar effect, but he's not elite yet. Don't panic, and let bygones be bygones. I was still frustrated the Caps traded away some '90s guys until about last month.... sometimes things work out.

You are correct Compher may turn into a really good NHL mid six forward. I guess I think Zadorov could have been traded for O'Reilly straight up, or even better do not make the trade and let Compher, Zadorov and the pick develop. I think Botterill still get the team going in the correct direction. Thank you for your analysis.

Thanks for hanging out on a Sunday. Also, for nostalgia's sake, here's how that Edm trade looked to me at the time, too: http://www.thehockeynews.com/news/article/can-we-make-any-sense-of-the-taylor-hall-for-adam-larsson-trade

If you could tell Zadorov would be worth ROR, you're pretty good at this stuff.

Guys, Thanks for feedback. When I look at Caps, all I see is 6.1 million for Holtby and he will want a raise soon. Grubi is still RFA and is close to Hotby despite what everyone saw in playoffs. I think Samsonov is Caps future, so time to move Holtby is now. Did not want him traded to Eastern conference so I choose Colorado based on Varlamov injury history (and last year of deal) and I think Colorado can afford 2 high paid goalies.

In response to cap being higher and able to keep Carlson, I might be in favor of that, I thought his numbers would go down without Alzner, but pleasantly surprised. Still think Power Play helps his numbers and it should help whoever the Washington Coach slots there. Think extra money will be needed next year 2019-2020 deals so not sure I would want to tie up 7.5 million.

Am I wrong in thinking the Caps need to free up cap space not necessarily for this upcoming season but for the following years?
Thanks Again

At evens, he's only the 8th best offensive RHD. But to say that he benefits from power play time.... It's true, but I think the power play also benefits from him. http://www.nhl.com/stats/player?reportType=season&seasonFrom=20172018&seasonTo=20172018&gameType=2&position=D&filter=gamesPlayed,gte,40&filter=gamesPlayed,gte,1&sort=ppPoints

At evens, regardless of handedness, he was 11th in the league in points this year: http://www.nhl.com/stats/player?report=skaterpoints&reportType=season&seasonFrom=20172018&seasonTo=20172018&gameType=2&position=D&filter=gamesPlayed,gte,40&filter=gamesPlayed,gte,1&sort=evPoints

Last year he was in the 50s... http://www.nhl.com/stats/player?report=skaterpoints&reportType=season&seasonFrom=20162017&seasonTo=20162017&gameType=2&position=D&filter=gamesPlayed,gte,40&filter=gamesPlayed,gte,1&sort=evPoints,points

You could argue either way, here. Green and Cole were both to 30 last year in ESP, but theyear before than Carson was 34th, and neither of them was in the top 50 (85th and 129th, respectively, placing them as 2nd and 3rd pairing guys that year, while Carson remained somewhere in the top pair range, given that there were 30 teams, with two top defensemen, for 60 starting defensemen. If we go back to 14-15, Carlson was 2nd in even strength points, behind Subban. http://www.nhl.com/stats/player?report=skaterpoints&reportType=season&seasonFrom=20142015&seasonTo=20142015&gameType=2&position=D&filter=gamesPlayed,gte,40&filter=gamesPlayed,gte,1&sort=evPoints,points You have to go back five years, to 2013-14 to find Carlson slumping into second-pair even strength offense, ranking 10th with 14 ESP. http://www.nhl.com/stats/player?report=skaterpoints&reportType=season&seasonFrom=20132014&seasonTo=20132014&gameType=2&position=D&filter=gamesPlayed,gte,40&filter=gamesPlayed,gte,1&sort=evPoints,points

Since then, he's consistently been a top pair guy at evens, although he's certainly bounced up and down within that range. But whether or not to sign Carlson isn't just about how good Carlson is. It's about who the other options are. The Caps can go with Niskanen and Bowey on the power play and be pretty good. But they need to add more offense at evens, and also add someoen who can eat a bunch of minutes. So they're looking at signing Green and Cole, who are two of the top five defensemen in UFA this summer. They could end up spending more to replace Carlson with two short tern deals than they would to just keep the guy who led the regular season and the playoffs in points and helped the Caps win the first Cup in their history. So I don't think that 8M/year is going to be incredible vaue on its own. i just don't see a better way to spend it. I mean... is there some way they can sign Green, Cole, and Tavares? That might be interesting, but I don't think they have the cap space.

Having just won a Cup, I think the Caps don't have to worry quite as much as they used to about their long term cap space. Teams like Chicago and Pittsburgh who have recently won championships seem to have no trouble finding other teams to take their cap dumps, or even to dump half of the salary of centers they're about to acquire on. If the Caps get to join that club, they can pay carlson 10M a year, and have Vegas pay half.