Where's Vrana? Why is Yakupov (a 4th liner at best) playing with Ovi and Kuzy on the top line? Put Wilson as RW for line 1, Vrana instead of Duclair, Connolly as 3rd line RW and then you can put Yakupov as a 4th liner.

What are you even talking about? Tom WIlson finally breaks ten goals and thirty points at 24, and he's more of a first liner than another 24 year old who's a former first overall pick, and who's hit those marks three times and twice? Wilson's bigger and meaner, and if Yak doesn't work out, you can always move him back up. Yak's best year in Canadian juniors, he hit 49 goals and 102 points. Wilson maxed out around 70 points. Yak is from Russia, and has been played on third lines with English speaking guys, for a few years, and has sucked. Wilson will get you 20 points on a third line, and 200 hits, so you lose ten points by moving him down. Yak should get forty to fifty points a year with Ovechkin and Kuznetsov both mentoring him in his native language. So you gain 40 to 50 points by signing him and putting him in that spot, but lose ten from Willie, for a net gain of about 30 points, compared to just keeping Barber around as a healthy scratch with that same roster spot. I would not accept a one year deal, because then Yak doesn't grow as much, and the Caps aren't able to re-sign him the next year. The benefit to Yak is that he gets his career back, and gets to play with two guys who can translate what coaches tell him, if he misses part of it, which I'm guessing he does, or he wouldn't be a healthy scratch everywhere he goes after being picked first overall. The benefit to the Caps is that they get a cheap top line player with nearly infinite potential.

Vrana is still waiver exempt and AHL stats don't count toward arbitration. If you can't sign a UFA better then him, yes, he can play 2nd line. He's fast, and has some skills, but Burakovsky scored at a faster pace than him in the playoffs, and neither of them has posted a 20 goal season in the NHL. 22 year old UFA Anthony Duclair has. Then he didn't do much for a few years. I would sign him long term at a 2M cap hit and put him with a center and a right wing who are, in my very humble opinion, light years better than anyone he played with in Arizona. Duclair topped out at 50 goals and 99 points in his best year in juniors. How he fell to the third round of any draft is beyond me, and I would be okay with a one year deal here, knowing that every team in the league passed on him in the draft, twice, and knowing that if he does a terrible job, Burakovsky and Vrana are each more than capable of taking his spot (where i am confident either of them will score 30 goals, demand 6M the next year, win it in arbitration, and leave as a UFA)..... but I'd also be fine with 4 years, if the coaching staff will commit to making it work. I know Vrana can play on any line, right now (and I suspect Gersich could, too), but how good would the team be in 19-20 if Vrana has to compete to even get a spot in the top nine, and Gersich has to battle in camp for a fourth line role?

Yeah, I put Boyd and Barber on waivers, and sent Vrana to the AHL. Not because I don't know they might get claimed. But because a couple of the remaining UFAs are their age and way, way, way way way way better, so far. Could Boyd score a hundred points one year? Sure. Guys come out of nowhere and you never know who will put their skills together. Jay Beagle could score 100 points if he plays with Boeser and gets all of the power play time in the world..... But if I had to guess whether any of the above or Nail Yakupov would get more points playing with Ovechkin and Kuznetsov, I'm going with the Russian-speaking first overall pick who scored 102 points in juniors, scored 17 goals as an NHL rookie, and is only 24.

WIlson and Burakovsky are big and strong, but if I can get better goal scorers to fill the complimentary roles in the top six, they'll make an awesome third line, and after that I can probably sign Burakovsky, long term, at 4M a year, and give Vrana a bridge contract at 2M, and bring Gersich up at 1M..... so I'm still maybe looking at losing one of Niskanen, Holtby or Burakovsky to salary cap math in the summer of 2019 if the cap stagnates, but if you really want to play Bura and Vrana in the middle six this year, and let either of them finish all of Backstrom's passes, and set up Oshie, raise that number to two out of three.

So the team above loses one less key player next summer, and scores more goals in each of the next three years.

Tell me again which line Tom Wilson played on, though?

The only reason I can find not to sign Yakupov is that a good part of his offense has come on the power play, and the Caps tend to run just one power play unit, which hasn't changed personnel in three years. If you look at only his even strength goals, his max is eleven, tied with WIlson. On the other hand, Yak scored eleven even strength goals playing on a third line centered by a guy the Caps invited to training camp the next fall and didn't even sign, and only playing 48 games. Wilson hit 11 even strength goals playing a full season, and over half of it on the top line, that would have been the top line with or without him.

What I don't know is whether Yak's low games played numbers in subsequent years have been more due to injury or due to coaches just not liking him. I think the Caps' coaching staff has done a great job in reclaiming some very talented guys who had not been used to their potential in Connolly, Smith-Pelly, and Kempny, so I know the skills are there to just show that patience and trust that allow talented young athletes to put their skills together.

And if he hasn't scored 20 points by the trade deadline, there's no cap penalty for playing him in Hershey at that price, where he would be a superstar and, with 252 professional games played, would not even count as a veteran this year. I mean, talk about a ringer.

So.... if Yak doesn't work out, by the trade deadline, then you add a cheap right wing for a late pick, move WIllie back up, send Yak to the minors, and here's Hershey's top unit of guys who don't count against the AHL's veteran limit of six guys who start the year with 260 games played in North American Pro:

Vrana Gersich Yakupov
Siegenthaler Johansen
Samsonov

Could they still use Cody Franson? Sure, but as a veteran, he's not part of this discussion.

I think winning a Calder Cup could be good for all of their development, and that bringing them all up to the Caps the next year (okay, maybe not Siegenthaler yet, but eventually) could really help Washington. Yak is never going to live up to his potential by playing 3rd and 4th line minutes, anywhere. He needs to play top line minutes, either in the NHL, or in the AHL this year, so that he can earn a spot as an NHL first liner for the last two years of Ovechkin's contract, and light up the league. He's obviously got the skills. The Oilers' front office made a very expensive commitment to develop him, but their coaches played him on a series of awful third lines, in front of a lot of weak defenses, and when that didn't work, they benched him a lot. Colorado gave him another quick tryout, okay, so you can give up on him.... or you can invest a year of Ovechkin and Kuznetov's time and energy in teaching him how to play a two-way game in the NHL, in exchange for a few extra years of cost-controlled offense, once he gets it right.

Two years ago, this would look like three skill guys and no defense on the top line, but I think that after a few years of Barry Trotz' patient instruction, Ovechkin and Kuznetsov have improved their defensive and positional thinking enough that it could work, and that they can teach Yakupov as much as Fedorov taught Ovechkin and Semin.

As long as he's okay with a 1M cap hit, I'd even give him five years. It still won't affect the cap if he's in Hershey, super-starring it up, and helping Samsonov adapt to North America, but the chance to add a guy with a pretty high ceiling who needs exactly the kind of situation the Caps can offer him to succeed, for basically nothing, by NHL terms? How could either side pass that up?