Team: 2024-25 Washington Capitals

Initial Creation Date: Apr. 23, 2024

Published: Apr. 23, 2024

Salary Cap Mode: Basic

Getting some cap-related stuff out of the way first. Backstrom is done and Pacioretty has 2m of bonuses rolling over to next year. I think it's 50/50 that Oshie is done as well.

The biggest priority this offseason should be true top of the lineup talent, no matter what position you can get it at. Ideally that talent would be younger and at forward, but you take what you can get. They already have a fair amount of young guys with medium ceilings in Protas, McM, Lapierre, Sandin, Fehervary, Miro. I don't think getting another one or two of those types of guys (Krebs, Robertson, Brannstrom, etc.) is enough.

Start with making a massive offer to Guentzel or Reinhart. Will either be "worth" whatever deal they end up getting? Almost certainly not, but who cares. Either one gives you a legit top line scoring forward that hasn't been here since Kuzy last decided to try in 2021.

Next, make a higher-level bet on a young player than what they did with Sandin (or MTL did with Newhook/Dach, NYI did with Romanov, etc.). I think the ask for Zegras will be unrealistic, but another good target would be Norris. See the trade itself for a full description.

Sign a mid-level UFA D to help the 2nd pair. There's a fair number of these types of guys available this summer but I went for Carrier. DeMelo, Tanev, Dillon would also be good fits in that same role. This lets you only run one of AA/Bear/Iorio.

Bring back Malenstyn and let GMBM work his pro-scouting magic for the other 4w role. Amadio seems like the exact kind of pickup he would make, but once again there's lots of options out there. No one in Hershey has stood out to me for an internal promotion at that spot.

Don't touch the goalies. $6.3M for a solid starter and capable back-up is completely fine. No need to overthink things here, even if Kuemper was very disappointing this year.

Iorio, Frank, and Shepard are the first guys up from Hershey.