Thread Starter
Who adds what?
Joined: Jul. 2017
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Of last year's playoff teams, Ottawa, Montreal, San Jose, Chicago, Minnesota, St. Louis, Washington, and Nashville have at least one star defenseman. With Letang out, Pittsburgh didn't. Their two goalies performed equally well, even though one was so bad they had to throw in a draft pick to get an expansion team to take him for free. Therefore, I'm going way out on a limb, and saying they won based on their forwards. Crosby and Malkin are obviously at a level the Caps can't pick up this summer, but as the Penguins deal with salary constraints, the Caps can compete by adding a couple more solid offensive forwards to try to help them get over the hump. I wouldn't build a team around just RNH and Duchene, but the buzz is they might be available, and in depth roles, they would make Washington even more of an offensive juggernaut than last year.
If the new defensemen don't work out, they can trade a few fifth and sixth round picks for a bottom pair, once they have cap space. But last year they had three star defensemen (Nisk, Carl, Shatt) and four more average playoff defensemen (Orlov, Alzner, Schmidt, Orpik) and after the regular season, it didn't get them anywhere.