After yet another second-round exit in the playoffs, the Washington Capitals went through a rather rough summer. They had possibly the best roster in the league last year when they won the President’s Trophy as the league’s top team. Unfortunately, sustained success like the Capitals have had the past few years will bring consequences. Having to re-sign their younger players to new contracts put the Caps up against the cap limit. The team only has $4 million in cap space and is still in need of three more forwards and two defensemen to round out the roster.
Being this close to the cap means the Capitals needed to shed some of their talent during this offseason. Homegrown talent like Marcus Johansson and Nate Schmidt were moved to the New Jersey Devils and Vegas Golden Knights, respectively. They also had to let big names like Justin Williams and Kevin Shattenkirk walk in free agency, as the team had no way to fit any additional big contracts on the payroll.
Losing these critical players certainly begs the question of whether the Capitals are still the big favorites to win the Stanley Cup. Going into the last few seasons the team has been the top pick to win it all, but the Caps have yet to make more than a dent in the playoffs. The past three years in a row they have been ousted in the second round, even with the amount of talent they have possessed. Now that they have lost some of their top talent to a cap crunch, how can they be expected to succeed where more talented teams in the past have failed?
Of course, the Capitals are not lacking in talent overall. With a core of Alexander Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, Evgeny Kuznetsov and Braden Holtby, among others, this team can keep competing for quite a while. But can the team get over the hump and at least make a Stanley Cup appearance with the decrease in depth Washington now has to deal with? If anything, the Caps might see hope in their rival, the Pittsburgh Penguins, who have been the ones to oust the Capitals from the playoffs the past two years.
The Penguins have a core of top-heavy players whose depth positions are filled with cheap, young players who have yet to earn their first big contracts. Players like Conor Sheary and Jake Guentzel were extremely valuable to the Penguins during both of their last two Cup wins. Maybe an influx of youth is exactly what this Washington team needs.
Instead of piling on older, experienced players via free agency over the summer into the team to try to get over the hump, getting some young kids into the rotation will help up the energy level of the team. Filling in the roster with kids who have something to prove might be even better for the Capitals. This could be exactly the remedy they are looking for. And if the success of the Penguins is anything to go by, there is certainly still room to hope for the Washington Capitals.
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