Expansion Draft Preview: Washington Capitals

The Washington Capitals have an interesting off-season ahead of them.

Alexander Ovechkin is an unrestricted free agent as his 13-year contract signed in 2008 has come to an end. The Capitals will surely bring Ovechkin back for as long as he wants to play, but the clock is ticking to win again with their franchise icon.

The Caps don’t have much wiggle room to work with this summer to improve their roster. Could they use the Expansion Draft to free up some space?

Eligible Forwards

@Alex Ovechkin (UFA), @Nicklas Backstrom (NMC), @Evgeny Kuznetsov, @T.J. Oshie, @Anthony Mantha, @Tom Wilson, @Lars Eller, @Carl Hagelin, @Garnet Hathaway, @Conor Sheary, @Nic Dowd, @Daniel Sprong, @Brian Pinho, @Michael Raffl (UFA)

Eligible Defencemen

@John Carlson, @Dmitry Orlov, @Justin Schultz, @Brenden Dillon, @Nick Jensen, @Michal Kempny, @Trevor van Riemsdyk (UFA), @Zdeno Chara (UFA)

Eligible Goaltenders

@Ilya Samsonov, @Vitek Vanecek, @Pheonix Copley, @Craig Anderson (UFA)

Exempt Players

Hendrik Lapierre, Connor McMichael, Brett Leason, Kody Clark, Aliaksei Protas, Riley Sutter, Alexander Alexeyev, Martin Fehervary, Tobias Geisser

What should they do?

Dealing with Washington’s forwards is pretty easy considering Ovechkin won’t be inking a new contract until after the Expansion Draft.

Backstrom carries a no-movement clause on his deal, so he’ll be protected. After that, Kuznetsov, Oshie, Mantha, and Eller are pretty obvious choices to protect from Seattle. That would leave the Capitals with room to protect one depth player, either Hagelin, Hathaway, Sheary, or Dowd.

There’s been talk that the Caps are ready to move on from Kuznetsov, but this is also likely something that’ll happen when the Expansion Draft is over.

The challenge for Washington will be selecting which goalie to protect. Ilya Samsonov, a former first-round pick, appeared to be the goaltender of the future, but Vitek Vanecek was the better of the two of them in 2021. I would still guess the former is the guy the Capitals opt to protect due to his upside.

The blueline features an opportunity for Washington to shed some cap room. Carlson and Orlov are two obvious names to protect, leaving Schlutz, Kempny, and Dillon as options for the last spot. The Capitals could offer Seattle a sweetener to take on Dillon’s contract, which has three years left at $3,900,000 annually.