The Capitals made a ton of moves on the first day of NHL free agency, which can be jarring for fans in trying to make sense of it all.
To help with that, ESPN's senior NHL writer, Greg Wyshynski, joined The Sports Junkies on Thursday to try to provide some clarity. Specifically, did the Capitals get better?
Darcy Kuemper
Caps GM Brian MacLellan clearly identified goaltender as an area where they needed to improve, jettisoning both of his club's netminders from the 2021-22 season — trading Vitek Vanecek to New Jersey and choosing not to extend a qualifying offer to Ilya Samsonov (he's since signed with Toronto).
MacLellan has since signed Darcy Kuemper, the Stanley Cup-winning goalie from the Colorado Avalanche, to be Washington's new starter, and Charlie Lindgren to be his backup.
On the idea of MacLellan not wanting to waste the final years of Alex Ovechkin vacillating between mediocre goaltenders, Wyshynski said, "Right, or hoping that Samsonov hits his ceiling. Like I think of the two, according to everybody in the goalie community that I've talked to, Ilya's got the higher ceiling."
"Like, there's a thought that maybe if he put it together, he could be a really good goalie in this league," he said. "But, like you said, time's a-wastin' with a veteran team. They've clearly been desirous to have a goalie on that roster that was gonna be the guy that plays upwards of 55 to 60 games maybe. They haven't had that since Holtby. They had the Henrik Lundqvist flirtation a couple years ago. Obviously it didn't work out because of his health. And now they had the opportunity to sign I think the only guy on the open market that fits that bill. I mean there are some other players that you could say are starters — I think they're better tandem guys."
"Kuemper is obviously a starter," he continued. "He's been a starter. He was a starter for Colorado last year. Obviously does what he needs to do to have them win the Cup. I don't think he was stealing games, but he also wasn't losing them, and that's the real thing. So a guy that plays a bunch of games, a guy that's gonna be competent, a known quantity, which I think is something that they sometimes struggled with with Vanecek and Samsonov. It's a really good signing. And if you're gonna erase your entire crease, do it for a guy like this. I think the Capitals did well yesterday."
Connor Brown
The Caps acquired forward Connor Brown from the Ottawa Senators, giving up a second-round pick in 2024. Good move or bad move?
"He's a top-six winger," Wyshynski said. "He's really good at puck possession. He's a good passer. He does some good work short-handed. I think he's a really good, useful player. Again, it's a move that was smart in the sense that the Senators were dangling this guy. It cost a second-round pick, which is a pretty decent price to pay for a player like Connor Brown. But he is a player that can help and a guy who I think really will enhance their forward depth, which obviously has been impacted the last couple years — the [Carl] Hagelin injury, for example. So I think he'll help. I think he was a pretty good pickup for the Capitals."
New Supporting Cast
The collective age of the Capitals' stars is an undeniable detriment, but one that can be offset by building a strong supporting cast, which is what Wyshynski believes they tried to accomplish through free agency.
"It's all these guys that we know chapter and verse about because they've been here forever," he said, "but because of their contracts and because of the decision to, in some cases, give contracts for services rendered versus what they're gonna do for you in the next five years — honestly, I think that was [Nicklas] Backstrom — then this is just gonna be the team you roll with."
"And so the best you can do is try to surround them with the best talent that you can in order to make a run at it when you get in the playoffs," he said. "And again, bringing in Kuemper is a good thing, bringing in Connor Brown is a good thing. Like they've done some good work here in building out a supporting cast, and it's just gonna be a matter of whether or not it all clicks."
Did they pull the plug on Jonas Siegenthaler too soon?
In April 2021, the Caps traded young and struggling defenseman Jonas Siegenthaler to the Devils for a conditional third-round pick. Siegenthaler has gone on to prosper in New Jersey, proving himself as a more than capable defensive defenseman, drawing into question whether the Caps pulled the plug on him too early in his development.
"You grew up a New Jersey Devils fan," said Junkies host John Auville. "One of our producers came in about 45 minutes ago and asked us, 'Did [Caps GM] Brian MacLellan botch it by dealing Jonas Siegenthaler too early? Is he becoming a stud for the Devils?' And I was like, 'I don't know, I'll ask Greg Wyshynski when he comes on.' Did MacLellan give up on Siegenthaler too early?"
"YUP. He really did," Wyshynski said with a laugh. "And it's not just that, but it's also Siegenthaler being traded for a third-round pick. And Siegenthaler really has become something significant for the Devils. I mean he played 70 games last year. He revealed himself to be a pretty stout defensive defenseman."
"They can pair him with guys like Dougie Hamilton for example on their blue line," he continued. "He has really developed into a diamond in the rough for them and there's no question that the Capitals, if they could do it over again, would rather have Siegenthaler on their blue line than not have him.
"And that's kind of what the Devils do. I mean the Devils are a team that has a really strong analytics department. They sometimes identify some players on other teams that they think if they can get and develop in a different way, and it really worked out here. Yeah, he's real good and a name that even at the trade deadline last year, some teams were sniffing around trying to see if they could pry him away from the Devils."
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