Daily Faceoff: Frank Seravalli last week on Washington Capitals forward Nic Dowd and how he could interest teams at the trade deadline.
** NHLRumors.com transcription
“We’ve been talking about of Evgeny Kuznetsov but one of the guys that sort of way off the casual fan radar, that is a name you should know that it will be added to the trade target for today, that is really been generating a lot of interest all season long, is Nic Dowd.
And you go Nic, Nic who? Like what, Nic Dowd? $1.3 million on the cap. But he’s sort of the perfect, versatile center for a team. Doesn’t make a ton of money. Please big minutes. Impacts your game in a number of different ways, with all the ways that he contributes. Steady, like reliable, you know exactly what you’re getting.
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And because he has one additional year of term, that’s what makes him really exciting for teams, as we can get this player this year and next year at 1.3 million bucks.
So Nic Dowd is a guy, third-line center, fourth-line center wherever you slot him in, that teams would absolutely love to get their hands on. And so, not someone that you necessarily think about but sort of 25 points every year. Does his thing and helps your team win.
The tough part for the Caps and we’ll talk more in depth about this the next couple of weeks is, they’re in a spot where they’re really on the outside looking in. They’ve lost straight. I think they’ve frankly kind of overachieve to this point and it speaks to how good of a job that Spencer Carberry has done as their coach.
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I don’t see them finding some sort of second wind here to burst into the playoffs. And I think at this point, especially given where Alex Ovechkin has been at stuck on goals, kind of are at the point where you’ve got to recoup as much value as you can. And Nic Dowd is one of those guys that would prevent, present an excellent opportunity to do so.”