Washington Capitals from who is staying to who could be on the move
Chris Kuc of The Athletic: Looking at who will be back for the Washington Capitals next season, trade possibilities to who will be gone.
The returning core – Nicklas Backstrom, John Carlsson, Evgeny Kuznetsov, T.J. Oshie, Alex Ovechkin and Tom Wilson.
They’ll be back – Phoenix Copley, Nic Dowd, Lars Eller, Braden Holtby, Nick Jensen, Michael Kempny, Dmitry Orlov, Jonas Siegenthaler, and Jakub Vrana.
Probably staying put – Travis Boyd, Christian Djoos and Chandler Stephenson.
Big-name trade possibility – Matt Niskanen – the Capitals are going to need to create salary cap space for their RFA and any UFAs. He’s a $5.75 million cap hit for two more years.
The big decisions – Andre Burakovsky – RFA who is owed a $3.25 million qualifying offer.
“We’ll talk it through,” MacLellan said. “I mean, a frustrating year for him. At the end, he kind of found it. We’re going to have to talk about how we want to allocate that money and what role he would play on our team going forward.”
Brett Connolly – would love to be and said, to a point, he’d consider a hometown discount.
Carl Hagelin – UFA may want the same $4 million salary he had this year. The Caps would need to clear out more cap space to retain him.
So long, farewell – RFA Dmitrij Jaskin and UFAs Brooks Orpik and Devante Smith-Pelly.
Ottawa Senators from who is staying to who could be on the move
Chris Stevenson of The Athletic: From the Ottawa Senators untouchables to the biggest question marks.
The untouchables – Brady Tkachuk, Thomas Chabot, Colin White, Maxime Lajoie, and Christian Wolanin.
Here for another year – Craig Anderson, Dylan DeMelo, Mark Borowiecki, Chris Tierney, Jean-Gabriel Pageau and Christian Jaros.
On the bubble – Ben Harpur, Rudolphs Balcers and Max Veronneau.
Worth considerations – Anthony Duclair and Anders Nilsson.
The money men – Mikkel Boedker, Zack Smith and Bobby Ryan.
Time’s up – Brian Gibbons, Magnus Paajarvi and Oscar Lindberg.
The big question marks – Mike Condon and Cody Ceci.
