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Washington Capitals Sign Alexander Suzdalev, Ludwig Persson

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The Washington Capitals have inked another two prospects, signing Alexander Suzdalev and Ludwig Persson, their third-round picks from this year. The young forwards have each signed three-year entry-level contracts.

Suzdalev, 18, was the 70th overall pick, after lighting up the scoresheet in Sweden this season. Originally born in Russia, he is a product of the Swedish hockey system and even competes for that country internationally. This season, playing for the junior HV71 team, he scored 51 points in 45 games, and eventually found himself rising up draft boards. By the end of the year he was considered the 26th best international skater by NHL Central Scouting.

Persson, 18, was taken just 15 picks later at 85th overall out of the same league. While he got a handful of games with Frolunda’s SHL team, it was the organization’s junior program where he really excelled, scoring 61 points in 41 games. The winger is expected to play in the Swedish second tier next season for BIK Kalskoga.

Interestingly enough, Suzdalev was actually picked by the Regina Pats in the 2021 CHL Import Draft, meaning he could potentially come to North America to play next season, should the Capitals believe that’s best for his development. Either way, both players will not burn the first year of these deals if they play anywhere but the NHL.

Washington Capitals Sign Dylan Strome

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5:46 pm: The Washington Capitals have made the deal official, bringing Strome to the United States’ capital on a one-year, $3.5MM deal.

4:35 pm: According to Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman, the Washington Capitals are expected to sign top unqualified RFA Dylan Strome to a one-year contract worth $3.5MM.

For Washington, this is an important signing to give them a legitimate second-line center in the absence of Nicklas Backstrom. While the team is more optimistic Backstrom will be able to return during the season after a serious hip surgery that could threaten his career, Strome is a strong option with top-six experience to replace him.

Despite going unqualified by the Chicago Blackhawks (and some puzzling early-season scratches by former head coach Jeremy Colliton), the 25-year-old had a strong year on a weak Chicago team with a career-high 22 goals and 26 assists for 48 points in 69 games. With the chance to play with names like Alex Ovechkin, Tom Wilson, Anthony Mantha, T.J. Oshie, Connor Brown, and others, Strome could finally hit the offensive potential he had when he was drafted third overall in 2015.

It’s a strong signing for Washington, who’s had a quietly great offseason by adding defensive depth and signing veteran netminder Darcy Kuemper.

Washington Capitals Re-Sign Marcus Johansson

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The Washington Capitals are keeping Marcus Johansson around, re-signing the free agent forward to a one-year, $1.1MM contract.

Johansson, 31, has a long, history with the Capitals, having played the first seven seasons of his career with the organization. A first-round pick in 2009, he was a big part of their offense for years, before eventually getting dealt to the New Jersey Devils for a pair of draft picks. The Capitals would go on to win the Stanley Cup the following year, while Johansson dealt with an injury-riddled campaign in New Jersey.

It’s been a very inconsistent ride since then, with the Swedish forward playing for the Boston Bruins, Buffalo Sabres, Minnesota Wild, and Seattle Kraken following his time with the Devils, before a deadline trade this year brought him back to Washington. While he’s not in quite the same role as he once was, Johansson is still a great possession player that can bounce around a lineup, filling in wherever necessary.

For $1.1MM, he poses no risk to the Capitals, as his entire contract can be buried in the minor leagues if necessary. For at least the first part of the season that likely won’t be necessary, while the team deals with injuries to several key forwards, but it is not out of the question for Johansson to be scratched at some point near the end of the year, if he’s not providing better performance than Washington’s younger options.

Washington Capitals To Acquire Connor Brown

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After he was linked to the Edmonton Oilers earlier in the day, Connor Brown is actually on his way to the Washington Capitals. The Ottawa Senators have sent Brown to the Capitals in exchange for a 2024 second-round pick, according to Bruce Garrioch of Postmedia.

It was easy to see that Brown had been pushed out of Ottawa’s top-six by recent additions Alex DeBrincat and Claude Giroux, and almost immediately trade speculation started around his future. The 28-year-old forward has just one year left on his contract that carries a $3.6MM cap hit and is owed $4MM in actual salary this season.

He didn’t play his way out of Ottawa though, as the hard-working forward was still one of the team’s most consistent options last season, averaging more than 20 minutes a night and scoring 39 points in 64 games. While he probably won’t get quite as much ice time in Washington, he arrives as an instant penalty-killing improvement and versatile player that can move up and down whenever needed.

Brown is the kind of player that coaches love, never taking a shift off or quitting on a play. Not big or exceptionally skilled, he earns his paycheck by out-working the other team. It’s been like that for years. Despite being a sixth-round pick in 2012, Brown put up 128 points during his final year of junior, actually outscoring a young Connor McDavid. When he stepped into the AHL he found immediate success, scoring 21 goals and 61 points as a rookie for the Toronto Marlies.

It will be interesting to see where he starts, given the absence of Tom Wilson to start the season. Brown is a natural right-winger, though he can play the other side as well.

For the Senators, adding a second-round pick essentially makes up the value they gave Toronto in the Matt Murray trade, making them whole while clearing a good amount of money off the books. That money has been used for DeBrincat and Giroux, two offensive stars that should immediately push their team to an entirely new level.

Washington Capitals Sign Lindgren, Irwin, Gustafsson

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The Washington Capitals have found their entire NHL goaltending tandem on the free agent market, adding Charlie Lindgren to the previously signed Darcy Kuemper. Lindgren has inked a three-year deal that will carry an average annual value of just $1.1MM.

They’ve also added some defensive depth, inking Matt Irwin to a one-year, two-way deal worth $750K at the NHL level according to PuckPedia, and Erik Gustafsson to a one-year contract worth $800K.

Their first signing, Lindgren, is one that might confuse more casual fans but will make a ton of sense to fans who closely followed either the St. Louis Blues or the 2021-22 AHL season. Lindgren was incredible with both the Blues and their AHL affiliate, the Springfield Thunderbirds. In St. Louis, Lindgren played five games and went 5-0-0 with a .958 save percentage and 1.22 goals against average. While he wasn’t as absurdly dominant in the AHL, he was still great, going 24-7-1 with a .925 save percentage and 2.21 goals-against-average. It’s on the back of this breakout year that Lindgren gets this (relatively) sizeable deal, and along with the money attached Lindgren gets the chance to be a backup on what looks to be a contending NHL team.

The second signing is of Matt Irwin, who has been a depth defenseman for most of his NHL career. The defense-first blueliner skated in 17 games for the Capitals this season and provides steady injury fill-in play. He’s the sort of defenseman the Capitals likely hope doesn’t play too often but also won’t really have to worry about for the games he does play, as he’s best when he’s not noticed.

The same cannot be said about Erik Gustafsson. Gustafsson’s profile is, well, different, to say the least. Gustafsson is an offense-first, puck-moving defenseman who has a 60-point season on his resume. The Capitals aren’t likely signing him thinking he’ll be a 60-point player for them but after the loss of Justin Schultz in Seattle he might be able to help them as a secondary offensive defenseman. He had 18 points in 59 games on a bad Blackhawks team and played bottom-pairing minutes on a Montreal Canadiens team that made it to the Stanley Cup Final in 2021.

Darcy Kuemper Expected To Sign With Capitals

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12:46 pm: The Capitals have officially signed Kuemper to a five-year deal worth $5.25MM per season.

6:57 am: While the goalie shuffle on the first day of free agency won’t be as big as it has been in recent years, a couple of notable goalies will be on the move.  One of those is Darcy Kuemper who appears to have his next team in place as ESPN’s Emily Kaplan and TSN’s Bob McKenzie report (Twitter links) that the netminder will become the new starter for the Capitals once free agency officially opens up in a few hours.  Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli adds (via Twitter) that the deal could be in the range of five years at $5.5MM per season.

The 32-year-old is coming off a successful season with Colorado that saw him post a 2.54 GAA and a .921 SV% in 57 starts while battling through injuries during the playoffs to help lead the Avs to the Stanley Cup, helping make him the top-ranked goalie on our Top 50 Free Agents list.  It worked out quite well for him that former Colorado goalie Philipp Grubauer decided to go last summer, prompting the Avalanche to flip Conor Timmins and a first-round pick to Arizona to get what turns out to be just one year of the netminder although having won the Cup, they certainly won’t mind.

Kuemper’s numbers are a considerable improvement on what Washington received from their netminders last season as the four goalies they used combined for a 2.81 GAA and a .901 SV%.  Considering that the Caps were still decent in the goals allowed department (allowing the 12th-fewest in the NHL) in 2021-22, Kuemper’s addition should certainly make them a stingier team.

Washington will still be on the lookout for another goaltender as both of their regulars from last season are gone – Vitek Vanecek to New Jersey in a draft-day trade while Ilya Samsonov was non-tendered on Monday.  Even veteran depth goalie Pheonix Copley is set to hit the open market later today.  They enter the day with nearly $9MM in cap room per CapFriendly before factoring in LTIR possibilities and a good chunk of that money will be heading towards this new tandem.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Justin Schultz Expected To Sign With Seattle Kraken

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Former Washington Capitals defenseman Justin Schultz is expected to head to the Seattle Kraken on a two-year deal worth roughly $3MM per season, per Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman.

It had been long rumored that the Kraken would be after an offensive defenseman who could help them on their powerplay and help them in transition. Schultz is exactly that, having made his career around his offensive abilities since breaking into the league in 2012-13. Schultz’s offensive production isn’t what it once was, with his 23 points in 74 games representing a sharp decline from his 27 points in 46 games last season.

But even with that in mind, one has to remember that the kind of profile Schultz brings isn’t exactly easily found on the market. Defense-first, crease-clearing defensemen are more common on the open market than ones with fifty-point seasons on their resumes, so Schultz is perhaps the most suitable option for the Kraken if they did not want to dip into the deep end of the market and acquire a player like John Klingberg.

The biggest risk with this signing, though, is in Schultz’s health. Schultz has struggled to play consistently in recent years, and has not been able to cross even the 70 games played mark since 2016-17. At a $3MM price tag, the Kraken will not only need Schultz to be productive, they’ll also need him to be healthy. That’s a major risk to take for a player who just turned 32 years old. Kraken GM Ron Francis entered this offseason with a clear mandate: improve the Kraken offensively. Schultz is his first choice in that quest, and it’s a big swing. Time will tell if it works out.

Capitals Reportedly Interested In Darcy Kuemper

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One of those teams is presumed to be the Washington Capitals. They traded one-half of last season’s goalie tandem, Vitek Vanecek, to the New Jersey Devils, and have enough cap space to make a splash on a goalie. According to Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet on the 32 Thoughts Podcast, the Capitals have been “very interested” in Kuemper for “quite some time” and should be “very motivated” to sign him once the market opens next week. The Capitals are looking to remain a Stanley Cup contender for the rest of Alex Ovechkin’s career, and acquiring a cup-winning number-one goalie is certainly one way for GM Brian MacLellan to keep his team in the mix.

Capitals Interested In Keeping Schultz, Johansson, And Larsson

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  • The Capitals have interest in retaining pending unrestricted free agents Justin Schultz, Marcus Johansson, and Johan Larsson, notes Tarik El-Bashir of The Athletic (subscription link). With Schultz, however, the 32-year-old blueliner would need to take a pay cut from the $4MM he made over each of the last two years for a deal to be done.  Schultz is coming off a bit of a quiet year by his standards where he notched 23 points in 74 games.  The other two forwards were trade deadline acquisitions and fit in well with El-Bashir highlighting that the possibility of Larsson returning could be tied to Carl Hagelin’s situation with his availability for next season up in the air.

Washington Capitals Re-Sign Lucas Johansen

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Even more extension news has come in today. The Washington Capitals have announced that they have re-signed defenseman Lucas Johansen on a two-year, $762k AAV deal. Per the Capitals’ announcement, the deal has the following financial structure:

  • 2022-23: two-way, $750k NHL salary/$125k AHL salary
  • 2023-24: one-way, $775k

Johansen, 24, was the Capitals’ top draft pick at the 2016 draft, going 28th overall. He’s taken a long time to develop, and spent four full seasons in the AHL before finally making his NHL debut in 2021-22. He got into one game with the Capitals this year and registered an assist.

At the AHL level, Johansen has grown since his debut season and become a top-four defenseman for the Hershey Bears. In addition to his 28 points in 62 games, Johansen averaged just over 20 minutes of ice time per game, which ranked fourth among regular Bears defensemen. He often played as the partner to another Capitals first-rounder, Alexander Alexeyev. Johansen was also a factor on both of the Bears’ special teams units, averaging 1:59 of short-handed ice time per game and 1:20 per game on the Bears’ power play.

Johansen probably won’t become the top-four staple he was drafted in the first round to be, but the Capitals still see enough in him to give him a one-way commitment in 2023-24. Two of Johansen’s professional seasons were wrecked by injuries, and that could mean that Johansen is simply a late-blooming former top prospect who needed a longer runway to finally develop into an NHL player. It’s also possible that Johansen doesn’t improve on the consistency he showed this season, and tops out as a solid middle-of-the-lineup AHL-er.

With this new contract, Johansen will have a crucial two-year window in the Capitals’ organization to finally break into the NHL and become the NHL regular scouts once believed he could become.

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