Craig Morgan is reporting that the Coyotes are on the verge of signing Oliver Ekman Larsson to a contract extension. This would be huge news for the Coyotes as re-signing their franchise player goes a long way in the credibility dept., not to mention the hockey dept.

Better news the Coyotes could not ask for.

I will have more on this tomorrow.

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Conventional wisdom was that the Capitals were going to be in trouble this season because they signed T.J Oshie and Evgeni Kuznetsov to monster contracts and didn't have any cap space throughout the season to add to the team.

They were saddled with the useless Brooks Orpik and his monster cap-hit, and if they wanted to improve they were going to have a hard time. As it turned out, conventional wisdom was correct: the Capitals had to go into the playoffs with essentially the same team they had all year.

The best they could do was add no-name Michal Kempny from the Hawks.

But it didn't turn out to matter. The Capitals top-heavy roster came through like a 7-3 offsuit that flopped the straight. Michal Kempny turned out to be quite a bit more than serviceable and the Capitals won the Stanley Cup.

So the maxed out cap didn't turn out to be an issue, and Ol' Brooksie even scored for the first time in 983 games. Good times were had by all. (Except for Ovechkin, who woke up yesterday unable to remember the last three weeks, and tried to get ready for game five vs Tampa before someone informed him the playoffs were over and he had won the Stanley Cup.)

So even though it's clearly irrelevant, let's see where the Caps are next year for their cap.

All information from Capfriendly.com

Washington has $63 million spent already for next year, with $11 million in cap space + whatever the Cap goes up by (estimated to be between $3 and $5 million).

The Capitals have ten forwards signed for next season, including all their regular players except Tom Wilson and Devonte Smith-Pelley.

On defense, they've got Orpik (one year left), Niskanen, Orlov and Djoos signed. Kempny and Carlson are free agents.

The Capitals don't have much in the way of prospects, and they aren't really in that bad of shape. They should probably sign John Carlson for half the available money, and then trade the RFA rights of Tom Wilson for a couple players who'd help their depth at a cheaper price.

Given his tendency to take stupid penalties that hurt his team, to fight lesser players, and to often embarrass his team with stupid potential suspensions, the Capitals should look to trade Wilson. He's a great player when he isn't being a dangerous idiot, but he sandbags his own value by taking dumb penalties and he's going to be expensive to re-sign.

If they let Wilson go, they can sign Carlson and that's a no-brainer as far as what's better or the team. Signing them both just maxes out the cap and leaves no room for improvement, which is bad on a team where most players are due to decline slightly year to year from now on. Not to mention that, Cup or no Cup, they aren't a powerhouse roster. Therefore, maxing out the Cap without improving the team is foolish.

Carlson is a right handed defenseman and he's too hard to replace. Sign him, trade Wilson. If they're smart, they'll use their 31st overall pick to pay someone to take Orpik, which would allow them to have some extra money to improve the team. It shouldn't cost much to sign Smith-Pelley and Kempny.

The Capitals aren't in a buge cap bind, but signing Wilson and Carlson and continuing to be competitive will be nearly impossible.

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