Follow @james_tanner123 The Washington Capitals should have missed the Playoffs this year.
They lost about a third of their team - Schmidt, Shattenkirk, Williams, Johansen, Alzner and Winnik - and didn't replace a single one of them with an established player.
Jacob Vrana and Christian Djoos have been excellent in picking up the slack, but this is a team that still plays Taylor Chorney, Devante Pelly-Smith and Alex Chiasson.
The Capitals, due to the collapse of the Penguins, the injuries of the Blue Jackets, and the unrelenting mediocrity of the Flyers, Rangers, Islanders and Hurricanes sit just two back of a Devils team that isn't very good.
A division title is within their grasp. A return to the Playoffs a near certainty.
Braden Holtby is the best goalie in the NHL and I don't care what Carey Price has to say about it. When you have the best goalie, you can win. And the Capitals are not as bad today as the Penguins team that won last year, so they can pull it off.
But they need help. Enter the Arizona Coyotes.
The Coyotes - as you know - are terrible. They could win 75% of their remaining games and still likely not make the Playoffs. They also have a ton of cap space, and the Capitals have none.
Furthermore, the Coyotes have some players who'd help the Capitals fill out a better lineup.
The Coyotes might have a ton of cap space, but they're almost certainly done spending money this year, so the Capitals would have to match dollar for dollar, and I think it'd be fairly easy.
To the Coyotes: Brooks Orpik ($5.5 x 2 ) Phillip Grubaur ($1.5 x 1) Taylor Chorney ($850 K)
To the Caps : Nicklas Hjallmarsson ($4.1 x 2) Anthony Duclair ($1.2 x 1) Scott Wedgewood ($650 K x 1)
This would see each team swapping out about seven million dollars. The Capitals - up against the cap - can't afford a $1.5 million dollar back-up goalie, and the Coyotes would get Grubaur as insurance against the injury history of Annti Raanta. Grubaur projects to be a good starter one day, if things go right.
The other players the Coyotes are getting back are terrible and only for salary purposes. The Capitals on the other hand would be significantly upgrading both their blue line and their forwards. Their season is over if Holtby goes down anyways, so saving money on a back-up is sensible.
In order to give the Coyotes a reason to make the trade, the Capitals should offer the Coytoes a whole bunch of draft picks. Do they want two first rounders? Do they insist on Illya Samsonov, the team's top prospect? If so, pay up.
The Capitals are set up to win now, and if they can swap out three bad players for three good players, that would go a long way towards reversing some of the bad moves that happened over the summer because of the salary cap.
Their top prospect is a goalie and they currently have a hall-of-fame goalie, so he's essentially useless for anything besides a trade. The Coyotes do not have a young goalie prospect of note and are rebuilding. They have cap space and they have players who they don't need.
This seems to be a situation where both teams could benefit, but the Capitals really need to make a move like this otherwise it will be impossible to add to their roster. In a year when Ovechkin is still great, Holtby is on fire and the Penguins suck, making a move like this is absolutely essential.