With the NHL Draft on the horizon and free agency just around the corner, the Washington Capitals have a lot of work to do with key RFA's Braden Holtby, Marcus Johansson and Evgeny Kuznetsov. While getting deals done for these three is priority number one right now in DC, the side effect of having only $20M to re-sign the RFA's and find a top-line right winger is that the Caps will most likely part ways with fan favorite Joel Ward.
The issue with re-signing Ward at this point is term. Ward is hoping for a four year contract while the Caps seem to looking at two years, and chances of Ward getting a raise from his $3M salary doesn't look good from Washington's standpoint.
Ward was signed in 2011 by then General Manager George McPhee to a 4-year $12M contract. This past season, Ward scored 19 goals, good for fourth on the team, and led the Caps in the post season with 9 points. He had a career high 24 goals two seasons ago.
If Ward does indeed head to free agency, he's likely to be picked up by a team in desperate need of secondary scoring from their third and fourth lines - someone like St. Louis or Vancouver. However, I have feeling that Ward will do his best to stay close to home and New Jersey is a team that makes sense, and, according to Eklund's Rumors, they seem to be kicking the tires on Ward.
The Capitals have a ton of talent in their pipeline, and they know that they need to start getting them in key roles, especially Tom Wilson. Wilson is expected to play third line minutes next season and it looks like he could take the place of Ward's presence in front of the net.
There's still a lot of time until Friday, and the Caps could trade Ward's rights away to a team interested in getting first dibs on signing him. With only 5 picks in this years talent-laden draft, the Caps have a nice line of players they can deal to obtain more picks including Mike Green, Tim Gleason and Curtis Glencross.
Washington also has no second round pick, jumping from 22nd overall in the first to 62nd overall in the 3rd a pick acquired from Buffalo.
“I’d love to stay. I had moments where I thought we could go all the way with this group. I’d definitely like to stay, for sure," said Ward.
More to come....