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Capitals Waive Panik & Trade Deadline Implications |
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Hello All,
The Capitals have placed Richard Panik on waivers. Should he clear, he will rejoin the team on the taxi squad. Richard Panik had a cap-hit of 2.75mil AAV. By rule, waving a player only clears up to $1.075 million of his cap hit so that's how much space the capitals have essentially created. This could be nothing OR this could be an indication that he Capitals are exploring options as the April 12th trade deadline rapidly approaches.
A cap space of roughly $1.075 million is not much to work with. With what will be about 14 games left on the season for most teams at the deadline, acquiring anyone would only cost the Capitals about 25% of their AAV (14 games left on a 56 games season) So with that math, the Capitals can technically rent any play whose current AAV is $4.3 million a year or less. Someone please give me a good hard fact check if I botched this.
The Capitals are not actively looking to improve but if the right opportunity presents itself, they will be in on a goaltender or a defenseman.
Notable goalies with less than a 4.3mil cap hit:
Raanta: $4.25M AAV
Bernier: $3M AAV
Reimer: 3.4M AAV
*I think considering the Capitals have two solid young bucks in Samsonov and Vanecek, they will go for the veteran goalie route IF they decide to go this route. A wild card for me is Elvis Merzlinkins from the Jackets. Does it make sense? Probably not. Would it be awesome? Yes it would.
Notable defensemen with less than a 4.3M cap hit:
David Savard: 4.25M AAV
Mattias Ekholm: 3.25M AAV
Josh Manson: 4.1M AAV (Capitals were in on Manson last year before signing Dillon)
At the end of the day, I don’t see the Capitals going crazy at the deadline. However, waiving Panik indicates they are at least preparing for the possibility to make a move of some sort. More to come.
Thanks for reading,
Go Caps
Washington Capitals Blogger • 
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