The Capitals have stayed fairly quiet in free agency as expected, with hardly any restricted players to go after and most of the unrestricted players seeing huge paydays go their way. The plan all along for the Capitals was to remain quiet and try to pickup a couple of lower key players, but after guys like Prospal and Anson Carter got too expensive the Capitals set their sights on defenseman Darius Kasparaitus. A solid hard-hitting blueliner, he wasn't #1 on the priority list but the Capitals noticed he wasn't bid on much to start free agency and saw their chance. They put down a $1.1 million dollar offer to Darius and a couple days later he is a Capital.
He won't do much for the pathetic blueline, or for the team for that matter, but the team wants to ice a semi-decent team and Kasparaitus definitely helps. On most teams he'd be a solid defensive 3rd pairing guy but for the Capitals he will likely see top 4 minutes depending how healthy he stays.
Aside from that, the Capitals haven't done anything else of significance in free agency. They have, however, traded with the Islanders a couple of times...brining in drastically overpaid Alexei Yashin and also overpaid Frantisek Kaberle. Basically each player was grabbed to make sure the team was going to be over the salary floor, and the combined roughly $9 million they cost will make sure of that. The team made the deal for Yashin because they also acquired prospect James Neal, while moving $5 million and a late round pick. They targeted neal during negotations for Visnovsky but he was left out of the package...but now he comes to Washington hopefully where he can be a very gritty 3rd liner in the near future.
The Kaberle deal saw the team pick up big offensive defenseman Chad Denny who is still years away from making a BRHL2 impact, but considering the team only gave up Peter Taticek...they figure it's not a big deal. Kaberle will likely see minimal minutes this year in hopes he regains his form for next season. If not, at only $2 million in salary he won't be that big of a hindrance.
The team has also picked up another salary dump in Jaroslav Modry for $300k and "goalie" Dan Cloutier who came to Washington along with a 4th round pick and prospect Kevin Porter for Robert Esche. Neither move will amount to much but the Capitals were happy to help dumping teams out...
So for now the teams depth chart for the upcoming BRHL2 season...(depending on McDonald at LW)..if he can't be LW then imagine Steen 2nd line LW and Yashin 3rd line C...
Bobby Allen and Mark Stuart will be in the farm the entire season. Yonkman, Nielsen and Clarkson will likely be in the farm most of the season as well.
Painful lineup for now, but a semi-rebuild is never easy. With prospects like Brassard, Yandle, Ramo, Soderberg and Bergenheim (among others) hopefully next season and seasons after that are more enjoyable.
