Washington Capitals looking for TRADE following season-ending injury to forward?

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Ryan
November 1, 2022 (8:51 PM)

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The Washington Capitals are a team that still has the talent to make it to the playoffs, but many doubt they have what it takes to win any rounds.

They came into the season with injuries to Nicklas Backstrom who is expected to miss the season, and Tom Wilson who isn't expected back until December. While you cannot replace these two, they thought they put a good enough bandaid on the wound with bringing in Dylan Strome in free agency and Connor Brown via trade with the Ottawa Senators.

While Strome has looked okay so far this season, producing 2 goals and 7 points in 10 games, the other acquisition Connor Brown has now just underwent surgery that will keep him out for 8 months, missing the remainder of the season.

Now to add to the bad news, the Capitals are also missing TJ Oshie who is ''out indefinitely'' and John Carlson who is day-to-day.

With Brown going on LTIR, the Capitals currently only are using $69,606,667 of their available $82,500,000 cap space and that is without Oshie going on LTIR if his injury is bad enough that he will miss atleast the next 10 games.

When the Capitals activate Tom Wilson next month, that will use up $5,166,667 of their available cap, which still only brings them to $74,773,334.

This means the Capitals still have $7,726,666 available to play with, and thats if they decide to keep 14 roster forwards, which they can easily send one person down to free up another $900,000.

The Capitals have players to fill the voids left by Brown & Oshie, but if the team seriously wants to be a competitor while Ovechkin is still producing, they will need to make a trade.

One of the first names that would come to mind is Patrick Kane, who has chemistry with Dylan Strome already and would make a nice 1-2 punch with Ovechkin. A few other names that could be available would be Sean Monahan from the Montreal Canadiens and Vladimir Tarasenko from the Blues who are both UFA's at the end of this season and likely wont be re-signing with their current teams.

The captain of the Vancouver Canucks Bo Horvat is also rumoured to be available after the team had a horrific start to the 2022-23 season.

It will be a difficult decision for the Capitals, do they play with their rookies and hope they can fill the void, or do they make a trade?