The Washington Capitals announced on Saturday that they have signed defenseman Trevor Van Riemsdyk to a three-year contract extension that carries a $3 million NHL salary cap hit. The 31-year-old could have become an unrestricted free agent on July 1.
Here’s the full contract breakdown ;
23/24 1M SB + 2.75 M Salary for 3.75M.
24/25 1M SB + 2M Salary for 3M.
25/26 1.25M SB +1M Salary.
AAV 3M . @espn @NHL @NHLNetwork @TSNHockey @DKSportsbook #HockeyTwitter https://t.co/qrwXWhzKGd— Kevin Weekes (@KevinWeekes) March 11, 2023
Washington opted to hold onto Van Riemsdyk and pending unrestricted free agent left-wing Conor Sheary past the 2023 NHL Trade Deadline at 3 PM ET on March 3 in hopes of re-signing both of them.
In 66 games this season, Van Riemsdyk has hit career-highs in goals (seven) and points (19). He has also recorded a +12 rating, 51.28% five-on-five Corsi-for percentage, 52.89% five-on-five expected goals-for percentage, and 52.36% five-on-five scoring chances-for percentage. He has averaged 19:00 per game (seventh-most among Washington blueliners), including 2:37 on the penalty kill (first).
In 522 career NHL regular-season games with Washington, the Chicago Blackhawks, and Carolina Hurricanes, Van Riemsdyk has tallied 24 goals, 108 points, and a +18 rating. He also has notched two goals and four points in 32 postseason outings, including four with Chicago on their run to the Stanley Cup in 2015.
Sheary, right-wing Craig Smith, right-wing Connor Brown, and defenseman Matt Irwin can all become unrestricted free agents on July 1. Assuming that the NHL salary cap increases by $1 million next season, Washington currently has $14,524,166 remaining in cap space with 17 players (11 forwards, four defensemen, and two goalies) under contract.
Washington has re-signed center Dylan Strome (five years, $5 million cap hit), right-wing Sonny Milano (three years, $1.9 million cap hit), defenseman Nick Jensen (three years, $4 million cap hit), and right-wing Nicolas Aube-Kubel (one year, $1.225 million cap hit) since the NHL All-Star Break.
Washington ranks 13th in the league this season with an average of 2.97 goals-against per game and ninth with a 82.4% penalty-killing efficiency.
Washington traded pending unrestricted free agent defenseman Dmitry Orlov and right-wing Garnet Hathaway (Boston Bruins), center Lars Eller (Colorado Avalanche), and defenseman Erik Gustafsson (Toronto Maple Leafs) at the trade deadline. The team entered Saturday currently five points behind the Pittsburgh Penguins (who have two games in hand) for the final wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference.
By Harrison Brown
Good resign. Now resign the 3 D-men who are UFA’s and let Irwin walk and with J. Carlson back next year the D is set. Now what gets done with Brown, Smith and Sheary? Still have this sinking feeling in my gut that they are going to wait until mid-summer to announce that PL is returning as HC to lead the team to another subpar season and constant line changes.
Agree. Still think they need to add one more middle-aged vet, 25-27 yo. Make Alexeyev 7D to start the season.
I’d rather see Alexeyev get a long leash to start the season. He’ll have a long off-season to prepare. It’s better to give him a shot when the games don’t matter as much.
IMO, PL doesn’t come back if the Caps don’t make it out of the first round. If that happens, there will probably be some other talented coaches without jobs, like Sheldon Keefe and Mike Sullivan. If PL gets the boot, his replacement will be HC when Ovechkin breaks the record. The Caps will have options.
Klingberg. He’s 30, and another right, but better to have too many righties, than too few
You love Klingy 🙂
Being a Dallas Stars fan, I got to see a lot of him, at his peak.
I also saw him pull a pretty good practical joke once. Me and a friend were at Stars practice, and she committed a major faux pas. We were standing near the glass, and she turned her back. Klingy fired the puck at her THWACK!!!! off the glass, and she jumped 25 feet in the air. The “I didn’t do it” look on his face was priceless. I couldn’t breathe, I was laughing so hard.
He should be brought on board, at the very least for the comedy
I understand what you are saying and thinking there, however I am in the camo of letting AA have a real long leash to start the season and sign someone like (But maybe not Irwin) who can still play but also sit for long periods and when called upon play at a high level. Maybe someone line Ness or maybe even keep Irwin but someone that can be signed on the cheap and only for 1 year. .
Honestly I was thinking about giving TvR a 3 year extension. He earned it. Most productive szn yet and we lock him up for the remainder of his prime. Love this.
Agree, think it’s a sound move.
So glad to have this done!! His and Jensons are both well earned and good lengths which also makes them easily tradable should Ioria need to be promoted in 24/25 season or the year after.
Tells me we are ok with being mediocre for the next three years as long as Alex gets the record. Clean slate in four years when old guys with big contracts are done. Maybe then we can try to build a winner. Pathetic!
“Tells me Leonsis is OK with being mediocre for the next three years, as long as Alex gets the record”
Fixed it for you
Jensen and TVR are bottom pair RD on a good team. I’d prefer to spend that 7 million on one really good RD. I suppose BMac doesn’t think he can acquire that kind of player.
What about injuries? You need depth. Players will get hurt. If you only get one guy, you better have depth in your minor league system, to take over when players get hurt, have babies, attend funerals etc.
Our D has been Charmin soft since Orpik retired. You can have a few soft guy in the D corps but not this many. TVR in the bottom pair is ok. TVR + Jensen at 7 mill is a lot of dough tied up in soft D. I don’t like the D corps going forward.
The movement in the NHL over the last few years has been to go away from big physical defensemen and towards agile puck moving dee to play a 5 man rotation. Fever brings some physicality. And I think Alexyev at 6’4 will bring some as well.
But what we have now is a modern NHL defense. I have no issues with it.
True. The NHL has very little hitting nowadays.
Yeah, it’s not like Orlov and Fehervary ever hit anyone.
I recommend you actually watch #42 sometime. He’s not Charmin soft. Neither is Sandin
Agreed. Marty has needed to learn when to hit vs. not, and he’s gotten better at picking his spots. All part of maturing as an NHL D.
Alexeyev has all of the tools, but has gotten much less playing time than Fehervary over the past 3 years. He needs to play to learn to play to learn to play to learn… The Caps are now in a position to give him that ice time, whether everyone in the organization admits it or not.
That’s a bad take. Jensen is very similar to Rafalski and is widely respected league wide, which helped fuel the trade rumors.
I think that’s the problem Lance, good thought there. Only RD free agents under 30 and maybe worth going after are Damon Sevrenson and Matt Dumba. Otherwise, he would have to trade for one but who’s willing to part with a Top 4 RD and what would you have to trade them?
I like TVR, but that’s an overpay, or at least it’s more than the Caps can afford given what they’ve now committed to for next year.
Per CapFriendly, this signing leaves a bit under $7.4M in cap space for next year, with 2 forwards and 3 D spots to fill for a full 23-player roster (assuming Carlson plays next year, which is a high probability). At an average of <$1.5M per player, they won't be bringing in any high-priced players this off-season unless they can unload Mantha, or they move a core player, and I believe both actions are highly doubtful to occur or they would already have happened last week.
So unless they get REALLY lucky at ping-pong balls, and/or the old farts find the fountain of youth, this team will be no better next year than they have been this year…
In addition, the only UFAs after next year are Wilson, Aube-Kubel and Mantha. Wilson isn't going anywhere and will likely get a sizeable raise. Aube-Kubel and Mantha probably won't bring back any return. So they are now pretty much committed to this mediocre roster for at least another 2 years, and I don't see how the results improve much.
That’s assuming the cap stays flat. If it goes up, then your argument is pretty well shot. Unless you’re thinking that Wilson’s raise will eat up the cap space that is gained, if the cap goes up.
I used CapFriendly’s projection of a $1M increase to 83.5M for next year. It likely won’t go much higher in the next few years due to the meltdown of RSNs.
Wilson’s increase will likely eat more than the increase in the cap…
I like this signing a lot. I was hoping for 2×2.5M so this is a bit higher than I hoped. But TVR can play up and down the lineup and can play the left side. Iorio is still a year or 2 away but will be a good (cheap) call-up who is waiver exempt. Chelsey will be a year behind Iorio. So timing isn’t awful. Also the way the contract is structured in year 3 he would be a great trade piece if needed.
Also, we won’t be pinched for 2 years. The salary cap is expected to go to 83.5M next year and like 87.5M the year after.
We need to move out Mantha and buying him out only costs 1.375M next year so that will give us some space.
Fine with defense the way it is assuming we resign AA for 2x900k bridge deal and Fever for likely 2.5 bridge or 4 year deal. Johanson on one-way deal next year as 7th and competing with AA for 6. Iorio on call-up duty with G Carlsson.
Future cap is a bit of a crapshoot due to RSNs going belly up.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradadgate/2023/03/02/att-sportsnet-another-regional-sports-network-could-be-declaring-bankruptcy-this-month/?sh=7910541d1fcc
Chances of the cap going to $87.5 the year after next are shrinking fast…
There is no doubt that Regional Sports Networks are going to die unless they change their model. Just like the big boxes took to long to figure out people want to order online and died.
The RSN, The NHL, and it’s partners will need a modern model. Like Amazon streaming NFL games. There are more hockey fans today than ever before. The audience is younger. Youth hockey is thriving. Make it easier to get to the games you want. Subscribe to a team. Buy a game. Get the whole season. RSN can also sell those subscriptions and I am sure Ted will do something like that with NBCSW (or whatever it will be called).
Great if you’ve got the money. I’ve already not renewed AHLtv this year. Next year might have to decide between watching the Caps or watching the Bolts.
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