The Washington Capitals identified a glaring weakness on their roster, and new general manager Brian MacLellan strengthened that fragile link in the chain.
Free agency is a wonderful tool that allows teams to solidify their soft underbellies, and MacLellan did just that with great aplomb.
But enough about signing Justin Peters as the new backup goaltender.
The Capitals made a splash on the first day of free agency, giving seven years and $40.25 million to Matt Niskanen and five years and $27.5 million to Brooks Orpik, a pair of former Pittsburgh Penguins defensemen.
With the money going toward bolstering the back end, there wasn't enough in the kitty to retain the services of center Mikhail Grabovski.
For more on these decisions, we throw it over to Capitals captain Alex Ovechkin, via the translation of Russian Machine Never Breaks from a Russian report by ITAR-TASS:
Of course I am upset about Mikhail Grabovski. We had a close relationship. ...
That our team signed such guys [as Niskanen and Orpik] – that’s a very strong move. Orpik, for example, is a v ...
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Article written by Dave Lozo
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July 8th, 2014 by Dave Lozo Leave a reply »
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