When Seattle selected goaltender Vitek Vanecek from the Caps in last week's expansion draft, Washington was left in a position where it would have to shed some salary in order to accommodate the impending contract extension for Caps captain Alex Ovechkin, set to become an unrestricted free agent at noon on Wednesday.
Dillon has three years remaining on a deal he signed with the Caps last Oct., a pact that carries an annual salary cap hit of $3.9 million. The 30-year-old British Columbia native joined the Capitals in a Feb. 2020 trade with San Jose, and the fit between player and team was fast enough and strong enough in both directions - both on and off the ice - to foster that four-year extension last fall. Dillon was a fixture in the Caps' top four throughout his tenure in D.C.
Washington wasn't eager to part ways with Dillon, but it does have some depth on the left side of its defensive depth chart. Behind Dmitry Orlov, Michal Kempny is expected to be healthy after a couple of long-term injuries derailed his last three seasons, and youngsters Alex Alexeyev and Martin Fehervary are expected to make their own bids for opening night roster berths some two and a half months from now. Either Kempny or Fehervary will need to step into a top-four/penalty-killing role, unless the Caps make another addition in free agency.
The trade of Dillon to Winnipeg on Monday night should give the Caps sufficient cap space with which to sign both Ovechkin and restricted free agent goaltender Ilya Samsonov. With a trio of soon-to-be UFA defensemen in Jordie Benn, Derek Forbort and Tucker Poolman and a pair of RFA blueliners in Logan Stanley and Neal Pionk, the Jets needed to stabilize their own defensive depth chart. Dillon, a veteran of 654 NHL games, broke into the NHL with Dallas in 2012-13.
Washington originally obtained Dillon for a second- and a third-round draft pick from San Jose, so the Caps recouped a better return than his original cost.
Earlier on Monday, the Caps tendered contract offers to Samsonov and defenseman Lucas Johansen, the club's two remaining restricted free agents. Johansen is another lefty defenseman in the mix, a first-rounder (28th overall) from the 2016 draft. The 23-year-old Johansen's career has been stalled by injuries that have limited him to just 59 of the 171 regular season games played by AHL Hershey over that span.
