Caps in the Mailbox: June 27, 2023

Mike Vogel answers questions submitted from fans before the 2023 NHL Draft in Nashville. Submit your question at WashCaps.com/InTheMailbox

Lloyd B. from Alexandria, VA: With the Draft coming up, curious if you have any insight into why the Caps haven't hosted a Draft or All-Star game?

Teams/cities typically don't host the All-Star Game or the NHL Draft unless they specifically request to do so, and to my knowledge, the organization has not expressed the desire to host either event in my time covering the team, which extends back to the mid-1990s. Washington has never hosted a Draft, and its only prior NHL All-Star Game was in 1982, when the team was headquartered in Landover.

Capital One Arena is one of the busiest buildings of its kind in the NHL. Between its sports tenants, concerts and other events, the venue has few dark/idle days over the course of the year. When the NHL hosts events such as the Draft and All-Star Games, the League essentially takes over the venue for staging purposes for 1-2 weeks in advance for preparation. That would result in a great deal of lost revenue for the building and the organization, so there is no real incentive for the team/city to host these events.

With respect to the All-Star Game specifically, the event has become a corporate event with League sponsors accounting for a high percentage of the available tickets. Therefore, the Caps would not be able to accommodate all of their season ticket holders with All-Star seating, a suboptimal situation. That's another impediment.

There may be other reasons I'm not aware of for why those events haven't taken place in this area in the recent and distant past; I'm not privy to any of those discussions or decisions. I've never heard the word "never" in connection with either event coming to D.C., so the fact that they haven't been here doesn't preclude them from being here at some point in the future.

David S. from Manassas, VA: Are the Capitals going to shake up the forward core still?

My sense is that GM Brian MacLellan would like to change the shape and complexion of the forward group, and particularly the top six group. But it takes two to tango, so in order to pull off those moves, he would need to find a willing trade partner; the Caps don't have the cap space to make those type of additions in what is a rather thin free agent market this summer.

Also, Caps would be selling low on players such as Evgeny Kuznetsov and Anthony Mantha, two players who have been rumored to be on the trading block. Both players carry high salary cap hits, and both are coming off seasons in which they underperformed. Add in the fact that the salary cap will remain relatively stagnant next season, and it may prove difficult - if not impossible - for the Caps to get reasonable value back in return for those players.

Given the presence of a new head coach in Spencer Carbery and a couple of new assistants as well, it may make more sense to retain those players for another year and see if the change in bench leadership sparks a return to form.

The other options are much less palatable; they include contract buyouts, taking pennies on the dollar in trade, or retaining salary to swing a swap. I don't get the sense that they're leaning toward those options, either.

Nate T. from Camp Hill, PA: Lots of buzz with Matvei Michkov and the Caps. What can you tell us on this player from Caps management perspective?

Understandably, management keeps its cards quite close to the vest at this time of year when it comes to its plans, its inclinations and its desire to draft any of the hundreds of players whose names will be called on the draft floor in Nashville later this week. And that's true of 30 other teams, too; the only choice of the 224 of which we can be certain is that Conor Bedard will go to Chicago with the first overall pick. After that, the subjectivity of player evaluation kicks in. Draft rankings of the 32 NHL teams vary greatly from one to another, and that's even truer in the later rounds.

Michkov is ranked as high as second overall on some of the media rankings I've seen, and pretty much all of the rankings have him in the top five or six. But because he is still under contract in the KHL for the next three seasons, some teams may be reluctant to choose him in a draft that is replete with high end talent in the top third of the first round. It wouldn't be surprising at all to see him selected ahead of Washington's first pick, the eighth overall choice. My hunch is that the Caps won't get the chance to take him at No. 8; I think he'll go before that.

From a management perspective, the Caps have obviously never been shy about drafting Russian players. They chose Evgeny Kuznetsov with the 26th overall pick in the first round in 2010, then patiently waited until March of 2014 for him to arrive in Washington and begin his NHL career. Kuznetsov was ranked much higher than 26th on most draft rankings, but team choosing in the first 25 slots found a player it either liked better, desired more, or ranked higher.

During the many years in which Ross Mahoney and Steve Bowman have been in charge of such decisions for the Caps, the philosophy has always been to take the best player available.

"Same as it ever was, best player available," said Mahoney last week when I spoke with him. "We've always had that philosophy, unless we were splitting hairs. The one year [2006], we had some goalies that we really liked, and we took [Semyon] Varlamov and [Michal] Neuvirth, and we were going to take Steve Mason. And we thought, 'Well, we've already got enough goalies.' And as it turned out, we probably should have taken Steve Mason also, because you can never have enough goalies and sometimes they turn out to be better than the other positional players that you're looking at. It just gives the general manager another player to be able to move in a trade and that sort of thing. So unless we're really splitting hairs, we're always taking the best player available to us."

The Caps have a handful of players they're interested in choosing at No. 8. If Michkov falls to eight and he is the top guy remaining on their list at that point, I expect they will take him.

Connor from Gainesville, VA: Could you see a scenario where the Caps make a trade for DeBrincat?

Anything is possible, but I'd put a DeBrincat deal more toward the unlikely stage of the spectrum, given his contract status. He is an RFA with arbitration rights whose deal paid him $6.4 million last season. His next contract will certainly carry an average annual value that starts with at least a 7, meaning the Caps would need to create space for such a move by jettisoning one of their own current high-ticket players. My belief is that several other teams will be able to make the Senators a better offer than Washington, and Ottawa is on the cusp of contention and needs to derive full value in any deal for a player of DeBrincat's caliber, especially since he is just now entering his prime years.

Justin K. from Olney, MD: How will Hershey's success effect the Cap offseason strategy?

Watching the Bears win the Calder Cup this spring was a really inspiring and uplifting experience. They were missing key players (particularly Mike Sgarbossa and Bobby Nardella) for most of the playoff run, and they weren't fueled by one or two elite players. Hershey's victory was truly an instance of the team being greater than the sum of its parts, IMO.

That said, I believe that the showings of some of those players during the playoff run combined with the fact that some of those players have played under Spencer Carbery (and some have played for assistant coach Mitch Love as well) could result in them getting a longer or better look from the parent club at training camp this fall. Other factors such as health of some of Washington's veteran players and any other offseason roster moves will also obviously factor in here, but I do believe that several of the Hershey players could be seen in a better light than they might have been prior to Carbery's hiring and the start of the Calder Cup playoffs.

Mike D. from Canada: The team has a few non-roster RFA's this offseason. Who do you think gets re-signed?

I'm seeing forwards Kody Clark, Henrik Borgstrom and Riley Sutter and defenseman Gabriel Carlsson as the four "non-roster" Caps with RFA status, and the two oldest among them have arbitration rights, those being the 25-year-old Borgstrom and the 26-year-old Carlsson. Clark missed all of last season with an injury, and Borgstrom has just signed a deal to return to Europe, playing for HV71 in Sweden.

For me, Sutter has the best chance of the quartet of being re-signed. He was excellent throughout the playoffs, he's a quality kid and a right-handed center man with size. A third-round pick in 2018, Sutter's development has been slowed by injuries and the pandemic, limiting him to 158 regular season games in four seasons at Hershey. He turns 24 in October, and even though his upside is as a bottom six player, I could see the Caps bringing him back for another year or two.

Carlsson was a first-round pick in the NHL Draft, and has been a fringe player at the NHL level and a complementary player in the AHL. I thought he played well in the Calder Cup playoffs, and I would expect the Caps to have interest in retaining Carlsson as an organizational depth piece on defense, but the team may also have its eyes on a similar player or players.

Clark was a second-rounder in 2018, seen as a player who might have middle six potential on the wing. Injuries and the pandemic have hurt him as well, and after he missed all of last season, the team might be ready to move on. The Caps also have a few forwards who are old enough to turn pro this season, which makes the math even tougher for Clark.

Nick E. from Falls Church, VA: There's a lot of speculation out there about shaking up the top six via trade, are there any free agent forwards you could see the Caps signing?

My hunch in that regard is that if the Caps dipped into the free agent forward market, they'd be seeking top nine types who are still under (or not too much over) 30 years of age and can be had for reasonable, cap-friendly deals. I'm thinking of players like Jesper Fast, Pierre Engvall and Evan Rodrigues here, players who could reasonably be expected to fill that sort of role without an exorbitant AAV. And for all I know, all three of those players could wind up out of Washington's range. It only takes a determined team or two to drive up the price on desirable UFAs at this time of year.

I would also not rule out a run at an older and/or more high-profile player if the price is not prohibitive. That would likely involve a player finding the free agent market cooler than expected, or for other market factors to intervene and drive down his price or the demand for his services. Think Tomas Vokoun, a dozen summers ago.

Thomas H. from Denver, CO: It's been reported that multiple teams have expressed interest in signing Connor Brown, do the Caps have interest in bringing him back? Could you see them trading his rights before July 1?

I believe the Caps absolutely have interest in bringing Connor Brown back. They were thrilled and excited to get him from Ottawa last summer, and he is a versatile player who brings a lot to the table when he is healthy. He will likely test the market, and hopefully will at least check in with Washington to see what the Caps' offer would be. Prior to joining the Caps last season, Brown had only played for teams in his native Canada. Given his OHL history with Connor McDavid, I could also see him landing in Edmonton, though the Oilers would need to clear some cap space to make that happen.

Maggie P. from Waldorf, MD: Beck Malenstyn played an important role on Hershey's Calder Cup-winning team and has shown promise when with the Caps. Do you think he can make the leap and fill a spot on the fourth line next season?

My own personal opinion is that if Malenstyn had not sustained that broken finger while blocking a shot against Vegas, he would have manned the left side of Washington's fourth line regularly for the remainder of the season. He checked all the boxes for that role; he plays with energy, he finishes his checks, he is detailed, reads his linemates well and can play the cycle game, good along the walls in both ends, and can kill penalties. So yes, I think he can fill that role and I believe he will get an opportunity to do so.

Tanya O. from Bethesda, MD: Were there any players on Hershey besides the organization's top prospects (McMichael, Lapierre, Iorio) that stood out or left an impression on you during the Cup run?

I thought Lucas Johansen played well throughout the series, and he was an absolute beast in helping Hershey hold off the Firebirds at the end of one of the home games, Game 4 I believe. Ethen Frank struggled early on, but made his presence felt more in the Final. Garett Pilon came up big in some key moments, including an overtime game-winner in the Final, and he was consistently good throughout the playoffs. Aliaksei Protas thrived in a larger role and with more ice time, which is a potentially big benefit of a 20-game playoff run of high leverage hockey. He had one more goal and nearly as many points in those 20 games as he did in nearly three times as many contests with the Caps last season. If Protas can manage to put up even Lars Eller type numbers (12-15 goals and 30-40 points), he should have a long NHL career. Joe Snively was excellent throughout, generating scoring chances with his speed and his vision, and he led the team in scoring. Riley Sutter was impactful in the middle of the fourth line, winning key draws regularly, killing penalties and asserting himself in the middle of the fourth line with Malenstyn and Mason Morelli.

Chase Z. from Frederick, VA: Based on their performance in Hershey this season, what role do you see prospects like Connor McMichael, Hendrix Lapierre, Beck Malenstyn and Aliaksei Protas playing next season?

I think McMichael gets an opportunity to play a meaningful role in the top nine, either at center or left wing, dependent somewhat on how the rest of the lineup shakes out and where he might be needed to play. I'd like to see Lapierre take on a larger role with more ice and more responsibility in Hershey this season - similar to what McMichael did in Hershey last season - and he is likely to get some games with the big club, too. I think Malenstyn and Protas will both get a chance to play regularly this season, and it's possible they could be linemates flanking Nic Dowd.

I think the answer to this question should be at least a bit clearer once we see how everything shakes out at the draft and in free agency, and what alterations might be made via the trade route.