Prospective Look at Washington

An impressive late season run to the playoffs was one of the bigger stories of the past season, all thanks to the youth movement of the Capitals. Injuries to Michael Nylander, Chris Clark & Brian Pothier required the moves to pick up Sergei Fedorov and Matt Cooke and the team made good with those deals. Of course, having the league's top scorer in the fold was surely to be the tipping point of making it into the post-season.

Sewing up that same top scorer for 14 years was another highlight to add to his 65-goal, 112-point season. Alexander Ovechkin will remain a Capital for a long time, as he's quickly become the face of the team and in some consideration, the face of the league. This summer will be a very important one when it comes to building around him as well.

The Capitals have plenty of youth to back-up their MVP and will have to get on board with signing some of the team's free-agent talent. Alexander Semin, Nicklas Backstrom, Tomas Fleischmann and Jeff Schultz are all signed on for next season to keep the youth movement alive, while Mike Green and Brooks Laich will both need deals to keep up their part of the bargain.

Washington will have to choose between their two veteran goalies this summer as well. Both Cristobel Huet and Olaf Kolzig are entering the summer as potential unrestricted free agents and it doesn't seem very likely that the team will keep both, since they both are number goalies in search of plenty of ice-time. Look for Huet to make the return, which is a shame for Kolzig, who poured his heart & soul into the franchise.

Forwards	Defense	Goaltenders
Alexander Ovechkin	Tom Poti	Brent Johnson
Nicklas Backstrom	Jeff Schultz
Viktor Kozlov	Brian Pothier
Alexander Semin	John Erskine
Michael Nylander	Milan Jurcina
Tomas Fleischmann
David Steckel
Chris Clark
Donald Brashear

The team currently has 15 signed on for next season and has roughly $38 million committed to them. Along with Green and Laich, who will both earn themselves a raise, the team will likely want to sign WHL Player of the Year, Karl Alzner, to an entry-level contract as well.

Also waiting in the wings for the Caps... Josh Godfrey (D) and Simeon Varlamov (G), both signed to entry-level deals. Godfrey will get a long look in camp and Varlamov may have to wait another year, just because Brent Johnson has been a decent back-up for the past couple seasons.

Once the Caps have all their in-house signings done, they may not as big of players in the Free Agent Frenzy that a team like the Rangers will be, but they could find themselves in the mid-range player shopping spree, in order for them to improve their second or third line. Names floating around the rumour mill include Martin Straka and Markus Naslund, neither of which are mid-range, but still hanging around on the wire.

Draft Day will see the Caps pick from the 23rd position, thanks to a division title and a playoff run. The team they beat, Carolina, will have the luxury of the 14th pick. In all likelihood, the Caps will be looking for yet another top-end forward in the first round. A specific forward is hard to gauge now, but the mock draft, which happen early in June will give a thorough look at their options.