Capitals Ready to Go

The Washington Capitals, in amidst cap troubles, had to send promising young defender, Karl Alzner, to the minor system in order to help relieve themselves of cap pressure. Alzner, pretty much a lock to make the team in camp, has a pretty hefty entry-level deal and will have to wait until a hole is made for him to fit in at the moment.

Alzner is also a Selection Sheet choice (Box 30), who now will have to wait his turn to help teams out on the Sheet pool.

The Caps will also have to make one more roster move to fit under the cap and it looks like Brian Pothier will be moved to the Long Term Injury Reserve (LTIR) for the beginning of the year, as he can't shake his concussion symptoms. If Pothier is to miss the entire season, his full $2.5 million cap hit won't count and the Capitals annual number will sit at $$55.7 million, only $1 million away from the cap ceiling.

Forwards	Defense	Goaltenders
Alexander Ovechkin	Mike Green	Jose Theodore
Nicklas Backstrom	Tom Poti	Brent Johnson
Viktor Kozlov	Jeff Schultz
Alexander Semin	Brian Pothier
Sergei Fedorov	Shaone Morrisonn
Brooks Laich	John Erskine
Michael Nylander	Milan Jurcina
Tomas Fleischmann
Matt Bradley
Boyd Gordon
David Steckel
Chris Clark
Donald Brashear
Eric Fehr

From a pool standpoint, the Capitals will likely show some improvements from players like Nicklas Backstrom and Eric Fehr, while Michael Nylander and Chris Clark bounce back from horrible injury-plagued seasons. Right now, of the four, Backstrom is the only safe pick, while the other three have some serious gambling implications. A dark horse on the blueline could be Jeff Schultz, as his numbers should improve from his 18 points last season. A deep pool could be the right place for Schultz to be beneficial for your pool team.