Capitals Avoid Arbitration With Johansson

The Washington Capitals were able to take care of restricted free agent forward Marcus Johansson, before the ugly process of arbitration needed to happen.  The two sides agreed upon a new 3-year deal, worth $13.75 million, pretty well right smack dab in the middle of the request for either side for the process.

The 25-year old has been consistent in his scoring totals over the last three seasons, sticking to the mid 40's, scoring 17 goals and 46 points in 74 games last season.  That was good for 102nd among all forwards in pool scoring.

It is just about time for Johansson to start picking up the pace, as the expectations should be a bit higher, given that he does get the opportunity to play with some very talented linemates in Washington.  His scoring rate was a little bit better in the 2016 season, but he missed time to a couple injuries, an illness and a suspension.

It might not be a huge upgrade, but I am willing to bump up his projection to the 50-point range, hoping for a little bit more and getting a good bargain pick in this year's draft.

The Capitals still have to deal with Dmitry Orlov, a restricted free agent, but he didn't elect for arbitration, despite being qualified to do so.  With the Johansson deal, the Capitals now know how much space they have left and it is still a decent bit of space, as the coloured 23-man roster below is coming in at $69.7 million, leaving about $3.3 million for that deal, give or take the hit it would replace below.

Forwards	Cap	Defense	Cap	Goalies	Cap
Alex Ovechkin	9.538	Matt Niskanen	5.750	Braden Holtby	5.100
Nicklas Backstrom	6.700	John Carlson	3.967
Marcus Johansson	4.583	Karl Alzner	2.800
T.J. Oshie	4.175
Lars Eller	3.500
Justin Williams	3.250
Evgeny Kuznetsov	3.000
Andre Burakovsky	0.894
Daniel Winnik	2.250	Brooks Orpik	5.500	Philipp Grubauer	0.750
Tom Wilson	2.000	Nate Schmidt	0.813
Jay Beagle	1.750
Brett Connolly	0.850
Zach Sill	0.613	Madison Bowey	0.695
Brad Malone	0.575	Aaron Ness	0.613
Riley Barber	0.925	Connor Hobbs	0.722	Vitek Vanecek	0.714
Travis Boyd	0.925	Jonas Siegenthaler	0.720	Adam Carlson	0.705
Zach Sanford	0.875	Christian Djoos	0.712	Joe Cannata	0.575
Jakub Vrana	0.863	Tyler Lewington	0.665
Chandler Stephenson	0.726	Darren Dietz	0.575
Nathan Walker	0.635
Liam O'Brien	0.622
Garrett Mitchell	0.588
Stanislav Galiev	0.575
Chris Bourque	0.575
Paul Carey	0.575
Christian Thomas	0.575

Pool worthy, non-pool roster players, assumed roster fill-ins,  injured/retired cap hits, in the system