Orlov's Deal Gets Done

Still playing for Russia at the World Cup, defenseman Dmitry Orlov and his agent were still hard at work getting a deal done for the start of training camp with the Washington Capitals.  On Wednesday, the deal was done, as the 25-year old signed a 1-year, $2.57 million deal.

Orlov had a very solid 2016 season, picking up 29 points in all 82 games, which had him ranked 52nd among all defensemen in scoring and it will make him a pretty popular guy in the middle rounds of this year's draft.

In two games with the Russian team at the World Cup, he has yet to register a point and he'll be one of those guys that could come up big, as the Russians need a big push to try and make the semi-finals in the tournament on Thursday.

The head start may not have registered many points, so his original projection of about 30 points is still holding where it is, but a good push in the last week of the tournament could certainly adjust that appropriately.

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	Dmitry Orlov	2.570
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
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	Aaron Ness	0.613
Nathan Walker	0.635	Darren Dietz	0.575
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
Ryan Bourque	PTO	Taylor Chorney	PTO	Drew MacIntyre	PTO

The Capitals are nice and snug up against the salary cap ceiling, as they just shoehorned Orlov's deal under there.  The 23-man projected roster in colour above is coming in with $1.4 million to spare.  That's some pretty good cap management for Washington and if they can work in some more space, they could be a player at the trade deadline.