Grubauer Done, Caps Summer Complete

It seems like a day can't go by in July, where we won't have a big post about the Washington Capitals doing something.  Well, they just had a large number of pool worthy free agents and they didn't waste any time getting contracts done and trades done to fit them all in.  I think they're done now, as they have put pen to paper with Philipp Grubauer, who was a very good back-up goalie to Braden Holtby in 2017.

Even with Holtby's excessive workload, Grubauer was able to make 24 appearances last season, winning 13 games and posting 32 points in the hockey pool, good enough for 40th among all goalies in points.  That's not too bad!  The Capitals were such a strong team, up and down, last season, that everyone seemed to benefit from it.

The team and the keeper agreed to a 1-year, $1.5 million deal for the 2018 season and the expectation is that they can all do it over again in the regular season.

Forwards	Cap	Defense	Cap	Goalies	Cap
Alex Ovechkin	9.538	Matt Niskanen	5.750	Braden Holtby	5.100
Evgeny Kuznetsov	7.800	Brooks Orpik	5.500	Philipp Grubauer	1.500
Nicklas Backstrom	6.700	Dmitry Orlov	5.100
T.J. Oshie	5.750	John Carlson	3.967
Lars Eller	3.500	Taylor Chorney	0.800
Andre Burakovsky	3.000	Madison Bowey	0.695
Tom Wilson	2.000	Aaron Ness	0.613
Jay Beagle	1.750
Brett Connolly	1.500
Riley Barber	0.925
Jakub Vrana	0.863
Devante Smith-Pelly	0.650
Tyler Graovac	0.625
Zach Sill	0.613

Well, the Capitals are nestled nice and tight to the salary cap ceiling now with this 23-man projected roster above.  I am now showing that they are $757,000 away from the ceiling, which should mean that any other deal will be to compliment their AHL club, unless they can swing a salary cap hit trade with another team, swapping cap space for cap space.