Thursday, November 30, 2017

The Capitals should trade Braden Holtby

Rarely will a team trade away Vezina-caliber goaltenders in their prime.  But the Capitals need to do just that.

Braden Holtby is one of the three best goaltenders in the league.  No one denies his ability to be a franchise cornerstone.  Most NHL GMs would kill for a player as talented as him.

But most NHL GMs draft goaltenders poorly, and develop them even worse.  However, this is probably the Capitals' greatest strength: goaltender development.  Adding the legendary Mitch Korn has a long history of developing quality starters; under his tutelage, his keepers have won a combined 5 Vezina trophies, with Hasek having won two more after Korn switched teams.  (This is also why I do not support the Capitals firing Barry Trotz: his assistant coaching staff is top notch).

Holtby was a steal in the fourth round, being the 9th goalie drafted in 2008.  Holtby has 17 more NHL wins than the first 8 goaltenders drafted combined.  In fact, Holtby has accounted for 44% of all of the goalie wins from his draft class.  There were 22 goalies drafted.

The last Cup-starting and winning goaltender drafted in the first round was Marc-Andre Fleury, who started in 2009's Penguins win: one of three since the 04-05 lockout to be drafted that high.

Goaltenders, more than any other position, have good value in later rounds.  Of the 14 goalies last year to win 30 games, three were first round draft picks, four were undrafted, and the rest fell somewhere in between.  The average draft number for the ten who were drafted is 102.

The Capitals also have a well stocked goalie cupboard.  Philipp Grubauer might not be ready to carry a team, but he has widely been pegged as the next great starter.  Pheonix Copley, whom the Capitals highly value, was a key part of the Shattenkirk trade last season and the Oshie trade before that- has absolutely dominated at the AHL level and should compete for the backup role in Washington.  Competing with Copley is Vitek Vanecek, who has performed admirably in both the ECHL and AHL.  Behind them both is Adam Carlson, who passes the eye test, when healthy.

But the biggest prize of all is Ilya Samsonov, the best goaltender outside of North America, who is expected to sign with the Capitals after his contract expires this upcoming summer.  Comparing him to other blue-chip Russian goalie prospects like Sergei Bobrovsky and Andrei Vasilevskiy, it is not unreasonable for Samsonov to quickly adjust to the North American game and compete for an NHL position right away.

This deep pipeline makes Holtby somewhat expendable- for the right price.  He has a friendly contract; of his cap comparables, fellow goaltenders +/- 10% of his cap hit of $6.1 MM, he is the youngest, and besides Carey Price, is undoubtedly the best.  However, the Capitals are desperate for cap relief, and trading away Holtby's $6.1 MM would go a long way towards a proper retool.  Holtby has been a workhorse in net, but his trade value is tremendous.

With no comparable trades of ace goaltenders in their prime with contract to spare, it is difficult to speculate on a return, but we can suspect that Holtby would bring in at least a solid starting player, a prospect, and a first round draft pick.  It might also be possible to use him to entice a team to pick up the last two years of Orpik's contract.  Who knows?  For a playoff team tight against the cap, but in need of a few solid pieces to become truly competitive, trading away the Beast might be the best move.