According to CBS and CapGeek, Troy Brouwer signed a two year, 4.7 million dollar contract with the Capitals. According to Fox Sports, he has signed to play the same two years, but earn a total of 5.7 million.
As with politics, so with sports...
The Caps only confirm that the contract is for two years.
Cap Geek writes that it will put the Capitals $1.8 million dollars over the salary cap. Teams are allowed to exceed the cap by up to 10% during the summer, and often do. Then they end up trading away the player of their choice for the best draft pick they can get.
Back when the Caps were not very good, they gave the New Jersey Devils a third round pick for Jeff Friesen, who proceded to play a lot of boring, unimpressive hockey, while wearing Peter Bondra's old number.
Now that the Caps are good, they may have to make such a sacrifice. The trouble is that the Capitals don't have a whole lot of non-essential veterans on expensive contracts. Who would you give up on?
Really? Tom Poti? What, just because he's injured for the foreseeable future, and the Caps did the same when Brian Pothier was injured indefinitely? Huh. No kidding. It certainly sounds like a possibility. But wouldn't they be just as happy to keep Poti on injured reserve so that his contract doesn't count against the cap until the playoffs start, like they did with Mike Green after last year's concussion, and briefly with Pothier as well? Yes, that certainly seems like a possibility, too.
Of course if the Caps count, say, Roman Hamrlik as Tom Poti's injury replacement until April, then Hammer's contract will only hit the cap for the amount that it exceeds Poti's deal. Since each player is inked at $3.5 million per season, the numbers should work out fairly nicely. Chances are that someone else will be injured before Poti gets better, so there might be a way to keep both veteran defensemen in town, but if Poti suddenly undergoes a miraculous recovery and won't sit out until the playoffs, the Caps are sure to find someone to trade for the veteran leader.
So, for now there is no cap crisis in this town. However, Karl Alzner is still a restricted free agent, and the Caps only have about two million dollars to sign the former captain of Canada's junior team. Mike Green may still have lingering concussion issues from the head injuries that kept him out of half of last year's regular season. If Green sits, the Caps are free to call anybody up to Alex Ovechkin his injury replacement, erasing Green's cap hit from the books until he returns. Green is set to earn $5.5 million this year, so in half a season of working out and clearing his head, he could give the Caps $2.75 million in salary cap room.
Alzner is good, but he isn't $4.5 million a year good. $3, maybe, but not close to $4. That means that, if the Caps are prepared to start the season with a defense of Alzner, Carlson, Wideman, Hamrlik, Schultz and Erskine, they may still have one million in cap room to pick up any free agent who expresses a strong enough interest in playing in the nation's capital.
Brendan Morrison and Scott Hannan, I know this doesn't look too appealing, economically, but from a hockey perspective, you have to admit you could do a lot worse. The economics start to work out next summer...
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