Capitals Make Interesting Early Roster Moves

For cap purposes, the Washington Capitals had to wait until today to make their final moves and set their opening night roster. This entailed them assigning Ivan Miroshnichenko and Riley Sutter to the AHL and recalling Connor McMichael and Aliaksei Protas. This may have worried some initially that McMichael would not be opening the season on the Capitals again, but it appears as though he is a lock to be a full time member of the veteran team moving forward.

The reason why these moves were made was due to the Capitals needing to place Max Pacioretty on LTIR. Washington will only have 22 players available to them on opening night, so this means Joel Edmundson, who wasn't placed on the LTIR as well, should be back shortly.

Once Edmundson is back in the lineup, this means either Lucas Johansen or Alexander Alexeyev will have to be put through waivers. Both are former first round picks, but Johansen is two years older. Neither are big point producers on the back-end and neither have much NHL experience at all. Johansen has three NHL games under his belt, but it looks like he will get into the opening night lineup. Alexeyev has 33 games, 32 of which came last season.

The Capitals are trying to stay competitive, but a rebuild seems to be coming in the near future once Alex Ovechkin calls it a career. They will need the young players on the cusp of contributing to take next steps this season. If there are injuries like there were last season, many of the names mentioned and more will get a better look in the NHL.