Old foes, new friends: Could Marc-Andre Fleury be heading to Washington?
As we get closer to the trade deadline, you'll hear every pending UFA mentioned as a trade target for various teams, but one of the more intriguing names out there is 3-time Stanley Cup champ and future Hall of Famer Marc-Andre Fleury.
There are a few contending teams that could use an upgrade or some insurance between the pipes, but for those contending teams it may require a lot of moving pieces. Most contending teams are in a cap crunch and to add to the dilemma, MAF has a modified no trade clause where he provides a 10-team list and carries a cap hit of $7 million.
The team that needs the most help between the pipes is, as everyone knows, the Oilers. There have just been too many games where whoever is in goal gives up a soft goal or two that has ended up costing the team the game. The Oilers have just over $2 million in cap space currently, with 3 players on LTIR, so there would have be significant salary sent back to the Hawks on top of what it would cost to acquire the player.
From reports though, it sounds like Fleury has no interest in joining the Oilers, as they have been working to try to land the reigning Vezina Trophy winner. Those same reports are saying that Fleury would like to join... the Washington Capitals?!
The Capitals have two young, quality goaltenders in Ilya Samsonov and Vitek Vanecek, but could be looking for a veteran presence come playoff time as the inexperienced tandem they currently have seemed somewhat overwhelmed in last year's playoffs. It could be a "last kick at the can" attempt with the Capitals current roster and the addition of MAF will ultimately make them that much better.
This will be an interesting situation to watch over the coming weeks, and with MAF ultimately controlling where he goes, he may surprise us all and end up back where it all started in Pittsburgh.
