It’s been a re-signing party lately down at Capitals headquarters. Earlier this month, the Caps inked Devante Smith-Pelly and Brooks Orpik to one-year deals. Tom Wilson just got a lot more than that.
By Evan Redmon, July 27, 2018
Capitals are getting the band back together. Actually, they’re making sure it never breaks up.
Capitals sign Wilson
The Caps kept yet another member of their championship squad off the free market. Earlier this evening, Leonsis & Co. re-upped forward Tom Wilson to a six-year deal.
Capitals GM Brian MacLellan made the announcement just about an hour ago.
Somehow, the team keeps finding cash hidden under their mattress. After making deals to keep Devante Smith-Pelly, Michael Kempney, John Carlson and Brooks Orpik in the fold – along with a number of young players in their system – Wilson’s contract will be for “an average annual value of $5.17 million”, according to the Capitals website.
Read⇒ Brooks Orpik stays in Capitals orbit
At only 24 years of age, Wilson is considered one of the core young players that the Caps wanted to keep around for a long time. He tallied 35 points in 2017-2018, which was his high in his brief NHL career. He also set a career mark in goals scored with 14 goals, double that of the previous two campaigns.
Because the Capitals sign Wilson to a long-term deal, the majority of the Stanley Cup champs will remain intact.
Caps sign Wilson to a long term deal, so he’ll be coming right at ya again this season
Tom Wilson is a Keeper
As the Capitals were making their Stanley Cup run, Wilson stepped his game up. He reached career playoff highs with 5 goals and 10 assists.
Why is this man smiling? You’d smile too if someone gave you $5M a year to play hockey.
That all sounds fine a good. But for an NHL contract, $5M per year is big.
It’s not Ovechkin money: his deal averages $9.5M per year or thereabouts. But $5M sounds like a bit of an overpay at this point.
Then again, many Caps fans felt the deal given to Evgeny Kuznetsov last season – an eight-year, $62.4M contract averaging $7.8M per year – was an overpay too.
How’d that turn out? Oh yeah, Kuzy led the NHL in points for the entire Stanley Cup playoffs.
So maybe Brian Maclellan knows what he’s doing.
In any case, as I said before, adding more players from a championship team is never a bad thing.