Washington is in a similar situation to what they had a couple seasons ago. They’ve got three young goalies they like and just one of them dominating most of the ice time. Braden Holtby is their No. 1 guy now with Michal Neuvirth backing him up and Philipp Grubauer waiting in the wings in AHL Hershey.
With the trade deadline coming up on Wednesday, does that mean there’s a deal coming? Capitals GM George McPhee doesn’t see it that way. In speaking with reporters recently, he says he likes the surplus of talent they’ve got in goal, as CSNWashington.com’s Chuck Gormley shares.
“I’m in no hurry to make a change there. It’s the most important position in the game and you have to be careful,” McPhee said. “We felt we could move [Semyon] Varlamov [to Colorado] because we had these two kids coming and we’ve got [Philipp] Grubauer now, but you’d like for [Grubauer] to have a little more experience.”
The easiest way for Grubauer to get that experience would be to have someone ahead of him cleared out. McPhee mentioning Semyon Varlamov makes sense for this situation as that’s what this one is very similar to.
He’d probably change his tone about dealing one of his goalies if a team offered up their first and second round picks for one of them.