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2010 NHL Free Agency: Capitals, Tomas Fleischmann also avoid arbitration

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The trend of NHL teams narrowly avoiding salary arbitration continues tonight as the Washington Capitals and forward Tomas Fleischmann agreed to a one-year, $2.6 million deal. (Financial details via Tarik El-Bashir) Here is more regarding Fleischmann from the Caps.

Fleischmann, 26, set career highs in goals (23), assists (28), points (51) and plus/minus (+9) in 2009-10. He finished sixth on the team in goals and seventh in points and ranked sixth in the NHL with a 19.0 shooting percentage. Fleischmann scored 10 of his 23 goals in the first period and scored eight goals in the 10 games that Alex Ovechkin was missing from the lineup. He established offensive career highs despite missing the first 11 games of the season recovering from deep vein thrombosis in his leg.

The Koprivinice, Czech Republic, native was acquired from Detroit in a 2004 trade and has played 260 career games for the Capitals. He has compiled 128 points (56 goals, 72 assists) and has improved his goal and point totals each year.

Popular Capitals blog Japer’s Rink provided a “mock arbitration” in which the hypothetical Capitals asked for $1.9 million while the imaginary Fleischmann group wanted $3.1 million, so this deal seems like a near-perfect compromise if you go by that account.

Using CapGeek as a guide, the Capitals will have just under $6 million in cap space with 20 players (including 10 forwards) at the NHL level.

Their roster is nearly complete at this point, although they could definitely use a second line/depth center going forward. (More on that later tonight.)