New Winnipeg Jets forward Eric Fehr stunned by trade out of Washington

When Eric Fehr was traded by the Washington Capitals over the weekend to Winnipeg, the Manitoba native was being sent home to play for the home province team. Going from a potential Stanley Cup winning team to one that’s seeking to make the playoffs for the first time in a new location, however, is a stunning change of events.

After seasons of nagging injuries, Fehr appeared set to start the year working on the second line with the Capitals as a power forward, but with the Caps signing Joel Ward away from Nashville and acquiring Troy Brouwer from Chicago, things got a bit tight on the depth chart at right wing. For Fehr, getting traded was about the last thing he expected to see happen.

CSN Washington’s Kellie Cowan has the word from Fehr on his sudden homecoming in Winnipeg.

“It was actually a shock to me. I didn’t really know I was really being shopped around or anything like that,” Fehr said during a radio interview Tuesday on Toronto’s The Fan 590. “I just got a call from the Caps GM George McPhee one day and he told me I’d been dealt.”

With the additions of Ward, Brouwer, defenseman Roman Hamrlik and goalie Tomas Vokoun, the Caps situation against the salary cap became a bit more dire. Fehr and his $2.2 million cap hit for this season suddenly became very movable. With scoring talent being thin in Winnipeg, Fehr being sent off to his home province became an attractive option to send a likable player packing. Fehr knew that with the Caps adding players the way they did that something was going to give.

“I think they ran out of room on salary cap in Washington and some players were going to get squeezed out and I was one of them,” Fehr said. “It’s not like I was specifically saying that I wanted to come to Winnipeg or that I wanted to be moved at all. It was just something that they felt needed to be done and it ended up working out for me.”

With the moves they’ve made, the Capitals still do have a bit of a cap crunch as they’ve got restricted free agent Karl Alzner to get locked up and according to CapGeek.com, they’ll have to figure out another move or two to be able to do that and stay under the salary cap.

One move that could solve their issues is putting Tom Poti on LTIR as he’s still dealing with injury problems. His $2.875 salary cap hit would likely free up enough space on top of what the Capitals are under the cap (about $400,000) to get Alzner signed. With all the Caps have done already, Alzner is the last player to get taken care of and shouldn’t be too difficult of a task to remedy.