It's such a weird feeling right now with the Caps compared to last year. This whole retool on the fly thing has been a whirlwind. I've never seen so many moves all work out at once along with so many guys making a big jump in their play all in one season. On the outside looking in, none of them individually are completely out of left field (other than Protas turning into the best contract in the league), but for all of them together to work out this well has been nuts.
Just knowing we have Leonard up now with the team, and other prospects like Miro, Cristall, Hutson, Protas' brother, among others on the way, it feels like Caps almost have another competitive window opening up, instead of a giant rebuild everyone expected. Hitting on a bunch of picks the last couple years helps, as does the jump some of our picks from a few years further back have made. Protas is trying to do something nobody else ever has, finish with 60+ even strength points while having less than 2 power play points. He's at 60 ES now, with only 1 PP point currently.
Factor in the fact that we're about to have an insane amount of cap space once Ovechkin and Carlson are off the books after next year, we could likely go out and sign a high impact FA.
