Even in light of recent performance I venture to guess Holtby will land more than the ~$1M they're going to want to spend on a 1b/back-up. All of the back-to-back games make it essential they add someone better than Copley/Fucale but I expect someone like Reimer, Dubnyk, Hutton, Brossoit or McElhinney. Never say never. Being thrifty could be costly but I'm not sure they're going to want to move another regular skater to open space to upgrade, esp. since the best options should be off the market pretty quickly. They can exceed the cap and straighten it out later but it's a tough maneuver.
Lots of teams are in the market for goalie upgrades, both in free agency and via trade. Toronto, Pittsburgh, Carolina, Buffalo, San Jose, New Jersey and Chicago are all looking for starter upgrades and can offer a lot of minutes. Colorado will either keep the top UFA in Grubauer or snag another. Vegas may move one of theirs. Perhaps Dallas moves Bishop. There's Kuemper and perhaps Georgiev. Maybe one of the CBJ goalies move as they make more changes. The Caps can offer a winning environment but at their likely price point it's probably not going to be one with strong opportunities elsewhere. Samsonov hasn't established himself fully so there's definite opportunity in DC but are they enough of a destination to take a drastic pay cut? I'd pretty much rule out Grubauer, Andersen, Mrazek, Holtby, Raanta, Bernier, Ullmark or Halak, as they'll probably land more money elsewhere. From there exclusively via UFA it's a pretty picked over group. They could play musical chairs and hope someone gets left out but I'd still be surprised if it ended up being someone above that cheaper tier.
