Yeah, Marner would be a great add, no question, but the timing is about a year off. Not sure how you'd make the cap work with Ovi and without sacrificing necessary pieces. Post-Ovi, sure, we will definitely have some space to add a marquee player, but we're not sure when that will be. He might decide to stick around another year or two, and we don't know what that will cost.
In the meantime, we're been shrewd and very fortunate about rebuilding the team on the fly, and our forward prospects are maturing at a very team-friendly rate. Offense, defense, and goaltending are all shored up pretty nicely. With PLD looking good, we've got no bad contracts, and we figure to be able to keep the guys we want to keep, and we have a coach whose reputation is building around the league.
Keeping Washington a destination franchise was no easy feat in the waning years of Ovechkin, but we've managed to pull it off so far. Given the question marks surrounding Ovi's situation, I think we kinda have to be in wait-and-see mode. I really hope that he lets the team know beforehand when his last season will be. That would best allow us to make the most of his cap space.
But that time isn't now, so I think we keep doing what we've been doing. Luckily for us, the time it'll take to sort Ovi out is probably at least roughly the same amount of time we'll be getting a really good idea of what we have in Leonard and Miro, maybe also Cristall. If one or two of them pan out big, then we may be set as-is. And if all they do is make the show and shore up a very strong and cost-controlled middle six for a few years, that is something we can build around and add to as cap space permits.
