Larsson and Mojo both were picked up with previous teams carrying 1/2 their salaries., which was an absolute necessity for the Caps. (Also might be another factor why Caps had to give away pics for Mojo/Spronger trade)
Caps even with all the injuries are hard up against the cap. The LTIR salaries don't count while on LTIR, but as soon as they come back they do, so it's really only a very temporary relief from our Cap problem which instantly returns with the player (until the playoffs then there is no cap - ahem...Lightning)
Caps have zero cap space....okay...$180k
They are currently using 3,319,166 of the 3.5m of Hags LTIR money, so they can't afford his return until the playoffs even if he were ready and I don't see how he can return if he's having another eye surgery this week.
So ....they HAD to have teams retain salary in order to get guys at the trade deadline (since we won't trade away any big contract guys)
Mojo is at 750k and Larsson is $700, so they really are budget pick ups. I could see them extending Mojo a year at 1.5 next year depending on what happens with Hags. I expect Larsson is as depth guy and 4th line guy maybe to fill in for some of Hags duties.
Mojo I think is an insurance pick up who can fill spots up and down the lineup, and be there for the next time Oshie stubs his toe or someone else gets hurt.
Money is their main problem with trying to improve this team. They can't afford to do anything and seem unwilling to part with any high dollar guys (ahem paging Johnny Q).
Also....all the guys making big dollars have some kind of modified No-trade clauses. Certainly those can be worked around, but it just adds another difficulty in trying to move a $8m dollar guy. There are only so many teams able or willing to afford Johnny Q (or others). Not like we have a bunch of juicy picks to trade along to offset that salary in a trade. And as much as we all complain about him - he would be missed - he plays tons of important minutes.
We'll see what happens after this years playoffs. I expect they pretty much try and keep the band together yet another year. Hopefully I'm wrong and we do something in the offseason that has a big positive impact on the future.
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