Never too early to start speculating about what the team will look like next year. The identity of the new coach will likely frame any roster moves that we end up making, but still couldn't hurt to start discussing:

• Who do the Caps re-sign, and how much do they cost?
• Who do the Caps target as UFA, and how much do they cost?
• Who are the Caps best trade assets, and who around the league might be in a position to move?

My first attempt at an optimistic line-up for next year after the jump.

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Just wanted to update my previous fanpost with year-end data.  Maybe JP or someone else will be able to clean this up or make it sortable.

Sorry for the limited commentary.  This is basically just a data dump.  All data is pulled from NHL.com, and includes those that are labeled as rookies on their stats engine.  I manually split the data for the couple of guys that played for multiple teams.  (Mainly Shattenkirk)

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Had I an intern, I’d make her add up all the minutes played by all the rookies in the League and see which teams have had the most minutes played by rookies (and I’d make sure she separated out goalies from skaters, too).

-J.P.

Not an intern, or a her, but I was curious as well, so I threw this together based on rookies as spit out on the NHL.com stats page. Data after the jump.

The Caps are a close second in total minutes played by rookies, behind Edmonton, but a full 20% above the next closest team, Chicago.  However, when you remove minutes played by goalies, Caps drop down to #6, while Edmonton remains far ahead of the pack.  Possibly interesting, Caps are third in minutes per game played by rookie skaters, which I think might indicate the quality of the rookies used.

Not surprisingly, John Carlson leads all rookie skaters in minutes played (1,592), logging 10% more than #2 PK Subban.  Johansson comes in at #18 for skaters with 831.  Crawford (2,646), Bobrovsky (2,489) and Neuvirth (2,257) lead the rookie goalies in minutes.

Only 5 rookie forwards have eclipsed the 1,000 minute mark, and 3 of them are Oilers.

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