Caps Swing a Pair of Tuesday Trades, Land Sandin

Five days after it first became apparent that the Washington Capitals would be "selling" at the NHL's trade deadline for the first time in 16 years, Caps GM Brian MacLellan engineered two more trades on Tuesday afternoon. With the team encamped in Anaheim for a few days in the midst of its California tour, news of the deals broke just after team concluded a Tuesday morning practice at Honda Center, ahead of its Wednesday meeting here with the Ducks.

First, the Caps traded veteran forward Marcus Johansson to the Minnesota Wild in exchange for a third-round pick in the 2024 NHL Draft. Minutes later, the Caps packaged the 2023 first-round pick they acquired from Boston last week along with defenseman Erik Gustafsson, sending the pick and the player to Toronto in exchange for defenseman Rasmus Sandin, a 22-year-old blueliner - a first-rounder (29th overall) in 2018 - who is under contract at a reasonable rate of $1.4 million next season, after which he becomes a restricted free agent.
Sandin is the important piece in all this action for the Caps, who have gone through the 2022-23 season with a blueline comprised of several impending unrestricted free agents, including Gustafsson and Dmitry Orlov, who was sent to Boston last Thursday. The Caps still have a quartet of impending UFAs on their current blueline, including Nick Jensen, Trevor van Riemsdyk, Matt Irwin and Dylan McIlrath.
Despite being the 13th blueliner chosen in the first round of that 2018 NHL Draft, Sandin has played in 140 NHL games thus far, ranking eighth among defensemen chosen that summer. He began his North American career when he moved from Sweden to the Soo Greyhounds early in his draft season of 2018, establishing himself as a top four defenseman on a deep Soo team that featured a handful of other drafted defensemen, including Toronto teammate Connor Timmins, who was a Colorado second-rounder (32nd overall) in 2017.
Sandin had a strong season with Soo in his draft season of 2017-18, totaling a dozen goals and 45 points in 51 games as a 17-year-old, and adding a goal and 13 points in 24 playoff games when the Greyhounds went on a deep Memorial Cup run in the spring of 2018.
Playing in for the AHL Toronto Marlies as an 18-year-old - one of the youngest players in the League - in 2018-19, Sandin totaled six goals and 28 points in 44 games, finishing second among Marlies blueliners in scoring that season despite playing in just 44 of the team's 76 games. Sandin added 10 assists in 13 postseason games for the Marlies in the spring of 2019.
As a 19-year-old, Sandin made the Maple Leafs' roster out of training camp in 2019-20, picking up his first point - an assist - in his first game. He split that '19-20 season between the Leafs and the Marlies, and the pandemic season of 2020-21 was a bit of a lost season for him, as he ended up stuck on Toronto's taxi squad for lengthy stretches. Sandin skated in just nine games for the Leafs and only one for the Marlies in the pandemic-abbreviated 2020-21 season, but he did score his first Stanley Cup playoff goal for the Leafs in that spring of 2021.
Sandin has been in the NHL exclusively since the start of the 2021-22 season, though a right knee injury and a bout with COVID limited him to 51 games last season. This season, his 20 points (four goals, 16 assists) ranked him third among Toronto blueliners, behind veterans Morgan Rielly and Mark Giordano.
The 5-foot-11, 182-pound Sandin plays a strong two-way game, is an above average skater with good hockey sense and he is capable of playing on the power play. This season, he averaged a career best 17:59 per night with the Leafs, including 1:49 per game on the power play. Sandin departs Toronto with a 53.9 percent shot attempt percentage and 113 hits. Both figures rank second among Maple Leaf defenders.
Sandin's older brother Linus got into a single NHL game with Philadelphia last season. Linus Sandin is skating back home in his native Sweden this season for Rogle BK Angelholm.
Johansson was originally a Caps first-rounder, chosen in the first round (24th overall) in the 2009 Draft. The Caps dealt Johansson to New Jersey following the 2016-17 season, and he made subsequent stops in Boston, Buffalo, Minnesota and Seattle before the Caps reacquired him from the Kraken just under a year ago, at the 2022 NHL trade deadline. In that deal, the Caps received Johansson for winger Daniel Sprong, a fourth-round pick in 2022 and a sixth-rounder in 2023.
The versatile Johansson, capable of playing any forward position and on both special teams, totaled three goals and six points in 18 games with the Caps last season, and Washington resigned the popular Swede to a one-year deal at $1.1 million last July.
This season, Johansson has been one of Washington's steadiest, most consistent and most durable players in a season fraught with injuries and bad luck. Until an illness kept him out of both of Washington's weekend games, Johansson had been one of just four players who dressed and played in each of the team's first 60 games this season. At the time of his departure, Johansson was tied for third on the team with 13 goals, his highest single-season total since 2018-19. Johansson leaves the Caps as the team's sixth-leading scorer this season with 28 points.
When Johansson was drafted in 2009, the Caps chose Orlov with their second-round pick in the same draft. Late last week - after Orlov was traded and before Johansson came down with the illness that sidelined him for the weekend - Johansson spoke about bidding farewell to Orlov, and on the general climate at this time of year. This marks the third time in his career that Johansson has been on the move at deadline time.
"It's never fun," he said. "You hate to see a good friend, a good guy and a great hockey player go. I've known him for a long time, and it's never fun. This is the worst part of this game and having been at the other end of it a bunch of times, it's no fun. With family and kids and everything, it's pretty emotional, obviously. It's never fun.
"It's been a very frustrating season, but that's no excuse. Like I always say, we have such a good team in here. It's been so frustrating, and it hasn't been easy on anyone with all the injuries, and it's not just any players that have been injured, either. It's some of the biggest pieces on the team and the leading players, and guys that you can't replace. We're working very hard, but it seems like we're working uphill and it's not really going our way."
Like Johansson, Gustafsson is no stranger to being moved at or near the deadline. He moved from Chicago to Calgary three years ago this month at the deadline, and he was traded from Philadelphia to Montreal at the deadline the following year, playing in the Stanley Cup Final as a member of the Habs in 2021.
Washington signed Gustafsson to a one-year deal last July 13, the same day it signed Johansson for this season. The signing of the 30-year-old blueliner to a one-year deal for $800,000 turned out to be an incredible boon for the Capitals, particularly in light of multiple injuries to veteran blueline stalwart John Carlson, who has played fewer than half (30) of Washington's games this season.
Gustafsson departs the District as the team's fourth-leading scorer with 38 points (seven goals, 31 assists), and his plus-9 is tied with Trevor van Riemsdyk for the best mark on the team. Like Johansson, Gustafsson had his best season since 2018-19, both in terms of offensive production and in average ice time per game (20:22). He recorded his first career NHL hat trick earlier this season, doing so against Toronto on Dec. 17. Apparently, the Leafs took notice.
With the departure of Gustafsson today and Orlov last week in a deal with the Boston Bruins, the Caps are now without three of their top four minutes men on the blueline this season. Carlson (23:24) leads that group, and it is unclear whether he will be able to return to action at any point this season after suffering a gruesome upper body injury from a slapshot to the head in a Dec. 23 game against Winnipeg. Orlov logged 22:43 per night for the Caps this season and Gustafsson skated an average of 20:22. Jensen (20:58) leads the remaining members of the Washington blueline corps in ice time.
The left-handed Sandin is likely to settle into Washington's left side in the years ahead, along with fellow left-sider, sophomore Martin Fehervary. Those two players give Washington a pair of young and reasonably priced lefties going forward, as the team seeks to reset its roster and retool on the fly, intending to contend for a playoff berth once again next season. Fehervary and rookie lefty Alex Alexeyev are both restricted free agents this summer.
Although the Caps are just three points out of the final playoff slot in the Eastern Conference standings at the time of today's trades, they face a longshot of an uphill climb to get there, given their season-long spate of injuries and the complexion of the standings. The Caps have played more games than most of the other bubble teams contending for the final two playoff berths, and would need to climb over a quartet of teams to get in.
Less than three weeks ago, the Caps occupied the first wild card spot in the Eastern Conference standings, but a six-game regulation losing streak - the team's longest in nearly two decades - sent it into a sudden spiral down the standings ladder, necessitating the sell-off that MacLellan began last week when he sent Orlov and winger Garnet Hathaway - another impending unrestricted free agent - to Boston for the Bruins' first-rounder in 2023 (the pick used today to obtain Sandin), a second-rounder in 2025 and a third-rounder in 2024.