Like the other 29 preexisting NHL teams, the Washington Capitals are anxious to see which player they will lose when the Vegas Golden Knights announce their 30 selections during the 2017 NHL Awards and NHL Expansion Draft presented by T-Mobile in Las Vegas on Wednesday (8 p.m. ET; NBCSN, SN).
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It appears likely the Capitals will lose either defenseman Nate Schmidt or goaltender Philipp Grubauer to Vegas. If Grubauer is selected, that would leave Pheonix Copley, 25, who has two games of NHL experience, as second on the Capitals goaltending depth chart behind Braden Holtby.
Assistant general manager Ross Mahoney said Monday that goaltender Ilya Samsonov, the Capitals' first-round pick (No. 22) in the 2015 NHL Draft who has been playing in Russia with Magnitogorsk Metallurg, will probably wait another season before coming to North America. That means that the Capitals would either have to sign or trade for another goaltender to back up Holtby or give the job to Copley.
"I think [Copley] definitely has the upside here to be able to take a shot at filling that role if Philipp does leave and moves on," Mahoney said. "We think we've got some quality goalies coming through the system right now, but we have to see what happens here with the expansion draft."
Having spent 17 years working with Vegas GM George McPhee when McPhee was Capitals GM, Mahoney knows him well, but said trying to predict what he'll do is difficult.
"You never know," Mahoney said. "I'm sure he has his plan and things may depend now on who was exposed by certain teams in the expansion draft and how that could change the dynamics of what he thought. It only takes one or two players, maybe, that they thought weren't going to be exposed that are that could change what they do with all the teams as far as them picking up the players."