The Washington Capitals have put pen to paper with The King. Goaltender Henrik Lundqvist has signed a one-year deal to become their backup.

The Capitals get: a really great fit here. They have one of the top young goaltenders in Ilya Samsonov and they are clearly going forward with him as their guy. But he has 26 games under his belt and is recovering from a pretty serious injury (neck and back – ATV accident). So that's an awful lot of pressure to put on a newcomer. Ideally, Washington would add a goalie who is undisputed as their backup, yet at the same time has a lot of experience and can step in and run things in the event of an injury or a breakdown. Henrik Lundqvist offers that, and he can also mentor the youngster – and who better?

Fantasy Players Impacted: If he's healthy and stays healthy, Samsonov is going to get 50 starts. That would be a career high for him at any level. Previously, his high was 37 games with Hershey in 2018-19. So Lundqvist will have 30 or 35 starts, which these days is right in his wheelhouse (he started 30 games last year). This also impacts the No.3 goalie, Vitek Vanecek. Coming off a great year in which he supplanted Pheonix Copley in Hershey. He's still on a two-way contract this season, and that becomes a one-way deal in 2021-22. The timing works.

The H2H stats comparing Samsonov vs. Lundqvist can be found here

Fantasy Players this helps, in order:

Ilya Samsonov

Vitek Vanecek

Fantasy Players this hurts, in order:

Pheonix Copley – check out our new Prospect team pages at DobberProspects here. Check out the profiles of Copley and Vanecek!