NHL rumors: Capitals want to re-sign Logan Thompson, but there's a catch
01/24/2025 12:39 PM
Logan Thompson has emerged into one of the National Hockey League’s premier goaltenders in 2024-25, and the offseason trade that sent him to the Washington Capitals was undoubtedly one of the deals of the summer.
But the 27-year-old will become an unrestricted free agent on July 1, and getting him locked up will be easier said than done for the organization’s front office, reported The Athletic’s Pierre LeBrun on Friday.
“Sign him, of course. But it's a little more complicated than that,” wrote the hockey insider. “In 30 years of covering the NHL, I've never heard NHL front offices more unsure and skittish about evaluating goalies and how to spend cap dollars on them. Thompson, who turns 28 next month, is having a career season, and he's making the league minimum $766,667 — the last year of a three-year deal he signed in Vegas when he was still finding his NHL sea legs.”
The tandem of Thompson and Charlie Lindgren is one of the many reasons the Capitals are first place in the NHL with a sparkling 33-10-5 record through 48 games.
LeBrun continued: “The Caps probably should have tried to sign [Thompson] a month ago. But the surprising, first-place Capitals have a unique situation on their hands with both of their goalies pending UFAs in Thompson and Charlie Lindgren. They like their goalies. A bit more than a week ago, I wrote that the Capitals were treading carefully as to how they were going to approach the goalies, worried about what it might do if they signed one before the other.”
LeBrun believes Thompson has played so well that “the Caps have indeed engaged more meaningfully of late in talks with his camp, led by agent Allain Roy. I would imagine a perfect scenario would be to try to have him extended before the 4 Nations break.”
Thompson was surprisingly not selected to Team Canada’s 4 Nations Face-Off roster, and that decision is looking worse and worse by the day.
Team Canada’s decision to omit Logan Thompson aging horribly
Without question, Thompson has been better this season than any of Vegas Golden Knights’ Adin Hill, St. Louis Blues’ Jordan Binnington and Montreal Canadiens’ Samuel Montembeault — and not by a little.
The Calgary, Alberta native owns a .925 save percentage and a 2.09 goals-against average in his first campaign in the nation’s capital, along with a remarkable 22-2-3 record over 27 starts. He’s third in the league in wins, SV% and GAA.
Thompson making under $800,000 this season is probably the biggest bargain in the league, but LeBrun reports that the netminder will likely command upwards of $6 million AAV on his next deal.
"Here's the thing about him: He's getting better,” TSN color analyst Jamie McLennan told LeBrun on Thursday. "He's 27. He's just coming into his prime. I could see him pushing for something with a six in it. He's put himself in a category. If you're talking about Canadian goaltending and the next one, he might be in there.”
It’ll be interesting to see if the Capitals are able to get Thompson locked up before the 4 Nations, which begins on February 12 in Montreal. What’ll be even more interesting is seeing how Team Canada’s goaltending holds up without him.
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