Yeah, he seems pretty likely to be exposed. If it's not him, they'd either have to re-sign Ben Smith, or expose one of Kadri, JVR, Bozak, Komarov or Brown.
But I can't see Vegas being interested in three more years of Martin.
Not when they could just take Fehr and his expiring deal, or poach one of Rychel, Leipsic, Leivo or Marincin.
I thought Brown doesn't need to be protected as a first year player?
As for the Martin issue, I get that everyone loves Boyle, and I think he's doing a good job too, but he's really not too different than Martin out there. Boyle has maybe a little more offensive ability, and Martin is much more physical. When we got Boyle, looking at his goal totals, I thought he was better than the 4th line, but he's really not. So if the notion is to lose Martin in order to pay Boyle, I don't really get the rationale.
And I've said this many times before, we are not in any way hurting for money. Martin's deal doesn't do shit to the cap at least for the next two years. Maybe in year 4 of the deal, but that's a ways off. There's no reason to get rid of him, and many reasons to keep him.
As for Sosh and his speed, all I can say is meh. The guy is not made to be a 4th liner. He should be playing on the third line where you can put his offensive abilities to use. I really don't want him on the fourth line, especially when we already have Kapanen there playing that exact role. Having a Boyle/Kapanen/Martin line is better than Boyle/Kapanen/Sosh line, imo. We need Martin's intimidation and physicality much, much more than we need a few shots from Sosh. And I bet you that if you subtract the size and muscle of Martin and add the speed of Sosh, that line isn't as effective out there since there'd be two smaller guys that the Caps could lean on physically.
I really like the lines and wouldn't change a thing. The only thing I would want to see (next year, probably) is having either Kapanen graduate to the first line with Matthews, and drop Hyman down to the third or fourth line, or acquiring a true big bodied scorer for the first line, having Kapanen on a lower line and Hyman on the fourth line.
It's tough to even project out now the way that Bozak is contributing. Before, the easy answer was throwing him out, moving Nylander to C, and opening up a space for Kapanen. It still probably goes down that way, but Bozak is making a case to stick around, at least for next year through his contract.
