Capitals center Michael Nylander is stuck. He plays for a team that doesn’t want him, but — in these salary cap strapped days — makes too much money for another NHL team to trade for him. He doesn’t want to play in Russia next season. Or head home to Sweden.
In a pair of Swedish media articles that appeared in translated form on the hockey blog Japers’ Rink this week, Nylander, 36, opened up about his status, saying that Caps coach Bruce Boudreau told him he wasn’t “good enough” to play last season.
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True or not, that’s Nylander’s perception. So even before training camp opens next month the club has an acute problem. How do the Caps and Nylander part ways without crippling each other financially? The veteran has two years left on his contract and a $4.875 million cap hit the team would love to drop.
Is the situation salvageable? Nylander, a 15-year veteran who has played for seven different teams, certainly isn’t a great fit for Boudreau’s system. He’s also just a different guy — a quiet, family man in a younger dressing room.
Nylander can be proud and has a personality that doesn’t match Boudreau’s blunt style. What one man sees as an honest assessment of a player’s production the other takes as an insult to his professionalism. But there isn’t an easy out for either side. For one more year at least, the two may have to co-exist.
