While most of the hockey world’s attention will be on Thursday’s arbitration hearing in Toronto between the Capitals and goaltender Braden Holtby, Caps left wing Marcus Johansson is not stressing much over his own arbitration hearing scheduled for July 29 in Toronto. The team is offering $5.1 million, and according to the Post’s Alex Prewitt, the Caps also are looking for a bridge deal of just one year, which would leave him as a restricted free agent again next summer. The Caps offered Holtby a $5.5M contract for around 5 years, and I’m sure there were some decent bonus’ thrown in there as well.

Braden Holtby is seeking a big raise from the Washington Capitals. 923 save percentage in 73 games last season for Washington.

If Holtby is awarded somewhere in the $6.5 million range, the Caps would have less than $4 million in cap space to accommodate Johansson. Next season, only New York’s Henrik Lundqvist will top $8 million in annual salary, and only Columbus’ Sergei Bobrovsky, Boston’s Tuukka Rask and Nashville’s Pekka Rinne will join him in making at least $7 million.

Job security is something that doesn’t come around very often in this profession, so if you can find some it’s great. But with family you’d like to stay and get to know the community and get involved. As long as Holtby can maintain this level of play, I could live with that, but with only $11M until the Caps hit the ceiling, he better continue to be worth it. They can only get a maximum of a two-year deal done with Holtby in the midst of his prime years through arbitration as well.