Caps make deal for defenseman, land Wideman
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The Washington Capitals have made another addition to their defense corps, picking up Dennis Wideman from the Florida Panthers for a third-round pick in the 2011 Entry Draft and prospect Jake Hauswirth.
Wideman has 9 goals and 33 points in 61 games for the Panthers this season. He is a minus-26 this season, but was a plus-32 in 2008-09 with the Boston Bruins. He has one more season left on his contract that carries a $3,937,500 cap hit. He will make $4.5 million next in 2011-12.
The Capitals added defenseman Scott Hannan from Colorado earlier this season for Tomas Fleischmann, but Tom Poti has missed 42 games this season because of reoccurring lower-body injuries and Mike Green has only played once since Feb. 12 after taking a puck to the ear. He left that one game early after a check from Rangers forward Derek Stepan.
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With Green out the Capitals have been relying on rookie John Carlson to quarterback the power play next to Alex Ovechkin on the points. Washington had the No. 1 power play in the NHL last season and No. 2 in 2008-09, but has slumped to 25th this season at 16.3 percent.
Washington now has seven defenseman with one-way contracts for 2011-12 with Hannan as an unrestricted free agent and Karl Alzner has a restricted free agent. Those seven players count for $17.8575 milion against the salary cap.
Hauswirth was signed as an undrafted free agent before the 2009-10 season. The 23-year-old Hauswirth has 10 goals and 14 points in 37 games for South Carolina of the ECHL this season.
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This is Florida's second trade Monday. Earlier in the morning, the club traded veteran forward Radek Dvorak and a fifth-round pick to Atlanta for forwards Niclas Bergfors and Patrick Rismiller.