Both Tarik El-Bashir at the Washington Post and Cory Masisak at the Washington Times have reported that Viktor Kozlov was injured in Monday night’s game and did not practice on Tuesday. Though the team is declining to say exactly what Kozlov’s injury is they are saying he could miss up to two weeks. While it is of course undesirable to have the top line right wing out of the lineup for several games, it does yield an interesting discussion: who should replace him on the top line with Alexander Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom? The candidates and how I would order them are:

Chris Clark – Clark has shown very good chemistry with Ovechkin in the past, notching thirty goals and twenty-four assists in seventy-four game playing primarily with Ovechkin and Dainus Zubrus in 2006-07. The only question is whether or not the 32 year old Clark has slowed down at all due to his age and the serious groin injury he suffered last season.

Eric Fehr - Fehr’s the only player with the big club who hasn’t seen the ice yet this season, though there’s a very good chance he’ll get a sweater in some of the games Kozlov misses. Fehr does bring an intriguing mix of size and scoring potential, but hasn’t put up the numbers to matchup talent level.

Tomas Fleischmann – he might be the first player to come to mind since he’s the only forward whose game is based in skill who doesn’t have a place on the top two lines (at least when Sergei Fedorov player defense). But Fleischmann, for all the praise he gets from Bruce Boudreau, simply hasn’t produced very much or on a regular basis, nor did he impress when paired with Ovechkin at the start of last season.

Brooks Laich – Laich’s breakout performance in the 2007-08 campaign was second only to Mike Green’s and Laich looks ready to build on the success of last season with three points and a +3 rating through the Capitals first three games. The only concern is breaking up the pairing of Laich and Alexander Semin which has paid dividends for both players in the early going.

A pair of Caps signings were announced today: Brooks Laich has signed a three-year contract worth $2.067 million per year and Sergei Fedorov has signed a one-year, $4 million dollar deal.

While each signing makes sense in terms of the fairness of the dollar value, the additional 6.067 million dollars in salary cap space puts Washington in a salary cap crunch situation: according to nhlnumbers.com, the Capitals are now just $1.18 million below next season’s $56.7 million cap - and Shaone Morrisonn, Eric Fehr and Boyd Gordon are all without contracts for the 2008-09 season.

Obviously there’s no way Morrisonn, Fehr and Gordon will all fit under the salary cap given the team’s current salary structure. In fact, as is it’d be unrealistic to expect to even get Morrisonn alone re-signed without exceeding the cap.

The wild card in this situation is Brian Pothier, who is still recovering from a serious concussion suffered as the result of a body check by Boston’s Milan Lucic. According to George McPhee, Pothier is expected to start new season on the long-term injury reserve list, which would prevent his salary from counting against the salary cap as long as he was physically unable to play. If Pothier is unable to play at all next season the team will find itself with an additional $2.5 million in salary cap space. Under these circumstances, the Capitals would have approximately $3.7 million in cap space to devote towards signing their remaining restricted free agents. Even then it may still be a tight squeeze for the team. Just how close a squeeze depends on what kind of contract Morrisonn ends up signing or being awarded, should he wind up going to arbitration.

What makes the most sense for the Capitals to do at this point is to make an effort to get Morrisonn under contract for $2 million or less, which would probably still afford the team enough cap space to re-sign both Gordon and Fehr. Should they be unable to come to an agreement with Morrisonn, the team would be best served to take a “wait and see” approach and wait until Morrisonn’s July 24th arbitration hearing, determine what impact his salary for next season has on their plans and move forward from that point.

If Morrisonn’s arbitration decision makes it infeasible to re-sign both former first round draft picks, it is most likely Boyd Gordon will be the odd man out. The signing of Fedorov means that the Capitals already have three top-flight centers (Nicklas Backstrom and Michael Nylander being the others). That, plus the fact that the Capitals have a effective checking line center and penalty killer already under contract for next season in David Steckel, suggest Gordon would struggle to find much playing time on the team. Additionally Fehr is two years younger, has more offensive upside, is a more physical presence and plays what is arguably the forward position with the least depth for the Capitals.

Should the team still find itself in salary cap trouble if Gordon is dropped, or if McPhee and his staff decide they want to keep both Gordon and Fehr, it is possible a veteran could be waived or bought out to free up space, with John Erskine being the player most likely to be deemed expendable. It is also possible the Capitals could become involved in the trade market, but most of the Caps young talent is going to be off limits and most of the team’s veterans are worth more than what they would bring in via a trade. Thus if any trade were going to occur, it would likely be of the rights to either Fehr or Gordon.

Two news items of interest to Capitals fans broke yesterday, one good and one not so good.

The good news is that in all likelihood both Brooks Laich and Shaone Morrisonn will be back with the Capitals next season:

Tarik El-Bashir just reported that Brooks Laich and Shaone Morrisonn have filed for arbitration. While the arbitration process (pronounced “pro-cess,” of course, for the Canadians out there) includes evidentiary submissions of an often-contentious nature, this comes as welcome news.

By filing, Brooks and Shaone are no longer eligible to sign offer sheets from any other team. So we no longer have to worry about another general manager throwing the Capitals’ whole salary structure out of balance, signing up a fine player like Brooks to a Dustin Penner-style offer sheet, and forcing management to make a painful decision.

While neither Laich nor Morrisonn is likely to steal the show on a team like the Capitals, each brings more to the table that their respective hockey skill: Laich for his ability to play any of the three forward positions and to play in any role and Morrisonn is the anchor that lets Mike Green be the dynamic offensive force he’s capable of being.

In other news, Matt Cooke has signed a two-year, $2.4 million contract with the Pittsburgh Penguins, essentially to serve as a replacement for Jarkko Ruutu. While it has been taken as a given that Cooke would be playing his 2008-09 hockey elsewhere ever since Matt Bradley signed an extension with the Capitals, it’s worth nothing that Cooke will only be making $100,000 more than Bradley next season. Given that Cooke is probably a better penalty killer and has more offensive upside, would it have made more sense for the Capitals to dish out the extra cash and keep him instead of Bradley? Or does Bradley’s physical presence making him the better signing?