Habster:

George McPhee’s task of signing Cristobal Huet just got more difficult with Olaf Kolzig’s recent declaration that he won’t be back with the Capitals next season. McPhee doesn’t have many options available to get a solid starter before next season if he can’t get Huet’s signature on the dotted line of a contract offer.

Huet is the top goaltender available in this year’s very thin UFA market so needless to say he will command a very nice salary increase over his $2.75 million annual pay from last season. Huet could probably get Kolzig’s annual salary ($5.45 million) with another $1-$1.5 million added to it as an UFA this summer.

If McPhee can take advantage of the next seven weeks and sign Huet before he hits the UFA open market, it will save him a lot of headaches and some money as well. It won’t be easy though as Huet’s agent, Stephen Bartlett is well aware his client will garner a lot of interest from 6-7 teams in need of goaltending after July 1st. Bartlett will want top dollar for his client to pass up a once in a lifetime UFA opportunity.

As you can see from the list below, there aren’t a lot of quality goaltenders available in this year’s UFA market place (with the exception of Theodore, Huet, Olzig and Ellis):

Jose Theodore
Olaf Kolzig
Cristobal Huet
Dominik Hasek
John Grahame
Johan Hedberg
Johan Holmqvist
Patrick Lalime
Jocelyn Thibault
Stephen Valiquette
David Aebischer
Alex Auld
Curtis Sanford
Michael Leighton
Jean-Sebastien Aubin
Mike Morrison
Fred Brathwaite
Frederic Cassivi
Scott Clemmensen
Ty Conklin
Dan Ellis
Jordan Sigalet
Wade Dubielewicz