Braden Holtby knew that a decent portion of the offseason would be consumed by contract negotiations with the Washington Capitals, yet the result that arrived Friday afternoon, a day after an arbitration hearing, came together rather quickly.
Holtby, a restricted free agent, signed a five-year, $30.5 million contract with the Capitals, beating the deadline for a decision that would have bound the goaltender to the team on a one-year contract valued by the arbitrator’s ruling.
The amount of that award would have likely been close to the $6.1 million average annual value of the contract Holtby ended up signing, but would have almost certainly led to another protracted round of negotiations next summer.