On Thursday, the NHL allows unrestricted free agents to begin negotiating with new teams. Players who have reached the end of their contracts and achieved the right combination of age and experience — usually guys over twenty-seven years old — can go play anywhere they want, for whatever someone will pay them.

The 2010 playoff-edition Washington Capitals are here, and they are here to cause pain. You might not recognize all four of the Caps’ latest acquisitions, but no one will recognize you when they get through with you. The departing Brian Pothier, for all his previous experience with post-concussion syndrome, will be happy he doesn’t have to hit the Kettler ice with this bunch.

The Washington Capitals are the best team in the NHL’s eastern conference, and the hottest in the league, only a few games removed from a franchise-record fourteen game winning streak. They have scored the most goals in the NHL by a margin of half a goal per game, and their defense is distinctly middle of the road. It’s only fitting, then, that as they approach the NHL’s 3pm deadline for trades in the 2009-10 season, they have added… two veteran forwards?