The Capitals’ 2018 second round pick doesn’t exist

As has been brought up several times tonight on Twitter in the discussion of the deal that sent Kevin Shattenkirk to the Washington Capitals, the 2018 second round conditional pick isn’t a thing for right now.

The Caps don’t have it.

According to CapFriendly, it was traded to the Montreal Canadiens by the Caps as part of the deal that brought former Blue Lars Eller to Washington. So, what is this pick’s conditions? Is it pending a future deal by the Caps to actually acquire that draft position? Before we all slag on Doug Armstrong (too late), it probably more than likely is exactly that since the Caps are pretty high up on the cap chart and may need to get creative.

Still, this is a unique deal by Doug Armstrong, to say the least. I can’t remember the Blues ever getting a conditional pick that the condition was that it may or may not eventually exist.

Hopefully this is either misreporting or something happens to fix this. If it does, we’ll update.