{"id":758010,"date":"2026-06-24T22:03:29","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T22:03:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/758010\/"},"modified":"2026-06-24T22:03:29","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T22:03:29","slug":"kyrou-has-a-lot-to-prove-after-trade-to-capitals-from-blues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/758010\/","title":{"rendered":"Kyrou has ‘a lot to prove’ after trade to Capitals from Blues"},"content":{"rendered":"

While St. Louis is reworking its roster, Washington is gearing up to make a push to get back in the playoffs next season and preparing for life after Alex Ovechkin<\/a>. The NHL record holder with 929 career goals, Ovechkin is on an expiring five-year, $47.5 million contract he signed July 27, 2021, and has yet to say whether he will return for a 22nd season.<\/p>\n

Regardless, with\u00a0Ovechkin approaching his 41st birthday Sept. 17, the Capitals know they need to be ready for him to walk away, whether it’s this offseason or after. Kyrou hopes Ovechkin, who led Washington with 32 goals and 64 points in 82 games last season, puts off retirement for at least another season.<\/p>\n

“Obviously, that’d be unbelievable,” he said. “He’s the greatest goal-scorer of all time, and I’ve heard nothing but great things about him. So, hopefully, he comes back for a year, and I get to meet him and play with him.”<\/p>\n

Kyrou can either supplement or replace some of the goal scoring Ovechkin provides. He reached 30 goals in three consecutive seasons from 2022-23 to 2024-25, including an NHL career-high 37 goals in 79 games in 2022-23, before dropping to 18 last season.<\/p>\n

“Definitely a down year for me,” Kyrou said. “I think just as a whole our group didn’t so as well off the start as we wanted to, and, obviously, me myself as well, not the season that I wanted. I think I’ve got a lot to prove and have a bounce-back year this year.”<\/p>\n

Kyrou had a minor procedure on his knee after the season for what he called, “just a little injury”, but said he’s healthy now and has been having a good offseason training so far. He sees the Capitals’ potential after they went 8-2-0 in their final 10 games, with young players such as forward Ilya Protas<\/a>\u00a0and defenseman Cole Hutson<\/a>, who are each 19 years old, getting their feet wet in the NHL.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While St. Louis is reworking its roster, Washington is gearing up to make a push to get back…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":758011,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-758010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=758010"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758010\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/758011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=758010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=758010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=758010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}