{"id":818416,"date":"2026-07-23T09:10:19","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T09:10:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/818416\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T09:10:19","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T09:10:19","slug":"washington-capitals-projected-to-be-heaviest-team-in-nhl-during-2026-27-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/818416\/","title":{"rendered":"Washington Capitals projected to be heaviest team in NHL during 2026-27 season"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Washington Capitals<\/a> built their 2026\u201327 roster with a deep playoff run in mind, leaning heavily on size and strength as defining parts of their identity.<\/p>\n

Washington already featured several of the NHL\u2019s most physically imposing players in Tom Wilson<\/a>, Alex Ovechkin<\/a>, Aliaksei Protas<\/a>, and Ilya Protas<\/a>. The club only became bigger and more difficult to play against with its marquee offseason additions.<\/p>\n

Washington Capitals offseason additions<\/p>\n

With the added \u201cbeef\u201d now on their roster, the Capitals, per Elite Prospects<\/a>, are currently slated to be, on average, the heaviest team in the NHL next season. The average Caps player weighs 205 pounds (93.79 kilograms), which is 0.68 pounds (0.31 kg) more than the second-ranked Dallas Stars<\/a> (93.48kg) and over 10 pounds heavier than the 32nd-ranked Colorado Avalanche<\/a> (88.46kg).<\/p>\n

There are also only three teams with an average height taller than the Capitals\u2019 6-foot-2 (187.96 cm): the Stars (6\u20192\u2033 \/ 188.52 cm), Florida Panthers (6\u20192\u2033 \/ 188.58 cm), and New York Rangers<\/a> (6\u20192\u2033 \/ 188.82 cm).<\/p>\n

2026-27 NHL rosters average weight and height<\/p>\n

Team
\nWeight
\nHeight<\/p>\n

Washington Capitals
\n205 lbs \/ 93.79 kg
\n6\u20192\u2033 \/ 187.96 cm<\/p>\n

Dallas Stars
\n205 lbs \/ 93.48 kg
\n6\u20192\u2033 \/ 188.52 cm<\/p>\n

Toronto Maple Leafs
\n205 lbs \/ 93.46 kg
\n6\u20191\u2033 \/ 186.38 cm<\/p>\n

Boston Bruins
\n203 lbs \/ 92.77 kg
\n6\u20191\u2033 \/ 186.69 cm<\/p>\n

Anaheim Ducks
\n203 lbs \/ 92.73 kg
\n6\u20192 \/ 187.82 cm<\/p>\n

Florida Panthers
\n203 lbs \/ 92.50 kg
\n6\u20192\u2033 \/ 188.58 cm<\/p>\n

St. Louis Blues
\n203 lbs \/ 92.46 kg
\n6\u20192\u2033 \/ 187.46 cm<\/p>\n

Ottawa Senators
\n203 lbs \/ 92.33 kg
\n6\u20192\u2033 \/ 187.54 cm<\/p>\n

New York Rangers
\n203 lbs \/ 92.14 kg
\n6\u20192\u2033 \/ 188.82 cm<\/p>\n

Columbus Blue Jackets
\n203 lbs \/ 92.05 kg
\n6\u20192\u2033 \/ 188.82 cm<\/p>\n

Tampa Bay Lightning
\n201 lbs \/ 91.76 kg
\n6\u20192\u2033 \/ 187.44 cm<\/p>\n

Vegas Golden Knights
\n201 lbs \/ 91.76 kg
\n6\u20192\u2033 \/ 187.95 cm<\/p>\n

New Jersey Devils
\n201 lbs \/ 91.50 kg
\n6\u20192\u2033 \/ 187.58 cm<\/p>\n

Carolina Hurricanes
\n201 lbs \/ 91.32 kg
\n6\u20191\u2033 \/ 186.14 cm<\/p>\n

Edmonton Oilers
\n201 lbs \/ 91.28 kg
\n6\u20192\u2033 \/ 187.76 cm<\/p>\n

Philadelphia Flyers
\n201 lbs \/ 91.21 kg
\n6\u20191\u2033 \/ 186.04 cm<\/p>\n

Los Angeles Kings
\n201 lbs \/ 91.04 kg
\n6\u20192\u2033 \/ 187.13 cm<\/p>\n

Winnipeg Jets
\n198 lbs \/ 90.91 kg
\n6\u20191\u2033 \/ 186.57 cm<\/p>\n

Utah Mammoth
\n198 lbs \/ 90.76 kg
\n6\u20191\u2033 \/ 186.96 cm<\/p>\n

Buffalo Sabres
\n198 lbs \/ 90.74 kg
\n6\u20191\u2033 \/ 185.93 cm<\/p>\n

New York Islanders
\n198 lbs \/ 90.72 kg
\n6\u20191\u2033 \/ 186.40 cm<\/p>\n

Vancouver Canucks
\n198 lbs \/ 90.30 kg
\n6\u20192\u2033 \/ 187.35 cm<\/p>\n

Minnesota Wild
\n198 lbs \/ 90.22 kg
\n6\u20190\u2033 \/ 184.52 cm<\/p>\n

Seattle Kraken
\n198 lbs \/ 90.20 kg
\n6\u20191\u2033 \/ 186.28 cm<\/p>\n

San Jose Sharks
\n198 lbs \/ 90.19 kg
\n6\u20192\u2033 \/ 187.00 cm<\/p>\n

Detroit Red Wings
\n198 lbs \/ 90.18 kg
\n6\u20191\u2033 \/ 185.27 cm<\/p>\n

Nashville Predators
\n196 lbs \/ 89.96 kg
\n6\u20191\u2033 \/ 185.56 cm<\/p>\n

Montreal Canadiens
\n196 lbs \/ 89.80 kg
\n6\u20191\u2033 \/ 185.50 cm<\/p>\n

Pittsburgh Penguins
\n196 lbs \/ 89.58 kg
\n6\u20191\u2033 \/ 185.92 cm<\/p>\n

Calgary Flames
\n194 lbs \/ 88.83 kg
\n6\u20192\u2033 \/ 187.39 cm<\/p>\n

Chicago Blackhawks
\n194 lbs \/ 88.74 kg
\n6\u20190\u2033 \/ 184.91 cm<\/p>\n

Colorado Avalanche
\n194 lbs \/ 88.46 kg
\n6\u20190\u2033 \/ 184.96 cm<\/p>\n

Aliaksei Protas is the heaviest player on the team at 251 pounds, followed by Ovechkin (238), Desharnais (227), Ilya Protas (225), Wilson (225), and Pierre-Luc Dubois<\/a> (220). The lightest player on the team is their 20-year-old young star defender, Cole Hutson<\/a>, at 175 pounds. No other player comes in at under 180 pounds.<\/p>\n

The Capitals have long prioritized size and physicality in their lineup, especially after successfully utilizing players like Ovechkin, Wilson, TJ Oshie, Brooks Orpik, etc. en route to winning the 2018 Stanley Cup. Brian MacLellan, the team\u2019s former general manager and current president of hockey operations, stated in 2021<\/a> his belief that \u201csize and skill is how you win, especially in the playoffs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chris Patrick, a former hockey player who is 6-foot-5 himself, has been under MacLellan since joining the organization in 2008 and seems to share his boss\u2019s opinion, as evidenced by the blockbuster moves he has completed over the past month. Patrick\u2019s work will give Capitals head coach Spencer Carbery an intriguing amount of options to deploy and the ability to spread size and physicality more evenly throughout his lineup.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou hear a bunch of the guys reference the physicality of the group,\u201d Carbery said earlier this month. \u201cIt gets everybody like, \u2018I\u2019m playing with Willy, I got Boone Jenner, this is nice. It\u2019s not just me looking around, and I\u2019m the only sort of physical presence in the room.\u2019 So to have multiple guys that really take pride in playing with a competitive edge and being hard and physical on the opposition, you know, in the East, there\u2019s going to be some physical games. And when we\u2019ve got a group that now all of a sudden feels a little bit taller with all these guys throughout your lineup, it\u2019s a big positive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Overall, the Capitals now have nine players who stand at least 6-foot-4 and fourteen who weigh more than 200 pounds.<\/p>\n

2026-27 Washington Capitals height and weight<\/p>\n

Team
\nHeight
\nWeight<\/p>\n

Vincent Desharnais
\n6\u20197\u2033
\n227 lbs<\/p>\n

Aliaksei Protas
\n6\u20196\u201d
\n251 lbs<\/p>\n

Ilya Protas
\n6\u20196\u201d
\n225 lbs<\/p>\n

Justin Holl
\n6\u20194\u201d
\n205 lbs<\/p>\n

Alex Tuch
\n6\u20194\u201d
\n219 lbs<\/p>\n

Tom Wilson
\n6\u20194\u201d
\n225 lbs<\/p>\n

Pierre-Luc Dubois
\n6\u20194\u201d
\n220 lbs<\/p>\n

Logan Thompson
\n6\u20194\u201d
\n207 lbs<\/p>\n

Dylan Strome
\n6\u20194\u201d
\n200 lbs<\/p>\n

Alex Ovechkin
\n6\u20193\u201d
\n238 lbs<\/p>\n

Jakob Chychrun
\n6\u20192\u201d
\n215 lbs<\/p>\n

Boone Jenner
\n6\u20192\u201d
\n204 lbs<\/p>\n

Matt Roy
\n6\u20192\u201d
\n220 lbs<\/p>\n

Martin Fehervary
\n6\u20192\u201d
\n215 lbs<\/p>\n

Charlie Lindgren
\n6\u20192\u201d
\n190 lbs<\/p>\n

Timothy Liljegren
\n6\u20191\u201d
\n200 lbs<\/p>\n

Ryan Leonard
\n6\u20191\u201d
\n205 lbs<\/p>\n

Jordan Kyrou
\n6\u20191\u201d
\n196 lbs<\/p>\n

Justin Sourdif
\n6\u20190\u201d
\n195 lbs<\/p>\n

Rasmus Sandin
\n5\u201911\u201d
\n189 lbs<\/p>\n

Cole Hutson
\n5\u201911\u201d
\n175 lbs<\/p>\n

Ethen Frank
\n5\u201911\u201d
\n188 lbs<\/p>\n

Anthony Beauvillier
\n5\u201911\u201d
\n181 lbs<\/p>\n

Note: Dylan McIlrath<\/a> is not included on the 23-man NHL roster for this exercise. He is 6-foot-5 and 250 pounds.<\/p>\n

Another interesting demographic feature of the Capitals\u2019 roster this season is its average age of 28.46 years, which ranks as the 15th-oldest roster in the NHL. Ovechkin, soon to be 41 years old, obviously skews that mark higher, but it also shows how well the Capitals have retooled from being one of the oldest teams in the league just a couple of seasons ago.<\/p>\n

The Capitals are now the third-youngest team in the Metropolitan Division, with only the Rangers (26.91) and Philadelphia Flyers<\/a> (26.58) having fresher-faced rosters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Washington Capitals built their 2026\u201327 roster with a deep playoff run in mind, leaning heavily on size…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":818417,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-818416","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\/818416","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=818416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818416\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/818417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=818416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=818416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=818416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}