A few hundred feet from the fabled Las Vegas “Strip,” the Capitals won the franchise’s first Stanley Cup championship on June 7, 2018, hoisting the coveted chalice at the end of Washington’s 44th season in the League. At the conclusion of his 13th NHL season, Caps captain Alex Ovechkin proudly paraded the Cup around the T-Mobile Arena ice surface, and then into the spacious visitor’s locker room where the long night’s revelry was just getting started.
Ovechkin and his teammates weren’t alone in celebrating this monumental achievement.
Among the joyous hordes that celebrated and embraced one another on the T-Mobile Arena ice sheet and in the visiting locker room that memorable evening in Sin City was a quintet of longtime team executives: Brian MacLellan (then-general manager, now president of hockey operations), Chris Patrick (then director of pro personnel, now senior vice president and GM), Brian Sutherby (then pro scout, now head pro scout), Jason Fitzsimmons (then pro scout, now director of minor league operations) and Don Fishman (senior vice president and assistant GM). All five of these men had been in the organization together for close to a decade at that point, and most had been with the Caps for over a decade. Some had been chasing that elusive first Stanley Cup longer than any of the players on the ice that night.
Just over seven years later – in late June and early July of 2024 – those same five men reassembled for a week and a half in Vegas, as part of a slightly larger group and for an entirely different purpose. With the NHL conducting its 2024 Draft in Vegas, Washington’s hockey operations department made the unorthodox decision to collectively remain in Nevada for days beyond the conclusion of the 2024 Draft. The idea was to stay in Vegas and conduct the team’s free agency business from their suite at the Wynn Hotel on the north end of the Strip.
Hindsight shows us those days were highly productive for the Caps, who believe they followed a strong 2024 Draft in Vegas with a few good days of work on Washington’s varsity roster as well. The Caps added seven players via trade or free agency in a span of 13 days in the summer of 2024, turning over about a third of the roster and embarking upon a bold experiment of bringing many new faces into the locker room simultaneously.
The mass additions resulted in the biggest single-season roster alteration for Washington in nearly two decades, since Ovechkin’s own rookie season of 2005-06, which followed the NHL’s “lost” season of 2004-05, a season that was never played due to the longest ongoing labor stoppage in major North American pro sports history.
Both on the ice and in the locker room, the mass integration was a success. The Caps posted their best 82-game regular season record (51-22-9, for 111 points) since 2016-17, and they won a playoff series for the first time since they won the Cup in 2018. All seven new faces were good fits in the room and on the ice, and four of the seven either arrived in Washington with multiple years remaining on their current contract, or they’re signed to remain in the District for five or more years. Not only did MacLellan, Patrick and the rest of the hockey ops staff upgrade the fortunes of the 2024-25 edition of the Capitals, they’ve put together the nucleus of the next generation’s team here in Washington, the one we’ll be watching whenever Ovechkin opts to step away from the NHL; he is entering his 21st season – and the final year of a five-year contract extension he signed in July of 2021 – in 2025-26. The Caps’ captain celebrates his 40th birthday on Sept. 17 of this year.
Over the last several months, I’ve had lengthy conversations with each of those five aforementioned hockey operations executives (the interviews with Fitzsimmons were conducted in September of 2024 while the other three were conducted after the conclusion of the ’24-25 season), and what follows – mostly in their words – is a bit of a history of those nine nights in Vegas, the reasoning behind the decision to set up camp there, and what the impact of those days and nights in Vegas is likely to mean for the franchise moving forward.
But the story really starts on June 7, 2018 in Vegas with that elusive and hard-earned Stanley Cup championship. Across the NHL’s lengthy history, several players have been traded away late in their careers, if only to give them a chance to win a Cup before the conclusion of their playing career. Whether that might have happened with Ovechkin, Backstrom and Oshie, we’ll never know. Because Washington did win, and so the immediate focus was on a repeat, or “back-to-back,” as Oshie famously chanted at the June 12, 2018 Stanley Cup parade through DC.
Not only were the Caps unable to repeat as Cup champs in 2019, they didn’t even get out of the first round. Oshie suffered a broken collarbone in Game 4 of the Caps’ 2019 First-Round playoff series with Carolina, and the Caps couldn’t recover from the loss, falling in double overtime of Game 7.
Oshie’s playoff injury started a pattern; in 2020, Backstrom was concussed via a hit from New York Islanders forward Anders Lee in the opening minutes of the Caps’ First-Round playoff series, and the loss of the splendid pivot left Washington lacking in the middle of the ice, resulting in another first-round exit.
A year later, with Peter Laviolette in his first season as the Caps’ bench boss, Washington rolled to a 36-15-5 mark in the pandemic-abbreviated 2020-21 season, tied for the fifth best record in the NHL. But once again, the team’s depth wasn’t sufficient to overcome some significant absences in the postseason.
Forty-year-old third-string goalie Craig Anderson came off the bench to win Game 1 of that series because goaltender Ilya Samsonov was afflicted with COVID for the second time in four months, and goalie Vitek Vanecek departed Game 1 with a first-period injury. The Caps were also without top six pivot Evgeny Kuznetsov, who also came down with COVID for the second time in four months. Both Samsonov and Kuznetsov returned for Game 3 of the series, but Samsonov lost all three of his starts and Kuznetsov was held without a point while averaging over 21 minutes in those three games.
As heavy underdogs in their first-round series with Florida in the 2022 Stanley Cup Playoffs, the Caps again lost a key player early in Game 1 of the series. Tom Wilson was felled with a knee injury that required surgery and a lengthy rehab, keeping him out of action for more than seven months. Even with the loss of Wilson, the Caps held a 2-1 series lead after three games, but they were unable to complete the upset of the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Panthers.
In 2022-23 – Peter Laviolette’s third season as the Caps’ bench boss – the team played without both Backstrom and Wilson for the first half of the campaign, and it started slowly until catching a hot streak in December. During a three-week stretch of the final month of 2022, Washington went 11-1-0 to climb into the playoff picture. Those dozen games included an Ovechkin hat trick in Chicago on Dec. 13, 2022, pushing his career total to 800. It also included a Dec. 23 win over Winnipeg in which Ovechkin overtook Gordie Howe (801) for sole possession of second place on the NHL’s all-time goals list.
Unfortunately, in that same game against the Jets, the Caps lost the services of top defenseman John Carlson, one of their most durable players. Carlson caught a slapshot to the head from Jets defenseman and former teammate Brenden Dillon, missing the next three months with a fractured skull. Both Backstrom and Wilson returned soon after, on Jan. 8, but jumping into the middle of an NHL season after months of rehab is no easy feat, and the Caps were never able to get back on the winning track they established in December.
From the end of that 11-1-0 stretch through season’s end, the Caps were unable to string together as many as three straight wins over a 45-game span, their longest stretch of futility in the Ovechkin era. The Caps hit bottom in February of 2023, losing six straight games in regulation for the first time in the Ovechkin era. The Caps captain was only in the lineup for the first and last games of that six-game slide; his father passed away and he missed the middle four games of the skid.
Most notable among that six-pack of losses was an ugly setback under the lights and the harsh glare of national television. On Feb. 18 at Carter-Finley Stadium in Raleigh, the Caps suffered a 4-1 defeat at the hands of the Carolina Hurricanes in the Stadium Series outdoor game. The score was not indicative of how poorly the Caps played that night; they generated very little in the way of offensive zone time and scoring chances, and only Wilson’s third-period goal enabled them to avoid the ignominy of a whitewash.
With the 2023 NHL trade deadline drawing nearer and the spiral continuing, the Caps were faced with a reckoning. Should they try to hang in the playoff chase, hoping the returns of Ovechkin and Carlson – and the earlier returns of Backstrom and Wilson – could fuel a late charge to a ninth straight playoff berth? Or should they fold a tough hand and move out some players ahead of the deadline, and begin looking toward their post-Ovechkin future?
They opted for the latter, sending longtime defenseman Dmitry Orlov – one of a dwindling number of players remaining from that 2018 Cup championship squad – and winger Garnet Hathaway to Boston less than a week after that loss under the lights in Carolina. Days later, both Marcus Johansson and Lars Eller – another member of the 2018 Cup team – were also moved for future draft choices. The Caps also shipped a first-round pick obtained in the Orlov deal and defenseman Erik Gustafsson to Toronto for young defenseman Rasmus Sandin, essentially replacing Orlov with a player who is nine years younger.
BRIAN MacLELLAN (March 6, 2023)
“I think we had to make some tough decisions – probably a little sooner than we would have liked to make them – but we had to make them when we made them. We had some good guys and some good players that we didn’t really want to part with, but we ended up parting with because I don’t know that we were showing that consistency that we needed to show to become a team that was going to go for it. So I think we had to straddle a line of what’s best for the future, what’s best for our team in the future, and trying to still add players and stay competitive.”
“I think we want to be competitive next year; I still think we want to be competitive this year. I still think we’ve got a pretty good team. We’re going through some injuries; our back end is decimated a little bit. We’ve tried to add a good young defenseman in Sandin, so we’ll see where we are when we come out of it here.
“Our strategy was to try and get some assets or draft picks that we could use going forward, to acquire players or to get in a discussion of players that we like. The players that we have interest in, you still need some players and draft picks to trade to get these guys. I think we increased our ability to do that and going into the draft, we have a chance to make it happen.”
MacLellan also made it clear that a rebuild wasn’t forthcoming in the foreseeable future, noting a pair of acquisitions made in 2022 that already provided the Caps with an injection of youth, a pair of recent first-round selections who arrived in Washington in their mid-20s, Dylan Strome and Sonny Milano.
BRIAN MacLELLAN (March 6, 2023)
“We have an older core that we’re still going to move forward with. We could make some changes with that, but our goal is to add some younger players. We did that with Sandin. Marty Fehervary is coming, we’ll see where [Alex] Alexeyev is at here down the stretch. We called up [Vincent] Iorio, we added [Sonny] Milano, we added [Dylan] Strome. I think we’re adding a lot of good pieces and we can continue to be competitive. And you complement them with Wilson, you complement them with Kuzy, with Ovi, Oshie. I think it’s still a competitive team. I don’t look at it as if we’re taking a huge step back; I think we might be taking a step forward.”
MacLellan was proven correct on that count; the Caps took that step forward in the first season of the Spencer Carbery era, eking their way into the playoffs in the waning minutes of their regular season finale in Philadelphia on the final regular season goal of T.J. Oshie’s splendid career. Most remarkably, they did so while “selling” at the deadline, bringing even more draft capital into their portfolio by moving Joel Edmundson, Anthony Mantha and Kuznetsov. Kuznetsov became the fourth member of the 2018 championship squad to depart the District in just over a year, leaving only Ovechkin, Carlson, Wilson and Oshie as the last quartet of holdovers from the Cup-winning team.
After the Caps were swept aside by the New York Rangers in the 2024 playoffs, MacLellan and his hockey operations staff set their sights on the upcoming offseason.
BRIAN MacLELLAN (April 30, 2024)
“I think we have more flexibility going forward here. We’ll see what the market is. The salary cap will go up a little bit, so it will give teams a little more room. We’ve acquired some draft capital; I would anticipate we’re going to have some room to use that. So we’ll see what it brings.”
OOH LAS VEGAS
Nine nights in Las Vegas might seem excessive, unless you’re a gambler on an epic heater or you’re Phish or Dead and Co. or another high demand act booked into a residency gig. And that’s even truer if you’ve ever spent any time in Sin City during the withering days of late June and early July.
Even in the years before the Golden Knights joined the NHL as the League’s 31st franchise in 2017-18, Vegas and the League forged a relationship that resulted in several of their annual awards shows held in the midst of the glitz. Vegas hosted an NHL All-Star Weekend in 2022 and it hosted what may prove to be the NHL’s last “non-remote” draft in 2024.
During the pandemic early in this decade, the League conducted the 2020 and 2021 NHL Drafts in remote fashion, with each team maneuvering its draft from its hockey operations headquarters in its home city. When the NHL resumed “normal” Draft activity in Montreal in 2022 and in Nashville in 2023, a number of travel glitches affected hockey executives and scouts who were trying to get back to their home cities in time to deal with the next critically important date on the hockey calendar: free agency.
DON FISHMAN (July 2025)
“It was mostly because the draft and free agency window kept getting more compressed and compressed. When I started working for the Caps 20 years ago, we would have the Draft around June 22 and you’d have a little down time, and then you’d have free agency [on July 1]. And if you look at the dates – and I looked at it recently – they kept getting more compressed, to like a June 28 draft, so you ended up with one day to travel back to DC, which isn’t the end of the world, especially if you’re in Montreal or New York or Philly; you usually can get back pretty easily.
“But, getting back from Montreal [in 2022], I’m sure you’ve heard some really funny stories from some of those guys. Some of them were on a flight from Montreal to DC and turned around. I actually had a car up there, because I took a family vacation and my son Sam came with me to Montreal, and so I had my car with me in Montreal. And I had a nice leisurely Friday night [following rounds 2-7 of the Draft earlier that day] I remember; I actually had one of the best nights of the summer. Sam played pickup soccer with friends, with people he met, and we went out for pizza.
“And then the next morning at 6 am, we start to get back to the car to drive back to DC. And I had a call from [Manager of Hockey Operations] Jeremy Sinton, who had left the night before for DC, or so I thought. But Jeremy was still in Montreal. And he said, ‘I can’t do it again; I can’t go back to the airport. Can I come in your car?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, but you know it’s 10 hours. You should probably just go to the airport.’ And he said, ‘No, I can’t. I just can’t do that again.’ Because he had flown all the way to DC the night before, only to have the plane turn around and return to Montreal.
“So me, Sam and Jeremy drove 10 hours back to DC, and then we started free agency the next day. It’s a fun memory for me looking back, but I think that we made the decision early on that – especially going to Vegas – we would just hunker down in Vegas for the whole time. And actually, it intimidated me the whole year to spend that much time in Vegas. Because of all cities, people say Vegas is good for two or three nights and then it grows stale after that. But actually, it was great. Work wise, it was great. Hanging out with our group was great. We had a beautiful suite to work from. Everything about it was positive.”
CHRIS PATRICK (May 2025)
“The experience we had trying to get back from Montreal and Nashville wasn’t great. And being in Vegas, it just felt like there was too much that could go wrong at the most critical time of the year for us, for hockey operations as far as making transactions. It was a no-brainer. The biggest thing was would we be able to replicate our war room environment, and everything we have here in house that we rely upon during the trade deadline and making trades during free agency periods, and once we felt pretty confident we could replicate that over there, then it just didn’t make sense to try to get back here and to get into that part of your season and risk having guys get stuck somewhere, and having half the guys here and half of them stuck in Vegas. It was pretty much a no-brainer.”
BRIAN MacLELLAN (May 2025)
“I think it was key because first you do your draft stuff, and then you start talking trades during draft pick stuff. So the conversations lead up to transactions, and you don’t want to take a whole day to travel home and get back here. It could be a whole day; you lose three hours coming back and it’s a four- or five-hour flight, so you lose a whole day of meeting, talking and making calls. So we decided we were going to sit there until we’re done. And then when we’re done, we’re done, and we’ll go home after that.”
JASON FITZSIMMONS (September 2024)
“It was smart. It was a smart move by Brian to keep us there because free agency happened so quickly after the draft. And really, the process of building for free agency doesn’t just start on July 1. We flew into Vegas a week before the Draft and met all day every day. And when you first think of that, you’re like, ‘Oh jeez, you’re in Vegas for nine days.’
“I left the hotel twice in those nine days, and it was to go the Sphere both days for the Draft. It was all business. It’s not often that you go to Vegas to just sit in your hotel and work for nine days, but that’s what we did. And that’s what we had to do because we’re in an important transition stage in the Capitals organization. So I liked the call by Brian and Chris to stay there. We hunkered down and I really like the pieces that we added.
“I’m very bullish on our team right now and I think we could sneak up on teams, to be honest with you. People consider us as an older team aging out, but I disagree. We’re moving on the fly here, and we’re bringing in young kids and size and strength. Adding a couple of big pieces on defense and a goaltender, those are key moves.”
BRIAN SUTHERBY (September 2024)
“I assume that was decided between Mac, Chris Patrick and [Director of Hockey Operations] Kris Wagner, that we were going to do that. With the Draft being pushed back the year before in Nashville, even that was tight. And the Draft itself is draining. We’re there four or five days before, and already going through different conversations that are happening. We’re going through different lists, targets, making calls, fielding discussions. So even when the Draft ends – even though on the pro [scouting] side we don’t have a ton to do with the actual Draft – our meetings and days are pretty long and extensive already. And then you’ve got Mac who is doing both; he is handling the amateur side and the pro side.
“It’s exhausting when the Draft finally ends, and then to get on a plane and travel that night, Vegas would have been two hours earlier than Nashville, and I don’t even know if we could have gotten out that night. But the year before, the next day [after the Draft], it was a drag. You get in late, and we might have not even started until later in the day, just because it ended up being a long day and a late day. And I think we came to the conclusion that it wasn’t as productive as it could have been if we were fresh, or if we’re not wasting our time on travel.
“I think it was the right move. I don’t know if it would have led to anything more or less than it did, but we were busy and I think it definitely was a positive that we stayed there. I can’t remember exactly what we did that morning; I’m assuming we slept in a little bit, but then we got up and went to work. And we weren’t having to worry about getting on planes and missing stuff, and missing calls. It was a long time being there, but it was productive.
“Obviously, it was different not having the war room and not having the names and stuff like that. But in planning for it, we had big whiteboards and we had big digital screens, so we created a digital war room, if you will, where we were able to pull up rosters and different things that made it feel like we were in the war room, or that we weren’t without any of the stuff that we needed. So it was a good week and a half.”
CHRIS PATRICK
“There are peaks and valleys; there are times when Mac is in the room as the GM, and there are times when he’s out because he’s got meetings or whatever with the League. You’re kind of always on call, but you’re not necessarily doing stuff at times. And then sometimes you’re in there and you’re grinding it out for several hours.
“It doesn’t feel like you’re just sitting in the room for nine hours a day. You meet in the morning, you go over stuff, and there might be talk about a few things. And when we get to where we can’t do anything without making more calls, we would grab some lunch and Mac would make calls. We’d come back in the afternoon, maybe go have a workout and come back after and see where we are. The good thing about our group is that there’s not a lot of sitting around for the sake of sitting around. And if it’s not productive, we’ll take breaks. So that whole rhythm played out leading into the draft, and I think the only thing that was really different than normal was that post-Draft and day after the Draft, instead of traveling, we were able to get just a bit of a breather.
“After the draft ended, we all – the amateur staff and the pro staff – went back to the suite and just hung out and talked, which we don’t get to do a lot. And then the next day was a quieter day before it ramped back up for the free agency stuff. So it was good. It was a long time to be in Vegas, but we know how to manage it, so it kept us fresh and engaged, and hopefully we made good decisions based on it.”
CHOCOLATE HIGH
Most of the Caps’ hockey operations contingent arrived in Las Vegas on June 23 or 24, several days ahead of the June 28-29 Draft. On Monday night June 24, the entire group congregated in the hotel suite to watch Game 6 of the Calder Cup Final series between the Caps’ AHL Hershey affiliate and the Coachella Valley Firebirds.
That night, Matt Strome – younger brother of Washington center Dylan – lifted the Hershey Bears to a second consecutive Calder Cup crown with his game- and series-winning goal at 1:06 of overtime in Game 6 of the Final. Strome’s goal gave the Bears their 13th Calder Cup title, and fifth since Washington and Hershey resumed their affiliation in 2005-06. Hershey has won back-to-back Calder Cup titles three times, doing so twice in the current affiliation.
Given the state of the Caps’ organization just a year earlier, this second straight Hershey championship was an uplifting event that catapulted the nine-day stay to a strong start.
DON FISHMAN
“Oh, it was great. It was fun to watch those guys, because you know how much work Jason Fitzsimmons pours into that team – and before him, Chris Patrick; and before him Brian MacLellan – so to watch Fitzy celebrate was really cool, and he had been there for the whole ride. We were so happy for him, and that was a super fun night, that Monday night. So that was a great way to start it up.”
JASON FITZSIMMONS
“We played Game 5 in Coachella, and then we were to meet in Vegas on Monday. I actually didn’t even fly back to Hershey with the team because Chris and Mac said, ‘We need you in Vegas.’ Ultimately, our goal is to win Stanley Cups. In our job, that means we’re going to Vegas, we’re hunkering down, we’ve got deals to make, and that’s what we did. We watched the game as a group in the suite, and when Strome scored the overtime winner, our suite erupted like we were at the game. And it was such a good feeling because obviously, to win back-to-back is just amazing; just to win it anytime is amazing. And then in the fashion that we did it; we gave up a late goal to them in the third period for them to tie it and they’re getting momentum. And then sure enough, early in overtime we score. That was a lot of fun.”
CHRIS PATRICK
“It started out great because we all got in early in the week – I think it was a Monday – and that was the day of Game 6 of the Hershey-Coachella Valley series. And we were three hours ahead, and we’re all in the suite, so we all got to watch that game together, which was a lot of fun. When [Matt Strome] put that puck in the net in OT we had a pretty good celebration, so that was a great start. And then really it followed the same kind of rhythm that any Draft follows.”
CENTER OF GRAVITY
In the days before the Caps’ hockey ops contingent departed for the desert, MacLellan consummated the first transaction, sending goaltender Darcy Kuemper to Los Angeles in exchange for center Pierre-Luc Dubois. The emergence of Charlie Lindgren in the second half of 2023-24 put the Caps in a position to make the deal, one in which they were dealing three years of Kuemper for seven seasons of Dubois, with no other assets changing hands or salary retention taking place.
Washington opened the 2023-24 season with Backstrom and Kuznetsov among its quartet of centers, along with Strome. But Backstrom stepped away from the game just eight games into the season and Kuznetsov was a shadow of his former self. Of the 103 forwards in the NHL who averaged 17 and a half minutes a game or more, he finished last with 24 points, six fewer than Alexander Wennberg.
After losing their top three centers from the 2018 Cup team in less than a year, the Caps were in dire need of some replenishment in the middle of the ice, and especially toward the top of the depth chart. Top six centers are among the most difficult pieces to add, but the deal brought the Caps such a player, and one who would still be younger at the end of the deal than Kuemper was the day the trade was made, June 19, 2024.
The deal came about as a result of MacLellan making his calls around the circuit, and landing on something that he could cultivate into a deal.
BRIAN MacLELLAN
“In the conversations about all the stuff, [then-Kings GM Rob Blake] said, ‘We’re looking for a goalie.’ And they never really brought up Dubois. But then you go back to your room, and you say, ‘They want a goalie. I know they’ve had Kuemper before. What do you guys think? How do we view this possibility?’ And then you have a couple more calls with Blake in LA, and it seemed like he was going down the road of a different thing, with another goalie. And then we jumped in, and we were able to get the Kuemper for Dubois deal done.”
BRIAN SUTHERBY
“There was something with [Dubois] on his side, it might have even been a no-movement clause or maybe a bonus [that was about to kick in]. But I believe on the Kings’ side there was a little bit of a deadline there where there might have been some motivation there [to make a deal]. But obviously the season ended and given where we’re at – we made the playoffs last year, which was great; it was a tremendous experience. And a lot of it was on the backs of some of our young guys taking a good step and having a really good mix of veterans and youth. That was a real pleasant surprise for us, and something we wanted to build on.
“Patty and Mac have both talked about it; there’s a ton of different ways to go about it. You could go all the way down [to the bone] if you wanted to, but I don’t think that’s something that we really wanted to do. The Dubois thing was just an opportunity that presented itself, obviously with the money that was involved and some of the players. We had early discussions; you know, is there a fit for this type of deal? And then we talk about it, we do our homework on the player, the person, the stuff that went into [the 2023-24] season on him, and we felt like it was a good move for us.
“He is a player who at the time, I think he was still 25, a top five pick and a big centerman. And the way that we are looking to build this team, we’re not dropping down to be a bottom feeder type of team. It was a move much like Dylan Strome a couple of years before, trying to hit on a guy that could maybe be a cornerstone player for our franchise without having to finish in the bottom five. And we did our homework on the player; I saw him a lot [in 2023-24], being out in the west.
“And that’s why some of these trades come about. If he had a great year [in ’23-24] he is not available, right? We felt like it was a place that [at the time of the trade between Winnipeg and LA] seemed like a good fit; three big centers for them down the middle. And all three of those centers are hard match-up centers, and he just maybe didn’t get quite the ice time or maybe the role that he was looking for. And obviously he was trying to fit in on more of a veteran team, and for whatever reason, it just didn’t work. We felt like we had the opportunity to provide him with more of a role, more of an opportunity, more of a leadership capability, to take on more. We have that opportunity for him, and we just felt like it was a gamble worth taking.”
JASON FITZSIMMONS
“I was with Hershey in Coachella when that was going on, but we had constant communication that Chris was leading and Brian was leading with the scouting staff and putting in our input when this become an opportunity and might be an option – what do you guys think? And it went pretty quick and it was a good process; we all collectively put in our two cents. It’s up to Brian and Chris to make that decision and they did, and I’m glad they did.”
“He is 26 years old; he’s right in his prime. And I like Darcy Kuemper as a goaltender, I really do. But it was the evolution of Lindgren and him coming along and doing his thing that made it an opportunity for us. You have to factor everything in; I think Darcy did a great job for us. Would he have wanted to have a better year last year [in 2023-24]? Yeah, probably. But I thought he was okay his first year [in Washington] and he’s probably going to have a great year in LA, and I hope for nothing but the best for him. He could have a great year and the trade is no reflection no matter what happens with the trade. But it was a move I was excited to make, and it happened quick with LA. And so far in camp, he’s been just great. That line – he is playing with Wilson and McMichael – has dominated the scrimmages.”
CHRIS PATRICK
“We were basically sellers at the deadline that year; I’d say cautious sellers. I think we knew the areas that we wanted to try and improve, and then certain things like, for example, the Dubois thing. I remember thinking – and obviously we all talked a lot about it – right away that there was a fit there for a deal. You could tell LA was in the market for a No. 1 goalie. And based on how things ended that season with Kuemper and Lindgren, it felt like Kuemper was a guy that we could potentially move. And it felt like if they were looking for a No. 1 goalie, would Dubois be a guy that they would move for him? And obviously the conversations between Blake and Mac went that way and that started fairly soon.”
NIGHT MOVES
The Capitals hockey operations, development and scouting staffs – a group of about 30 people – has a tradition of going out for a team dinner a night or two before the Draft, when the Drafts were conducted in host cities. The eve of the 2024 Draft in Vegas was no different; dinner was slated for Thursday evening, June 27, the night before the League was to conduct the first round of the Draft. Shortly before dinner, word came that the Caps had swung another deal, this one with the Calgary Flames. Washington picked up veteran winger Andrew Mangiapane from the Flames in exchange for a second-round draft pick in 2025, a selection the Caps obtained from Colorado when they shipped Eller to the Avalanche at the 2023 trade deadline.
Bracing for the possibility of being without the services of T.J. Oshie for the entirety of 2024-25, and knowing that no one player would be able to bring all the elements, attributes and the skill set that Oshie displayed over the course of his excellent career, the Caps opted to acquire Mangiapane in the hope that he could provide some of those elements. The salary cap hit of $5.5 million was similar to that of Oshie, and although Mangiapane was coming off a 14-goal season with the Flames, he had erupted for a career-high 35 goals just two seasons prior.
BRIAN MacLELLAN
“We wanted to add a forward and we wanted to add some secondary offense. We liked his competitive nature and the way he plays; he plays with a little fire. When he is effective, he is competing and getting under guys’ skin. We went through the whole market in the League – all the teams – and he seemed to be the best available. At the time, I don’t think there was a whole lot of forwards being shopped around, so we tried to be aggressive with him. And it was a one-year deal, and while the salary is a little high, we have room to take it, and we don’t care what he’s making. You just need a player that can come in, play stable minutes and score some goals. That was the idea behind it.”
BRIAN SUTHERBY
“With Mangiapane, he is a guy that we’ve had some interest in over the years, just based on his style of play. He is a little bit of an undersized type of player, but he doesn’t play that way. He goes to the hard areas of the ice, he gets to the interior, and he’s just a smart hockey player. He’s got some skill, he can fit in on any type of line, he’ll do a lot of the dirty work, but he’s also got some finish and the ability to make plays.
“In terms of the types of players and the character that we’re looking for, he checked all of those boxes and we’re hoping he is going to be a really good fit for us. And with him going into the last year of his contract, you can kind of see what we’re trying to do as well, in terms of retooling on the fly and whatnot. There will be some decisions to be made in the summer [of 2025] and during the season too with some of these moves – like with Chychrun and Mangiapane and bringing them in – and then also leaving some flexibility for what the future might hold and what our direction might be as a club.
“But we’re obviously hoping for a good season from him, and as a player, we feel like he can play on any line in your top nine and play on special teams. It’s going to be very difficult to replace T.J. Oshie on the ice and off the ice; he is one of the most important players in franchise history, frankly, and he will be dearly missed if we don’t see him this season, as much in the dressing room as on the ice. But hopefully guys like Mangiapane can bring a little bit of what he brought.”
JASON FITZSIMMONS
“What I like about the moves too is, we’ve got some guys on expiring contracts and they’re going to be hungry. Chychrun is on an expiring contract and he’s going to be playing for a new contract, and I think you’re going to get the best out of those guys.
“But Mangiapane adds some speed and he adds some scoring punch. Is he going to get 35 like he did one season? I don’t know. It would be awesome if he did. But he’s got those capabilities, and he can be a difference maker. Obviously, the uncertainty of what Osh’s health is going to be, you’ve got to try to replace an amazing player like that. And Osh brings more to the team than just what he does on the ice, too, which is a huge loss for us. But hopefully Mangiapane can replace some of that.”
CHRIS PATRICK
“The Chychrun and Mangiapane deals, just based on the timing of them, those are both players that we’ve talked about a lot over the last couple of years, but the deals didn’t really get to the level of being close to execution until the Draft. And the Draft, as you’re getting closer to the Draft, if you’re talking about moving picks this year, there becomes more pressure to get something done.
“Like if a team wants to make a pick this year for a guy that they’re moving, then maybe one or two days before the Draft, there is a push because once you get past the Draft, you’ve got to wait another whole year to make that pick. So that helped push things along too, on the transaction front.
“And then with the free agents, it was similar to what we do a lot. Obviously the Chychrun thing, it created a hole with the right side of the defense, where Matt Roy came in. And I think that deal helped guide us in that direction. And you’re also looking to areas where what does Carbs feel like the team needs, and you chase down those paths, too.”
DRAFT MORNING
Aside from choosing forward Terik Parascak with their first-round choice (No. 17 overall), the Caps were quiet on the Friday night – June 28 – portion of the Draft. As Saturday morning rolled around and the rest of the Draft got underway, those of us who have followed Washington drafts closely over the years waited for a move.
As soon as the first round is over, Caps’ draft guru/assistant GM Ross Mahoney and his staff returns to their hotel headquarters and thoroughly combs through the remaining players to see who might have slipped through, and if there is a player they really like, Mahoney may nudge MacLellan to try to move up a few slots so the Caps can get “their guy.”
This wasn’t exactly one of those situations, but the Caps did make a move very early on Saturday morning, announcing they had sent left wing Beck Malenstyn to Buffalo for the Sabres’ second-round pick in the 2024 Draft. Washington then used that selection to pick blueliner Cole Hutson, a player many believed would be taken in Friday’s first round, which also happened to be Hutson’s 18th birthday.
Moving Malenstyn was a bit of a surprise; the Caps were happy with his performance on their fourth line and their penalty killing unit, and he had been an exemplary player and teammate since being drafted by the Washington in the fifth round of the 2015 NHL Draft. But fourth-line wingers are easier to come by than are difference-making offensive defensemen, which Hutson has a chance to become in the years ahead. As much as they liked Malenstyn, the Caps had to make this deal, and they did.
The Caps also opened up a hole on their fourth line by moving Malenstyn, but they’d address that days later in free agency when they added left wing Brandon Duhaime. This is where the front office chemistry is evident; the scouts know their role and they know their input is crucial once MacLellan – and now, Patrick – have identified the needs in the lineup and on the roster, and the group begins to scour the circuit for players who fit the bill.
BRIAN SUTHERBY
“In my time here, what has been a real strength of Brian MacLellan’s has been identifying team needs. And both Mac and Patty have a tremendous ability to have a pulse on the team, on the room, and on the identification of holes that need to be filled. And that’s largely what pro scouting and the front office is; you’re trying to find that player that’s going to fill that niche role or that niche spot. It’s not like the draft where it’s years down the road and you’re just taking the best player, and I think Mac has a knack for that. It’s always been that way. Mac will come in and he’ll have an idea or he’ll have a ‘want’ or a ‘need’ list, and from there we break down our targets and go from there.
“Like anything, the list evolves as players go away or come at you. I would say the process was fluid, but with on identification of some holes that we needed to fill and then go out and see what’s available and how we can fill them. It started with the Dubois thing, and then some of the other stuff just happened organically.
“Like Malenstyn. Mal is everything you want in a fourth-line winger. He brings speed, forecheck ability, penalty killing and physicality. You couldn’t ask for a better guy on your fourth line. That deal was one where we were talking about it a few days before, but then you get to the draft and get to day two, and there were still some guys on the board that were available that our [amateur scouts] really liked, and so you go ahead and make that trade.
“And with something like that, you say, ‘Okay, now we have a hole here, and we’ve got to fill it on July 1. And I think we filled it with a very comparable player [in Duhaime]. He is going to bring a lot of the exact same intangibles. He’s fast, he is going to get in on the forecheck, he is physical, and he’ll fight. I think he is going to be a player that our players and our fans are going to come to really enjoy. But when one domino falls, you know that Mac and Patty are always navigating different conversations. Some teams are calling; they have interest in this, and they have interest in that. I know it probably looks and seems seamless – and it did sort of fall into place – but there is always a lot of stuff moving in and out. But overall, we were busy. And it worked out well overall, at least for now.”
BRIAN MacLELLAN
“Well, it starts when Buffalo wants to trade for Malenstyn. We negotiate a price for Malenstyn, but we’re going to lose him, and we’ve got to replace him in free agency. And we start thinking, ‘Let’s narrow it down, let’s establish a list of some guys we think could take Malenstyn’s spot.’ So we get the pick, and when we get the pick, we know the guy we want.
“And then with our own second round pick, we had a guy targeted that we thought we could get. And then we got the Buffalo pick, and we said, ‘Well we can go get this guy [Hutson] plus our other guy [defenseman Leon Muggli] with our own pick. So the way it all played out, we got two guys we really wanted with the two seconds. But now we’re trying to replace Malenstyn, and it starts then. We have a group, and you go through free agency and you talk to teams.”
CHRIS PATRICK
“What I draw comfort from – and obviously it’s not the NHL – is it was the same thought process we used in Hershey. We’d look at what we had, we’d look at the young guys coming in and where we think they can play, and then what our holes are, and then we’d go out and we’d find guys to fit those holes. And I don’t know if it’s a particular type of skill or something, but it feels like you just figure based on what you’re seeing what your needs are, what special teams needs you need in the guys you’re bringing in, but there’s no doubt that’s a huge strength of Mac’s for sure. And that’s a big reason why even though the titles have changed and I’m making more calls, it’s not like Mac is calling in occasionally and saying, ‘Hey, what’s going on?’ He’s in the war room, he’s giving his viewpoints, he’s saying, ‘I think we need this,’ and bringing his level of expertise to what we’re doing. And that’s another reason why – as a group – I feel like we’re doing a pretty decent job.
“The Malenstyn one was fun, because I think it’s a good insight into our process. We make that deal on the second day of the draft, and now we’re in the market for a Mal replacement, so let’s start getting some names together. We had a big whiteboard there in the suite, and the guys start just shouting out names and someone else writing them all down. Within seven or eight minutes, we had four or five columns of names, of guys available at various levels.
“Like, ‘This guy is maybe more of a call-up, but he could do it,’ and stuff like that. We start going through the list and talking about every guy, and you cross out this guy and circle that guy. And then your list gets whittled down and whittled down to where you’re talking about a smaller group of names. Taylor Raddysh’s name was in there, Anthony Beauvillier’s name was in there, and you start making the calls to the agents and figuring out where the values are, because you know how much you have available to spend on that position. And hopefully one of the guys on this list come July 1 is available for the money you have to spend, and that’s kind of how you work through the process.”
BRIAN MacLELLAN
“Buffalo has a lot of skilled players, so they wanted to shore up their bottom six. They identified guys they wanted, and they obviously liked Mal. They wanted physicality, they wanted energy, and they wanted his skating, so they targeted him. And they had two picks [in the second round, consecutively at Nos. 42 and 43 overall]. And in their mind, they’re probably going, ‘Well, let’s use one of these on a guy we want.’ And Mal was in there, and I’m assuming they had a couple of other guys that they were saying, ‘If we don’t get Mal, we’ll get this guy.’ They were going to spend. They made up their mind that they were going to spend the pick on a guy that fit their needs. And that’s what they did.”
JASON FITZSIMMONS
“You won’t know how good that trade is for a few years, but if Hutson develops into what we think he could be, it’s going to be an amazing move for us. But Malenstyn is a big piece and now we have a hole we have to fill. We thought there were a couple free agents out there, and we lucked out and got Duhaime and Raddysh. Hopefully they are guys who can fill that void, and you didn’t have to give anything up to get them.”
MONEY SAVES
Soon after the announcement of the Malenstyn deal, MacLellan finished off a draft floor deal involving an NHL player, namely goaltender Logan Thompson. Thompson came to the Caps in a deal with Vegas, in exchange for a pair of third-round picks; one obtained from Toronto (originally belonging to the Islanders) and Washington’s own third-round choice in the 2025 Draft.
Back in 2019-20, Thompson spent his first season as a pro in the Caps’ organization, signing as an undrafted free agent out of Brock University. After spending the pandemic-abbreviated ’19-20 season with the Caps’ ECHL South Carolina affiliate, Thompson signed with Vegas the following season.
The trade for Thompson filled the hole created on the netminding depth chart when Kuemper was dealt for Dubois less than two weeks earlier.
BRIAN MacLELLAN
“We had a history with LT, and when we do the Kuemper trade, we’ve got to find a goalie. Vegas was considering moving LT, so we focused on that one and got a trade done. We liked him because we thought there was a lot of potential there to be a No. 1. I know he didn’t completely grab it in Vegas, but the potential was there. And we went through the options and there wasn’t a whole lot available. So we ended up focusing on Thompson. We had a real relationship with him and the organization and we kind of knew where he was at. But we thought that gave us the potential of a good tandem of him and Charlie. Charlie finished the year well, and he got us into the playoffs. So we thought, ‘We’ll throw these two together here and let them fight it out.’ If we’ve got two 1B’s or one 1A, whoever can grab it can grab it. I thought they both played well.”
CHRIS PATRICK
“I think the biggest one where it was a really a positive in favor of the deal was LT, just because we’ve had a hard time figuring out the goalie thing where a guy will run hot for a while and then he’ll run cold. So with that, you get a guy on an expiring deal to come in and see what happens. And really, we had two guys [along with Charlie Lindgren] on expiring deals and it was let’s see what happens, and we can just let the play dictate our decision-making. It was kind of nice.
“With Chych, it was a lesser extent because he had been in two places already, and let’s just bring him in and see what he has and see if he is motivated. But to me, I felt like we were going to get a motivated player and a really high-end player. But a lot of times with those types of deals, if the player comes in and it’s a complete disaster and it’s not working at all, you can at least maybe try to move them somewhere else, so you always have that fail safe. But I think for us, it was with the goalies where it was really a motivating factor because it was, ‘Let’s just have them come in and play, and we can make a decision based on play.’”
BRIAN SUTHERBY
“Anytime you move on from a veteran goalie and you’ve got some prospects up and coming, you’re probably still looking around for a little bit more experience just to come in and provide some stability. You never know what’s going to happen over the course of a season with injuries and different stuff, so it something where I think there was a need to bring in another guy and it was a guy that the coaching staff and [goaltending coach] Scott Murray had some familiarity with. I think it was somewhat known that Logan was out there, and I don’t know how long those discussions went on, but it felt like it was a move to add a little more experience and to give us some options moving forward as we see how the season plays out.”
JASON FITZSIMMONS
“You’ve got an All-Star goalie making the League minimum. And he was in our system, so it goes back to us having a history with the player and the person. We have a system, and as far as what we call our goalie department, it starts with Ross Mahoney and some of these draft picks, so a lot of credit to the [amateur] scouting staff there. With the free agent stuff, it’s a collective group effort and we all put in our two cents. But it’s one thing when you get them, but then you’ve got to develop them. And people underestimate that part. Development has become such a big part. You can draft a player who is really good in junior, but if you don’t develop him right, he is maybe not going to have a good pro career. But we’ve got a good crew of guys like Steve Richmond, [Brooks Orpik], Olie [Kolzig], Jimmy Slater and now [Braden Holtby]. We have a good crew of guys that work hard at development and they’re in Hershey all the time. But it’s a process, for sure.”
BRIAN MacLELLAN
“We did so much analytics and homework in discussing the goalie thing, and year to year – beyond a couple of guys – it’s random. They’re either going to be above average or they’re going to be a little bit below average. And it’s amazing how many guys fit into that mold. There’s three or four or five that seem to do it a little bit better than everybody else. The next group is just below them, and you don’t want to be out of that group; you want one of these guys every year. It’s crazy when you look at it.”
“I think you’ve got to have two. The problem is, if they’re good, they get paid a certain amount. So with your [salary cap] allocation to goalies, you’ve got to be careful. I think we’re in a good range, because we’ve got a platoon and you’re in the range of high-end starters. Can you pay a guy nine or ten million and then pay another guy a million? I don’t know. That’s not a platoon. That’s a 60-game thing.”
CHRIS PATRICK
“The amateur staff works so hard for those two days in June, and so when it’s done there is a great feeling of satisfaction. They know every player in the draft so intimately, and they’re always happy with what we’ve done because they know the players so well and they know what the potential is. I think things worked out as far as us being able to get picks where we wanted, and to pick the guys we were really hoping would be there, so everything fell into place. There was a real feeling of optimism and a real feeling of excitement based on what we were able to do. And even in the later rounds we felt like we got some really interesting prospects.”
With the actual 2024 Draft in the rear view, the Caps’ hockey ops contingent set their sights on free agency, now just a day and a half away. They still had one more major trade up their collective sleeve, and they would also reel in a trio of unrestricted free agents on July 1 while also inking one of their own restricted free agents.
FREE FOUR
Those of us who returned from Vegas immediately after the Draft were back in the District – if a big jet-lagged – when noon rolled around on July 1, 2024, signaling the opening of the NHL’s annual free agent emporium, where the shelves can range from bare to overstocked and future mistakes linger like land mines, unseen.
An hour before the NHL’s unrestricted free agents became fair game at noon, the Caps announced the first of four signings in less than four hours, inking restricted free agent Connor McMichael to a two-year, $4.2 million contract extension. The next three hours featured a major trade and the addition of three unrestricted free agents.
CHRIS PATRICK
“Fish does a great job with all that stuff, and keeping Mac or me apprised of like, ‘Here are the values if we did a bridge deal, and here are the values if we did a term deal with this kind of term.’ And really what dictated it was some of our other moves. It got to a point where we didn’t have enough money left to do a term deal at a number that he would do, so we would probably have to go the bridge route.
“And I think Mikey’s side was very open to that as well. And I think that was probably smart on their part because he went out and had a great season this season. We always prepare for both paths on guys like that, and then – based on either the player’s preference or our preference, or just what we have left to spend – we go down one path or the other.”
Just half an hour after unrestricted free agency got underway, the Caps announced they’d sent defenseman Nick Jensen to Ottawa along with their third-round choice in the 2026 NHL Draft in exchange for defenseman Jakob Chychrun, who – like Mangiapane and Thompson – was heading into the final season of a multi-year contract in 2024-25. Ottawa had a surplus on the left side and a dearth on the right side of its defense, while the appeal for Washington was turning the clock back several years on one of its back-end slots.
Since coming to DC in a deal with Detroit at the trade deadline in 2019, Jensen was a key find for the Caps’ hockey operations department. He developed into a durable and reliable two-way, top four defenseman with the Caps, and as he showed in his first season with the Senators, he has plenty of tread left on his tires. But the opportunity to add a dynamic offense weapon like Chychrun on the back end was too good to pass up.
Not only that, but the Caps were able to replace Jensen on the right side in their top four with their first unrestricted free agent signing of the day, that of defenseman Matt Roy. The Caps and Roy agreed to a six-year, $34 million contract, a significant move to keep their blueline balanced, and to thicken its depth.
They finished the day with the addition of Duhaime and Taylor Raddysh, signing the former for two years and the latter for a single season.
BRIAN MacLELLAN
“We create a hole with the Jensen trade, but we’re filling a big hole with Chychrun; we wanted some offense on the blueline. And so it becomes critical when you commit to the Chychrun trade that you’ve got Roy in free agency. So we’re covering [the loss of] Jensen, but we’re adding a huge piece there, and exponentially our [defense] gets better by doing that. And Roy is younger, and Chychrun is a lot younger. We’re adding youth, we’re adding skill. And we’ve covering the defensive part of the game, too. It couldn’t have worked out any better.”
JASON FITZSIMMONS
“You want the best for Jens and his family, and you want them to have success, you really do. But Jens was the piece that had to go back in the trade, and I feel like it’s a fair trade for both sides. I always think back to when he was in Arizona, and you were always hearing Chychrun’s name in trade rumors, and they were asking for the farm in a lot of those situations. But I feel like this was a good trade, and I just hope he comes in here hungry so we know what his capabilities can be.”
BRIAN SUTHERBY
“It all stems back to trying to get a little bit younger, obviously. And then it gives you a different look in terms of chemistry in the room and chemistry on the ice. Roy is a very similar player to Jensen in some ways, in defensive capacity and in mobility – and he is four or five years younger than Jensen. You can take a swing at Chychrun, with him being a left shot, so it fit in that regard. And Jens was a really good player for us, a solid defenseman for a long time. But in Roy, you have the ability to bring in a very similar player – mobility wise and defensively – and taking a swing on Chychrun on the left side. And it should be real interesting. [Chychrun] is a player that has made two stops along the way, where he hasn’t had a lot of success as a team. And hopefully we can provide some stability in that regard and a little bit more of a winning environment and we’ll see what we have.”
“Raddysh has gotten to play in Chicago and to play up the lineup a little bit there, and I think we are always looking for guys that have the ability to move around the lineup when we need it or when we’re looking for something a little different. It’s an 82-game season, and they can spot him up the lineup, can move him into a different role and he can provide the coaches with some different looks, and we think he has that.
“He is a big body, he’s got good hands and he’s got some finish around the net. We think – at least envisioning it on paper to start the season – that him, Duhaime and Dowder can be a handful down low and keeping the cycle. They’re all good sized and hard-working guys, and that line – for as long as Dowder has been here – has been very important to our group. We hope that we’ve sort of revamped it here and given it new life, and we’re excited about them heading into the season.”
JASON FITZSIMMONS
“What we do know we have is we have players on the farm that can play that [bottom six] role, and they’re close to being ready. And if they have to go in and play, we’ll make sure they’re ready. And those players could still play here at some point. But guys like Ethen Frank or Bogdan Trineyev are getting really close to being ready. And so we felt confident that even if we didn’t get our guy that we wanted in free agency, we would be fine. That’s why when we had that opportunity make that trade for the second [-round pick used to select Hutson], we thought we would be fine. But it was a nice return, for sure. I was happy for Beck; he’s a warrior. He blows his Achilles out, battles back, wins a Calder Cup, and was very valuable in Hershey and with us.”
CHRIS PATRICK
“Nine days in Vegas seems like a long time, but we like being around each other too, and we have fun, and there are moments when you can be light and have fun. For us, we don’t get to spend that much time with each other even though we work together. And so when you are around each other, I think you really savor it.”
FUTURE GAMES
Over the next decade or so, we’ll see the impact of the fruits of those two well executed trade deadlines in 2023 and ’24 and those nine nights in Vegas that reshaped the Caps’ roster and altered the team’s course. Five of the seven players obtained last summer are back, as is Anthony Beauvillier, who joined the Caps in a deadline deal with Pittsburgh in March; he inked a two-year extension in July. Only Mangiapane (to Edmonton) and Raddysh (to the Rangers) departed, both via free agency.
Two months after Thompson signed his extension, Chychrun followed suit. The dynamic blueliner found the Caps and DC to his liking, signing an eight-year, $72 million contract extension on March 25 to remain here through the 2032-33 season.
Of the seven players added to the fold in the summer of 2024, four – Dubois, Roy, Thompson and Chychrun – are signed through at least 2029-30, and all four occupy crucial positions on the ice, a top six center, a pair of top four defenseman and a goaltender. The quartet is now part of the Caps’ core moving forward along with homegrown products Wilson and Martin Fehervary, who are also under contract at least that long. Expect some of the younger players like Connor McMichael, Aliaksei Protas and Sandin to potentially join them via future contract extensions.
The Caps enter this season with 10 players – four forwards, four defensemen and two goaltenders – under contract for the upcoming three seasons, through 2027-28. Among the other 31 NHL clubs, only Carolina (13), Boston, Florida, Toronto and Vegas (11 each) have more. Washington has an established nucleus intact, and it now seeks to develop the young players it has brought into the system in the last few drafts, several of whom will be embarking upon the first seasons of their professional careers together this season.
If the Caps are able to develop a handful of their young prospects into capable and reliable NHL players, they’ll create a stream of cost-controlled talent coming up the pipeline to augment the established core in place, and they might be able to use some of the gradual – and significant – upcoming salary cap increases dabbling in the free agency market, when feasible and necessary.
As Ovechkin – coming off a remarkable 2024-25 season in which he scored 44 goals to surpass Wayne Gretzky’s all-time career standard – prepares to celebrate his 40th birthday and enter his 21st NHL season, he can expect to be surrounded by a strong team capable of making the playoffs and competing for the Stanley Cup. And you’ve got to think he appreciates the quick turnaround from that rough half season two and a half years back. It put a fresh and welcome paint job on the franchise in its unforgettable 50th anniversary season, but it will also shape the squad for many years to come.
BRIAN MacLELLAN
“We’re just reaping the second part of our benefits here, with [Ryan] Leonard, and [Andrew] Cristall, and [Ilya] Protas and all these guys coming in now. We accumulated picks, starting with that Orlov trade. We made a decision; this isn’t working. We’ve got to start it, and let’s see where it goes.
“We get the picks, and we start accumulating picks; we start trading guys over the next two years, that year and the next year. And you’re looking for opportunities because the mandate is to remain competitive for Ovi, and rebuild – get younger, get faster, restock the system. It’s not easy to accomplish all that, stay competitive, fill your prospect lineup, and compete, get into the playoffs and compete. You want Ovi to have a good team, and you want him to break the record, and you want him to finish his career in the right way.”
DON FISHMAN
“It was a conscious decision. Dating back to that outdoor game and that trade deadline, I think Mac wanted to – while Ovi was still here and going for the goal record and part of our team – we wanted to stay competitive and turn the corner while that was going on. We didn’t know if we could win a Cup or be near the top of the League in those two or three years, but we definitely wanted to turn the corner so that we could come out of the Ovi era and be a contending team again.
“It definitely was a conscious decision, and it probably started with that [2023] trade deadline of Sandin, and then you can draw a line right to Dubois, and getting Dubois. And then we were lucky to get Strome and re-sign him. These are all good, young players, and these are all conscious decisions, and I’m not saying they’re all going to work out, but we’re trying to roll the dice on some 24- and 25-year-old players at the same time as we’re developing our own 24- and 25-year-old players, like Protas and McMichael and Leonard, who is only 20. But it was definitely a conscious decision to turn the corner during these latter years of the Ovi era, for sure.”
CHRIS PATRICK
“I always think about it more as if you can get guys who are 25, 26 or 27 that you have interest in, we usually try to get aggressive on those types of guys. And sometimes, those type of guys are available because they’re creeping up on the time when you’ve got to decide whether to give them a big contract or not, and teams aren’t sure or whatever. For us, that’s probably more the way that we approach it on the pro scouting side. And it is fun, and you just never know.
“I actually told Nic Dowd this story when we had our [exit] meeting the other day. I remember watching him in [AHL] Manchester [in 2014] when he was right out of college, and it was March or April, post-trade deadline. And it’s the first time I’ve seen him. And I’m like, ‘Who is this Dowd guy? He’s pretty good. I wonder if he’s related to Jim Dowd.’ And you go look it up on hockeydb.com, and you’re like, ‘Oh, he’s not.’ But then he is kind of in your brain, right?
“So the next time you meet with your pro scouts, you’re like, ‘Hey, have you guys seen this Dowd guy?’ And they’re like, ‘Yeah, I like that guy. He looks like a pretty good player.’ And so now [Sutherby] is watching him because he is out in the West, and you ask him, ‘What’s going on with Dowd? How come he is not playing more in LA?’ And you get to talking about that, and the next thing you know, you have a chance to sign him.
“And for every Dowd, there are tens of guys that you go through the same process with, but you just never happen to get them. There are guys where you’re like, ‘Oh, it’s too bad we weren’t able to get him. He would have been so great here.’ That’s just how it goes. You just never know what game you’ll be watching or what guy might jump out at you, and then in seven years, he might be a Washington Capital.
“And it was the same thing with Dubois. Every scout in the world was at Traverse City [for the annual Center Ice prospect tournament], but I remember watching him in Traverse City and I was just like, ‘Holy cow, this guy is a really good player.’ And you never think you’ll have a chance at adding him to your team, but things change over the years and then you end up having a chance to do it. From the pro scouting side, it’s important to understand that sometimes it’s a long game. You just have to keep your reads with the players, keep understanding what’s going on with them and their situations and if it might change, and then being ready to make a move if you think there is one there.”
DON FISHMAN
“Looking back at it now that I’ve seen the picks going in and out, I had never really thought about it. That [2024 trade deadline] was a great deadline, too. We were a seller; we traded Edmondson and Mantha, and we traded Kuzy for a third, which was great. And then with the way that the team played with the young players, they made it to the playoffs and that was just great. It was a super fun spring, to finish [the season] with Osh’s goal in Philly. That was a great run. And to do that and get picks out of it was huge.
“I’ve never really connected it together, but now that I think about it, those picks probably gave us the confidence that when we’re trading a second for Mangiapane, and we’re trading an extra third for Chychrun and we’re trading two thirds for Thompson, those are a lot of picks. So it’s helpful having picks coming in the door. That trade deadline gave us some assets to use, and then definitely getting out from under the Kuzy contract and moving on from the Kuzy era, we went into that summer with a little bit of cap space to work with.
“And then there was one final piece of the puzzle we had to keep an eye on – since I’m a [salary] cap person – was that when we came home from Vegas with all those trades and signings, we were going to be at the cap. But I still had to figure out how to fit in Leonard next spring. So that was sort of a “to-be-determined” concept for us, which is not unfamiliar for us. We’ve done that before, figure out how to fit in someone later in the year. We just sort of work it out. And the final Kuzy piece, which came in after he left [DC] and we didn’t know he’d leave [the NHL for the KHL] and we were out from under that additional cap hit [from salary retention in the trade]. Okay, so now it’s a lot easier to fit Leonard in next spring, and we have the space to add an Eller piece and Beauvillier. That’s what that gave us; it was just sort of a cherry on top, from a cap perspective. And we still have Beauvillier to show for it. But yes, getting out from under the Kuzy contract and with Mantha gone as well, we had some cap space and some draft picks to work with that year, for the first time in a while.”
CHRIS PATRICK
“On the player development side, it feels like there was a time when you’d draft a guy in the first round and hopefully – in three or four years – he might be playing for you. And now, when you draft a guy in the first round, the expectation is within three years, he’s contributing significantly. And I think that’s what’s led to this, it’s like, ‘Hey, we need more resources on these guys.’ And maybe that’s the salary cap. Maybe that’s needing to have guys relatively team friendly numbers for as long as we can.
“And so we need these young guys playing on their entry-level deals and I think that’s why more resources have gone into these guys, and it seems to be working, too. But [assistant coach, skills] Kenny [McCudden] has been huge, because to me, he’s more than just a skills guy. He does so much to let Carbs and his staff work.
“You get into a city on a back-to-back and you’re getting in late to the hotel. It’s a drag just to get yourself out of bed and get down to breakfast and get into the meetings the next morning. And meanwhile, Kenny’s taking scratches over to the game rink to skate so that they can keep their touches and they can stay fresh for whenever they’re needed next. That is not an easy thing, but by doing that, he’s letting Carbs and the coaching staff do what they need to do on a tight turnaround to be ready for a game that night. So that’s a huge thing as well.
“With the skills stuff, I think you see guys that do it all the time, like [Protas]. like Brandon Duhaime, like Marty [Fehervary], and you saw the impact it had on their game, working with Kenny. He’s got an unbelievable attitude. And when you’re in the slogs of the season, to have a guy that’s positive without seeming fake about it is huge for the guys. I mean, who wouldn’t want to go on the ice with Kenny, when you get to be around him and see just the energy he has and how excited he gets to work with guys? And any little drill he does, it’s fun to watch how engaged he gets.”
BRIAN MacLELLAN
“I think Ovi appreciates that we’re competitive, a lot. I think the joy of the game for him, he loves scoring, obviously. But it’s winning, too. And when he is not winning, he gets in a different type of mood. If he’s not winning, he’s not having fun. Last year there was too much pressure on him, to score and to carry the team. I don’t think that’s fun. And now it’s a better team, a deeper team and it’s winning. He can kind of do his thing, and there’s no pressure. He doesn’t have to score. You don’t have to score; we’ve got a better team. We can win games; it’s not going to be all on you. So this year, I think he was pumped that we had a good team, right at the top of the League and he gets to work in that environment. And you can’t have your 40-year-old carrying the team. You need Strome and Dubois and you need Wilson to have a good year, and you need Protas and McMichael coming up. That gives him the space to play well, which, going forward, I think he’ll still have. You don’t want him carrying it. He doesn’t want to come in next year at 40 and think, ‘I’ve got to do this.’ He wants to come in and contribute. Other guys have got to carry our team.”
CHRIS PATRICK
“We felt really good [coming back from Vegas]. I was actually surprised that we didn’t get more of, ‘Wow, look what the Caps did,’ right away, which we didn’t. And then you heard all the stuff in the preseason when nobody really predicted us to do much. But I was like, ‘Do you guys realize we just traded for a pretty good goalie and a really good center, a pretty good winger, and a really good defenseman?’ I don’t understand why, when you’re putting all these pieces together into what we have, but certainly I was excited all summer. I never had any second thoughts, and I don’t think anybody on our staff did. And it was just one of those things where you just keep your mouth shut, let people say what they’re going to say and what they want to say, and the proof will be on the ice.”
“Coming into September is always fun because you want to see your new toys, even if that’s just depth guys you’ve signed for two-way NHL contracts and guys on AHL deals; you want to see how they look in camp. I compared this year to the year we signed Brooks Orpik and Matt Niskanen; it felt similar to that year, and then the following year when we had Osh and Justin Williams coming in. Those years, you’re like, ‘I can’t wait to see camp and I can’t wait to see these guys,’ and that’s what this one felt like for me. All summer, I was like, ‘I just can’t wait to see these guys in camp.’ It’s just so much fun. And right away, from the first practice, I was like, ‘Holy cow, this looks good.’ So it was really neat.”
BRIAN MacLELLAN
“That’s your job, and to hit on all of it is pretty gratifying. It’s fun. And it’s kind of amazing how it worked from day one. We do our depth chart, like, ‘We’re going to put Raddysh here, and we’re going to do this and we’re going to do that. But once you get into the year, they’re not going by our depth chart, they’re going by their own. But this year, every slot we filled or thought we filled, it works. And they’re all good guys and they’re all having fun and they’re all competing, and they’re all getting better. It was pretty fun to watch.”
DON FISHMAN
“For most of those moves, I give Mac a ton of credit. Mac works at it, and he knows the guys he wants to target and he keeps it live. You can even go back to the Oshie trade; I think Mac had coveted Oshie for a few years and finally got him. And Chychrun was similar. I think that Mac had always looked into Chychrun along the way. But we never really quite had the cap room to do it, or the price was too high.”
BRIAN MacLELLAN
“From experience, I guess. Playing [in the NHL], first of all. Being on a number of different teams – good teams, bad teams, worse teams. And just knowing players’ circumstances. You watch what happens when guys you played with or grew up with and what happens when a coach misuses you or you have a conflict with a coach, and how it affects certain players that way.
“So, you understand the cultures of different teams and how the coach dynamics work and how the style dynamics work; a guy could look good here and not look good here. And watching a lot. I was a pro scout for a long time. You get to know the League, get to know the players, get to know the coaches and how they operate. I think it’s experience on that. And I think my nature is intuitive, and I think that’s a strength.”
CHRIS PATRICK
“With so much of what we do on the pro side, it is as much about the player and the player’s attributes as it is the fit within the group, the fit within the lineup and the fit off the ice. And so when you see that and it feels like we really nailed that, that we got the right guys and the right fit, it gives you the sense of a job well done. It really validates your process and how you go about doing it.
“And it also validates your perception of what our room is and what our leadership group is, because as much as we like to talk about it, we’re not in that room with the players and we don’t really know. We’re not with them after the game when they go grab a bite to eat together and what they’re talking about. We hope we have a feel for what our room is like and who we can rely on to be a voice, and who is more of a quiet leader, and then you make moves based on that. And I think seeing it work on both sides, it validated these guys being good fits for our room, but it also validated what we perceived our leadership group in our room being able to do with a group of guys like this. It was really fun to see.”
BRIAN MacLELLAN
“I think the culture has had a big shift, and the word gets out. We treat the players well. And for the most part, we do our due diligence and find the people that we think are going to fit. And we take some risks on people, too. But people come here and they like the environment. We’re a competitive team, so the word gets out. They get treated well here so they end up with a positive viewpoint. I think that the [NHLPA] ranks organizations on how they treat people, and we’re up there.”
CHRIS PATRICK
“I would add to that just a willingness from ownership to be aggressive and spend to the cap every year. What year ever has Ted said, ‘We can’t spend to the cap this year.’ And if you’re a free agent, that’s huge, right? You want to know that this is an ownership group that is invested in making the team better.
“And I also think that during the Ovi era, we’ve kind of developed a ‘personality’ I guess, for lack of a better term. When you come to Capital One Arena, you know what to expect and it’s a good environment. It’s a great fan base, and players see that when they come in from out of town. And maybe we didn’t have that, in the years prior to Alex coming here. For sure it is a culture thing, but having an ownership that’s willing to be aggressive and to make the team better, and having a fan base that has really bought into what we’re doing and being one of the more loud and faithful fan bases in the League, those are huge, huge things for getting free agents.”
DON FISHMAN
“I think Ovi deserves a lot of credit for it. We’re committed to winning, which is great. But Ovi I think is the heartbeat of our team and the energy of our team. We’re a team that wants to win and wants to have fun, and this year was a great example. This year might have been the most fun in terms of the images of the team. And it’s a great city, and a great community here in Arlington to come and be a part of. I hope we always continue that, because it feels special and I hope we can continue creating that because not all sports teams have that, and we know that as sports fans.”
CHRIS PATRICK
“There are no shortcuts. And in fact, I think it can go the other way. You can have a perfect team and not win, because there is just so much else that goes on in a playoff series – a bad bounce, a bad call, the wrong guy getting hurt at the wrong time. And that’s happened to every team that’s been eliminated so far.
“Our teams in 2016, 2017 and 2018, any one of those teams could have won the Stanley Cup. And Pittsburgh in ’16, ’17 and ’18 could have won the Stanley Cup every year. It was just how the playoff system is set up and by luck of the draw that us and Pittsburgh – two really, really good teams – had to play each other in the second round. And that’s just how it goes sometimes. This year, Colorado and Dallas were two really good teams. Show me one team in this League that wants to play Colorado in the conference final, and they had to play each other in the first round. And it stinks, but it’s great for the business of the game.
“You get a lot of people watching games, but it’s not easy from a winning standpoint. All you can do is put together the best possible team you can under the constraints of the salary cap and get yourself in the playoffs, and hope that the group you have can do it. There are definitely no shortcuts. And it’s hard when you see the criticism that other teams have gotten here and will continue to get, and it’s no different from the criticism we got with the greatest goal scorer in the history of the game on our team.
“People always want to point to the shortcomings, but sometimes they just can’t see that there are 16 teams in the playoffs, and they all want to win it and they all believe they can win it. Just like our guys are saying we could have won it, every other team is saying the same thing; ‘If we could have just gotten past these guys, we could have done it.’ It’s the hardest trophy to win in all of sports, but if you can do it, it’s the best feeling in the world.
“It’s really hard, because it’s a very easy thing for people to question if it doesn’t work out. Like, ‘You didn’t do anything different, you still didn’t win. You guys don’t know what you’re doing.’ And there’s no guarantee that being patient wins it for you either. It’s just really hard, and you just have to go with what you feel like is the best decision for the organization.
“And we looked at all the different angles after 2015, after ’16, after ’17, and we discussed. ‘Do we blow it up? What can we do here to change things?’ And we spent days in hotel rooms and hotel suites at drafts, and when we did it, we still came to the same answers. It was like, ‘I don’t understand or I don’t see how moving player X, Y and Z for any other players, makes us a better team. We might be the same with different players, but I don’t see how it puts us closer to winning the Stanley Cup.’
“You just have to keep asking yourself the hard questions, and if the answers lead you to a change, then they do. And if they don’t, then you’ve just got to trust your decision-making process.”