Another season of the NHL is over. The lesser of two evils has won the Stanley Cup and while they celebrate, the rest of us are in the offseason proper, waiting for September. Now that no one’s checking for hockey content, it’s the perfect time to unpack the interesting parts of last season and look at what’s happened since then to try to get an idea of where the Washington Capitals go from here.
It’s important to note that despite everything, the Caps were close. Like really close. Three points out of third place in the Metro division, four points out of the wild card, and as many points as anyone in the Pacific. This wasn’t a failure of a season, even with the unfavorable outcome, it was just a tough ass season. Fate and the Capitals themselves just got in their way a little too often.
They really could have used more loser points. The NHL’s less-than-ideal point system is still here (please, 3-2-1-0, it’s right there, the PWHL and other leagues got it right) and so loser points are very very valuable. The Vegas Golden Knights overtime-lost their way to the playoffs with 17 of them, which wasn’t even the most (the Kings had TWENTY). The Washington Capitals? Nine. They won and lost exactly as many games as the M3 Flyers, and won more than the M2 Penguins, but they just couldn’t drag enough of their losses past sixty minutes. Of their 30 regulation Ls, I counted 16 that were either one-goal losses (like two to the Canucks) or would have been save for empty-netters (like big ones from the Penguins and Flyers) or late goals given up (Lightning got em this way). Late-game execution was often a killer, especially when they couldn’t get off to an early lead. Tie games in the final minutes, one-goal deficits, if they could have just held on or gotten a goal to go, they would have been in the playoffs. Granted, they probably wouldn’t have made it far, but they would have been in. As long as an overtime loss is worth half of a win, the Capitals need to be better at getting into extra time when it’s on the table.
Aside from overtime, probably the biggest single thing that would have put them over the top is having Pierre-Luc Dubois available. The true top center on this team, he only got into 29 games this season because of injuries. First to his abdominal and adductor muscles, and then he broke his hand at the end of the season. It seemed like he was trying to grit through the former early in the season, which led to the most visible frustration I’ve ever seen from him. I can’t imagine what it’s like to go from playing the best you ever have in the NHL, and having a great locker room that supports you the way you need, to having your body fail you before even getting to make a mark on the season. Last season he was able to contribute a career-high 66 points and, thanks to that and his shutdown defense of other teams’ top lines, was a +27, another high. This season, he was still able to notch 19 points in those 29 games, good for a 54-ish point pace. With a full offseason to heal up his torso, hand, and any other lingering injuries, I think we can expect him to give us another 50-60 point season and play that stifling defense regardless of who’s on his wing.
He’s gonna definitely need to keep that D up, because Washington traded away Nic Dowd at the deadline. A major part of the team on and off the ice, Dowd had been in DC for seven seasons before the move. With his presence as a leader, his Dowd’s Crowd charity that had been here as long as him (a program that helps autistic children attend and enjoy hockey with sensory kits and meetups with the Dowd family), and his in-game command of the checking line center role, Nic was a huge part of the team. The guys were upset (maybe not as upset as they were about another big trade) and let it show. Also like another trade, it makes sense as a move. Dowd just turned 36 and has another year on his contract. It’s only a $3,000,000 hit, but considering his next deal would be starting around age 38, it might be the last year he plays. On a team that showed this season that it needed to get younger, this just gives a jump start to that. It really helps that with PLD out, Justin Sourdif got a lot of play at center and showed that he’s ready to take Dowd’s role already. Sourdif is 24, only making $825,000 next year (what a steal), and barring disaster looks to be part of this team for the next decade-plus. Dowd, as much as he was a Capital at heart, doesn’t have that same on-paper and on-ice value. I’m sure it helps him cope with it that he got traded to the Vegas Golden Knights, who made their way into the Stanley Cup Finals only dropping four games as soon as he showed up. He’s already said that he’s “never been a part of something like this,” which was definitely just referring to winning the Conference Finals…right? Probably. The return for Dowd was a third-round pick next year, a second-round pick in 2029, and goaltender Jesper Vikman, who I doubt makes it up past the South Carolina Stingrays in the ECHL and almost certainly not up past the Hershey Bears. He’s a body, and the real goal was the draft picks. The Caps can strike gold up and down the draft (as can anyone, really, but they’re pretty good at it).
Oh yeah, speaking of trading away beloved players to the Western Conference for draft picks, John Carlson is gone after nearly 20 years. The Caps got back a first- and third-round pick, for this and next draft respectively. That means Washington has pick 16 and 18 this year, which could be used to tool up for the future, package and move up the draft, or trade away for someone already on a team. Good possibilities, even if it came at the expense of a Cup-winning defenseman. Carlson is a bit of a weird case. The eye test says he’s not that great. He can’t seem to keep the puck in well, power play or 5v5; he can’t seem to defend that well; he’s lost a step at 36 years old. But then he gets traded and almost immediately gets his first hat trick; he puts up 14G and 46A this season at a +9; he eats up 23 minutes a game; his advanced stats are pretty good. What do you make of that? The Capitals’ front office looked at that, looked at his contract expiring after this season, and decided they’d rather have the mystery box than the depreciating boat. Rumor has it he wants in the ballpark of two years and $9,000,000, and I do think the Capitals would have been unwise to give him that. It’s a raise and a bit of a lock-in, despite his advancing age. It would have given them the reputation of taking care of their guys, considering his contributions to the franchise, but you have to be at least a little bit mercenary nowadays. It’s another move with some controversy that I approve of personally. Jakob Chychrun got to overlap with him and showed that he’s ready to take the mantle of offensively-minded and defensively shaky top defenseman. He’s entering year two of an eight-year deal, he’s freshly 28, and he’s seemingly able to handle the increasing workload as it’s been piled on his plate.
With no Carlson, there’s a glut of minutes on the right side. One trade they made was designed to mitigate that. Timothy Liljegren was aquired from the Sharks for a fourth-round pick this year. With a brand-new contract signed this offseason, Liljegren looks to figure into the plans decently heavily. He’s played with Rasmus Sandin before, when they were both Maple Leafs (Spencer Carbery was also there, things that make you think), but after coming over he spent most of his time with Jakob Chychrun to his left: 35 minutes of that vs. 23 with Fehérváry, and just four with Sandin. There was no attempt at trying to recapture any chemistry, which I kinda like. Let things shake out however they do. In his limited playing time with the Caps, I didn’t really have any thoughts at all about Liljegren. He did his job, y’know? Between the small sample size and his newness, it makes sense to treat this upcoming season as the real start of things here in Washington. He’s getting $3,250,000 for the next two years now, so nothing crazy. Depending on what kind of deployments he gets and who he gets to line up next to, I think he can be a valuable part of the team.
My other, minor, lingering RHD question starts off being about LHD Declan Chisholm and then spirals into a general musing about the right side. He was picked up at the last draft and got a new (cheap) two-year deal, but only got into 26 games this season, even with injuries and trades, and for some reason wasn’t always the first option to slot in above Dylan McIlrath. He was solid when he played, but they were reluctant to play him. I wonder if he can play effectively on the right side, because they really need that. They’ve got Matt Roy and now Liljegren locked in on the right, and that’s it. Rasmus Sandin had been getting time on that side before his injury, but I really don’t like what I’ve seen from him there. He’s out of position a lot and generally just doesn’t look good at all. Problem is, there’s three slots on the left and there’s three people ahead of Sandin right now. Chychrun is the top dog, and does what Sandin is working toward offensively much better already. Martin Fehérváry is the best defensive talent they have on the left. Cole Hutson is a shiny new addition that has maybe the highest upside of them all, and he showed in his limited engagements at the end of the season that he’s fully ready to be in the NHL. Sandin is too good to be in the press box, not good enough (yet?) on the right to just switch sides, and he tore his ACL at the end of the season. What do you do with him? I don’t want to see him traded, but it might be the best option available unless everyone’s okay with him taking a backseat at least for this season. He will be recovering, and maybe he can use the time between being able to skate and being able to play to work on playing on the right. I guess if you do trade him, he’s got enough value to a team with too many guys on the right that you can get a player of comparable value (or even more if you add in a pick or something). Anything but Dylan McIlrath minutes.
Speaking of Hutson, the kids are alright. Cole was amazing in his first 14 NHL games, putting up three goals and seven assists while looking from the start like he belonged. Ilya Protas only got into four games, but his four points and instant chemistry with brother Aliaksei and fellow large man Tom Wilson were something to see and I expect that line might just stick around, or something close to it. Justin Sourdif as mentioned before had an amazing rookie year, as did Ryan Leonard. The future is already here, not to mention guys still working their ways up like Andrew Cristall, and it’s so great to see the youth infusion pay off the way it has. Look for even more great work from all four of those guys in late 2026 and beyond.
The other guy that got picked up around the deadline is David Kämpf. The price was a sixth-round pick, so not much, and he provided eighteen minutes of play, so not much. He doesn’t have a contract, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t get one from Washington. Seems like he was more of a just-in-case-we-need-bodies-for-a-playoff-run pickup. The center rotation of Dubois-Strome-Protas-Sourdif is really solid, and they have several options for quick stopgaps if they need one due to injury, even before looking to Hershey. If there’s a major injury, especially to PLD or Sourdif, then it’s pretty bleak no matter what.
It wasn’t really a big deal, because he only got into 31 games this season and did…not much in them, but Frank Milano is a goner too. The man known as Sonny was waived, made it through to Hershey, and now looks to continue his career in Switzerland. Godspeed to the man with the hair.
Aside from signing Petr Sikora and Theodor Niederbach, guys that shouldn’t figure into next year’s plans, the biggest change left to note is at assistant coach. Kirk Muller is out, allegedly a mutual decision, and Ray Bennett is in. Sammi Silber broke it down well, but the gist is he helped the Avs massively with their power play in the years around their Cup win, and then wasn’t the right fit with the Islanders this season. Considering what we were subjected to as Caps fans, I think anything different is going to be an improvement. Muller refused to make changes for the majority of the season, and it led to the 25th-best power play in the league, at just 17.8%. I think it’d be improving next year regardless, solely on the back of PP unit personnel changes that were forced with call-ups and trades, but a new look could be big. Even just a bump up to 20% would put them in the range of teams like Utah and Tampa Bay in the middle of the pack, which isn’t an awful place to be.
One thing that isn’t changing is the goaltender situation. Logan Thompson was amazing this season, earning a second All-Star team nod and thirteen top three votes for the Vezina trophy. He played 58 games, more than he ever has in a season, and won 31 of them (with points in an additional six) while saving more goals above expected than anyone in the league and stopping over 91% of shots faced. He was easy to argue as the best goalie in the league, and was certainly the team’s most valuable player. His backup, Charlie Lindgren, had a rougher go of it. Seeing action in 21 games, only nine ended with a W (plus three OTLs). His save percentage was down under 88%, with a solidly negative GSAx. The weird thing is, though, it wasn’t really his fault. Obviously it was to an extent; goals happen when the puck gets by the goaltender. But if you watched those games where Lindgren got the starter’s net, you’d know exactly what I mean. He didn’t play very differently from how he always has. The team in front of him, especially the defense but really everyone, just collapsed. It happened with concerning regularity whenever #79 got into the game. Boneheaded mistakes in the defensive zone, turnovers up and down the ice without guys ready to get back and defend, it was ugly every time. I don’t know if it was coincidental bad matchups, a lack of confidence in the guy that’s become number two as opposed to 1B, or something else entirely. He’s still clearly beloved in the locker room, it’s not interpersonal nonsense, it’s just something in the air. If they didn’t have that working against them, they would have been in the postseason. He also dealt with several different injuries over the course of the season, which probably didn’t help but also didn’t explain anything that went on with the team outside of his crease.
Dylan Strome took a step back. Coming off an 82-point 2024-25, he only managed 58 in 25-26. He hasn’t scored that poorly since 21-22 in Chicago. His goal count dropping doesn’t concern me too much, as a lot of that was his shooting percentage coming back down to earth (13% this season vs. almost 20% last season, for a career 15% shooter). It’s his first time below 20 goals since even before that 21-22 season, but 19 and 20 isn’t a big gap. The assists dropping from 53 to 39, after having steadily increased for four years in a row, that worries me. He looked off a lot of the time, his passes weren’t too crisp, he spent more time in the box than ever before, it just wasn’t a good season. Dubois missing most games meant that a lot more pressure was on Strome’s shoulders, and it seemed to weigh more than he could handle. Maybe that’s partially due to being tied to Ovechkin, whose goal scoring dropped by 12, but you could argue it the other way around easily: better setups might have fed Ovi more goals. Some of it is the power play, as he went from 25 PPAs to 15, and some of it is surely the inflated shooting percentages that other players had last year coming back down to earth. If he can get to 20-25 goals and 50 assists, it won’t be as good as 24-25, but it’ll be a step in the right direction again. Better than either of those numbers, and we’re really cooking.
Connor McMichael might need a change of scenery, and Hendrix Lapierre definitely does. Lapierre doesn’t need much explanation. He’s 24, one of the ten or so fastest guys on the team, kills it in the AHL, shows flashes of potential, but hasn’t been able to put it together in the NHL. He’s a reclamation project waiting to happen, and it isn’t going to happen in Washington. Because of injuries, he got to play 74 games this season, albeit with very restricted minutes, and had vanishingly little to show for it. He went 90 games without a goal across several seasons and didn’t bolster any other aspects of his game enough to get playing time. I fully believe he can be a consistent fourth line guy, if not more, but he just won’t do it here. The fit and the trust just aren’t there. Connor McMichael is already a real NHLer, of course. 46 points this season, 57 last, he’s in no danger of flaming out of the league. Doesn’t it feel like he could be more, though? His 14 goals in 2025-26 were his lowest in years, maybe partially due to getting play at center which should not happen again as a Capital. He wants the role, he’s technically able to play it, but he just doesn’t do it well enough on this team. It started off promising in seasons past whenever he got play there, but it never stayed there. He’s not cut out for the role, at least not as he is and on the team he’s on. As a winger and a goal scorer, he’s still got room for improvement. His breakaway chances may as well not be chances, his shooting dipped below 10% this year and his career average is (barely) under 12%. I don’t want him off the team necessarily, I wouldn’t be happy or relieved to not see his name in the lineup the way I’ve been for other people, but with him taking a step back after seemingly taking one forward last season, I would understand not inking him long-term or at all. Both McMichael and Lapierre are restricted free agents, currently without a contract but unlikely to be poached. CMM is coming off a two-year bridge deal and probably won’t want another one, even though he hasn’t earned big money or term. Lapierre only got a one-year deal after his rookie contract and, you have to assume, will take whatever he can get. Both of them, individually or as a package, could be sign-and-trade bait or just held as cheap assets. We’ll see soon.
The слон in the room is Alex Ovechkin’s future. He’s allegedly going to have a decision before August on whether he retires or comes back for one last contract. My personal feeling is that he’s coming back. I think to not have made a decision by now says at least a little something, and I think the moves made so far point toward a more competitive team next year. His utilization changed in February and March, with him playing fewer and fewer minutes. Both he and the team benefitted from this, and I think that has to be the move going forward. 13-15 minutes a game feels like a good target for him, especially as he’ll be coming into a new season another year older (he’ll turn 41 before the season begins) and another offseason more tired. If he can play somewhat limited minutes, not play the full two minutes of power plays, and use the full preseason to get into game shape instead of having to do it on the fly like he did this year, I don’t see why he can’t stay a big contributor on the team. If I’m wrong and he does end up having already played his last game, he goes out as the best scorer and one of the best players ever, but you already know all that.
The Capitals put up 95 points this season. At the end of their 2024-25, 111-point season, I projected that they’d put up 95-100 in 2025-26. Spot-on. I think a realistic projection for next year might be 95-105. They’re getting younger, they’ve added some exciting new talent, and they may not be done yet. I really hope they offer Jason Robertson something to snatch him out of Dallas, or add some other high-scoring winger somehow, because that’s the biggest need right now. Even bigger than a right defenseman, I think. The Capitals for years now have lacked a true gamebreaker. Ovechkin used to be, Wilson and Chychrun come close, but there isn’t anyone doing that for them. No one in those aforementioned crucial late-game situations that everyone else on the team can look at and say “okay, get it to him, let him do his thing” and feel comfortable. If they can get that, I think they have a higher upside than even that 111-point season, but either way, I think this season is the floor. They didn’t have Dubois for most of it, they didn’t have a working power play, there were so many things that shouldn’t be (as much of) a factor this coming season. Playoffs would be ideal, but they probably “should” have been in this year even with everything and it just didn’t shake out that way. Just improve on this season and get your young guys used to a full season of the NHL grind and we’re golden. The future is bright.
