The Washington Capitals may be facing the end of an era with Alex Ovechkin’s future as yet undecided. The Ovechkin era brought a Stanley Cup to D.C. and the Capitals have managed to remain competitive into Ovechkin’s twilight years. As we noted in the March Metropolitan Division Notebook, that’s in large part due to some deft reloading efforts that have converted veteran assets into younger pieces.
While Ovechkin has hung around and continued to be an offensive presence late into his career, we can quickly see he’s an outlier on the roster when we look at the team’s age profile. The Capitals have consistently moved on from veterans at a pace that’s allowed them to reload a new cohort now in their prime. Players like Rasmus Sandin and Pierre-Luc Dubois were acquired in previous seasons and the trend continued at this year’s trade deadline when the Capitals shipped John Carlsson to the Anaheim Ducks for a futures package.
Their retooling efforts have netted the Capitals more than just a newly crafted contention cohort. They’ve also managed to keep their prospect pipeline in good shape, currently slightly better than baseline on the whole. The Capitals have youngsters Ryan Leonard and Cole Hutson playing NHL games early in their careers and there should be optimism that the pipeline can inject some cost effective youth into their retooled roster.
The Capitals should be looking for adjustments to level up this core and contend in the near term. Within their retooling, they’ve left themselves plenty of flexibility for future moves. They have a core group locked in long term, but plenty of short to medium term deals that leave near term cap flexibility. They’ve also avoided the dreaded no move/no trade clauses with only Dubois, Tom Wilson, Jakub Chychrun and Logan Thompson holding such protection.
