Last week, the Caps swung a pair of big trades to land a pair of proven wingers. They got Jordan Kyrou from St. Louis last Tuesday and then engineered a sign-and-trade with Buffalo to obtain impending UFA Alex Tuch.
Not long after the unrestricted free agent market opened at noon today, the Caps pulled out their wallet and did some shopping in the NHL’s free agent emporium. Washington addressed other areas of its depth chart today, landing a trio of veteran free agents: center Boone Jenner from Columbus, right-handed defensemen Vincent Desharnais from San Jose and Justin Holl from St. Louis.
Jenner’s four-year deal is worth a total of $23 million and carries a salary cap hit of $5.75 million per season. Desharnais’s four-year pact is worth $16.8 million, carrying an annual salary cap hit of $4.2 million. Holl signs a one-year deal at $900,000.
The Caps also signed a pair of veteran forwards for organizational depth, inking 33-year-old Jonny Brodzinski to a one-year, one-way deal at $850,000 and 27-year-old pivot Josh Dunne to a one-year pact at identical terms.
The 33-year-old Jenner is a 13-year NHL veteran, and he has spent the entirety of his NHL career to date with Columbus, where he was a second-round choice (37th overall) in the 2011 NHL Draft.
A native of Dorchester, Ont., the 6-foot-2, 203-pound Jenner served as the Blue Jackets’ captain for each of the last five seasons, and he is the team’s all-time leader in games played (808). Jenner ranks third on the Jackets’ all-time goals (212), assists (209) and points (421) ledgers. Jenner also ranks second all-time on the Columbus books in power-play goals (44) and he is tied for third with seven career shorthanded goals.
A center by trade, Jenner has won upwards of 50 percent of his draws for each of the last 11 straight seasons. He can also play left wing, and his versatility offers the Caps some depth and support at a couple of crucial positions.
Caps captain Alex Ovechkin has yet to declare his intentions for the upcoming season, and Jenner seems likely to play the left side even if Ovechkin opts to return for a 22nd season. Jenner has been a solid middle six center in the NHL for more than a decade, and he also offers insurance in the middle of the ice where Washington is planning on rolling with a couple of youngsters in 24-year-old Justin Sourdif and soon-to-be 20-year-old Ilya Protas.
Sourdif has 82 regular season NHL games to his credit, and the younger of the two Protas brothers has just four games in the League. At a press conference following the 2026 NHL Draft this past weekend, Caps senior vice president and general manager Chris Patrick expressed his belief in Ilya Protas at the NHL level, and he also stated that he prefers Sourdif at center. Sourdif started last season skating on the right side of Washington’s fourth line, but he was a revelation in the middle of the ice in the aftermath of an early season injury to center Pierre-Luc Dubois.
In addition to his position versatility, Jenner can play an offensive or defensive role in the lineup, and he is a capable contributor on both special teams.
Jenner erupted for 30 goals in his third NHL season in 2015-16. He recently had a run of three straight seasons with 20 or more goals, a streak that was rudely interrupted when he missed the first 56 games of the 2024-25 season because of shoulder surgery.
Since entering the League in 2013-14, Jenner is one of 11 NHL forwards with 7.5 or more hits/60 and 3.3 or more blocked shots/60 (400 or more games played). Ex-Caps Garnet Hathaway and Nic Dowd are also among those 11 players.
In Jenner, Kyrou, Aliaksei Protas, Tuch, and Tom Wilson, the Caps have five wingers who have scored 30 or more goals in the NHL. An Ovechkin return would increase the number to six. Sophomore winger Ryan Leonard scored 20 as a rookie last season and looks perfectly capable of reaching 30 at some point during his career.
With Dubois on the sidelines for most of the season in 2025-26, Washington’s offense was inconsistent last season. The additions of Jenner, Kyrou and Tuch should help make the Caps’ attack deeper and more diverse this season. On paper, the Caps roll deep enough to have four lines with multiple scoring threats.
The 30-year-old Desharnais is a big (6-foot-7, 226 pounds) right-handed defenseman who plays with an edge and is an effective penalty killer. And while Jenner is getting his first taste of another organization for the first time in his career, Desharnais is joining his fifth NHL team in as many seasons, with a chance now to settle in here in Washington with a four-year deal.
Drafted in the seventh round (183rd overall) in the 2016 NHL Draft as a third-year eligible 20-year-old, Desharnais had just concluded his freshman season at Providence University when the Edmonton Oilers called his name at the Draft in Buffalo ten years ago.
Even after being named Hockey East’s top defensive defenseman in his senior season of 2018-19, Desharnais was behind many brighter lights on Edmonton’s defensive depth chart. Going into his first pro season of 2019-20, the Oilers had nine defensemen – Philip Broberg, Evan Bouchard, Dmitri Samorukov, Ryan McLeod, Ethan Bear, Joel Persson, Philip Kemp, Caleb Jones and William Lagesson – listed among the team’s top 20 prospects in the 2019-20 McKeen’s Hockey Yearbook.
Desharnais was 23 when he made his pro debut with AHL Bakersfield, where he played just six games in the crowded Edmonton system, while also getting into 31 contests with ECHL Wichita. His second pro season was split between the same two teams, but with 37 games in the AHL and just six at the lower level.
In 2021-22 – the final season of his ELC – Desharnais put together a solid full season in Bakersfield, totaling five goals and 22 assists for 27 points in 66 games, his highest totals by far in any of his pro seasons.
Desharnais debuted with the Oilers midway through the 2022-23 season, and he has been in the League since. He skated in a dozen Stanley Cup playoff games as a rookie and 16 more with the Oilers in his sophomore season, when Edmonton fell just a win short of its first Cup in more than three decades.
After two seasons with the Oilers, Desharnais signed a two-year deal with Vancouver two years ago today. He was traded twice that season, first to Pittsburgh and eventually to San Jose, where he had a strong season in 2025-26. With the Sharks in 2025-26, Desharnais appeared in 53 contests – he missed a month and a half in the middle of the season with an upper body injury – and he skated an average of 18:11, a single-season career best.
Desharnais also averaged 3:14 per game in shorthanded ice time, ranking fourth among all NHL defensemen with at least 50 games played. He also ranked 15th among blueliners in hits/60 with 6.41, and he ranked 45th among the same group in blocked shots/60.
With San Jose last season, Desharnais logged 790:30 of even-strength ice time. For nearly half (354:40) of that time, he was partnered with 19-year-old left-handed rookie defenseman Sam Dickinson, whose possession numbers and expected goals for figures were both better with Desharnais than without him. That successful deployment with a talented teen may hint at a future partnership between Desharnais and Cole Hutson here in DC.
Across four seasons as an NHL defenseman with Edmonton, Vancouver, Pittsburgh and San Jose, Desharnais has played in 218 NHL games, which is more than one-third of the 30 players chosen in the first round of the 2016 NHL Draft. He has totaled two goals and 24 assists for 26 points while accruing 198 PIM.
The 34-year-old Holl is a native of Edina, Minn. Originally drafted by Chicago with its second-round (54th overall) pick in the 2010 NHL Draft, Holl played four full seasons at U. of Minn. after being drafted.
Ten years ago tomorrow, Holl signed as a free agent with Toronto after playing his first pro season on a minor league deal. In his third season in the Leafs’ organization, Holl ascended to the NHL in 2017-18, scoring two goals in as many games while racking up a plus-5 rating.
The 6-foot-4, 205-pound rearguard established himself as a regular with the Leafs in 2019-20, the first of a four-season run in which he averaged about 20 points a season and 20 minutes per night across 272 games.
That consistency led to a three-year, $10.2 million deal between Holl and the Detroit Red Wings, signed three years ago today. Holl played the first two seasons of the deal in Detroit before opening the ’25-26 season in AHL Grand Rapids. He went to St. Louis in a deadline deal this past March, getting into nine games with the Blues before becoming an unrestricted free agent.
In 405 career NHL games, Holl has totaled 14 goals and 83 assists for 97 points. He has an impressive plus-64 rating and 194 PIM while averaging 18:16 per night across nine seasons in the League.
Brodzinski is a right-handed center who has accumulated 264 games worth of NHL experience across 10 seasons with Los Angeles, San Jose and the New York Rangers, where he has been for the last six seasons. A native of Ham Lake, Minn., Brodzinski was originally the Kings’ fifth-round choice (148th overall) in the 2013 NHL Draft. He has totaled 33 goals and 38 assists for 71 points to go along with a plus-12 rating and 56 PIM in his NHL career.
Dunne is a left-handed center who played collegiate hockey at Clarkson. The 6-foot-4, 207-pound native of O’Fallon, Mo. signed an entry-level deal as an undrafted free agent with Columbus in 2020-21, and he got into his first six NHL games with the Jackets that season. Dunne signed with Buffalo two years ago today, and he spent the last two seasons in the Sabres’ organization. In 50 career games in the NHL, he has totaled one goal and three assists for four points, a minus-17 rating and 53 PIM.
