There are 21 players at the Caps rookie camp in Annapolis this weekend, and 17 of them are Washington draft choices from the last five NHL Drafts. Among those 17 drafted players, 18-year-old defenseman Brian McFadden is the youngest. McFadden turns 19 on Jan. 2, just after the flip of the calendar to 2027.
Fewer than 10 players from the 2026 NHL Draft were chosen out of high school, but McFadden – who skated for Thayer Academy in Braintree, Mass. last season – is one of them, and he is the first player the Caps have taken from the high school ranks since they chose center Brian Pinho in the sixth round of the 2013 NHL Draft.
When the Caps called his name on June 25 of this year, McFadden was hundreds of miles east of Buffalo, where the Draft was being conducted.
“All my family was at my grandparents’ house in Gloucester [Mass.] and my aunt just screamed, and I figured that was about the time I went,” he recalls.
McFadden was not surprised to learn he’d been chosen by the Caps; they were one of several teams who showed some pre-draft interest in the big blueliner.
“I talked to them a good amount leading up to the Draft,” says McFadden of the Caps. “But a lot of teams just keep nagging at you, and it’s a good thing and you’re happy that it’s all happening. But I liked the Caps and I felt like they had a liking for me, and it all worked out.”
Soon after being drafted, McFadden attended Washington’s summer development camp with the other three members of Washington’s 2026 Draft class, and the team’s Annapolis rookie camp is another steppingstone for him as he prepares for what’s next, which is a season with the USHL’s Chicago Steel. McFadden is also committed to Northeastern University, but he’s taking it a season at a time in this nascent stage of his NHL career.
“I don’t know the full route yet,” says McFadden. “But yeah, I’ll go to Chicago this year and then to Northeastern at some point and just keep getting better and keep improving every year.”
Longtime NHL forward Scott Gomez is the Steel’s head coach, and former NHL defenseman Mike Mottau – who hails from Quincy, Mass., not far from McFadden’s hometown of Holbrook, Mass. – is an assistant coach there, so McFadden’s first coaches beyond high school have playing experience at the level McFadden is seeking to reach.
“’Patience’ is a word we use around here a lot; just be very patient,” says Caps assistant general manager and longtime draft guru Ross Mahoney. “There’s nothing worse than rushing somebody and putting them in a position that they’re not capable of being in at that time, so we’ve always been very patient with them. And I think the bottom two picks [McFadden and center Logan Stuart] are going to go to school, and they’ll probably spend how much time at school? That will probably depend on them and their development.”
At 6-foot-5 and 196 pounds, the right-handed McFadden is easy to spot on the ice, and watching him skate and defend, it’s easy to see why Mahoney and the Caps liked McFadden enough to make him the first high school defenseman the Caps have drafted since 1994.
“I think sometimes it’s hard with high school players,” says Mahoney. “But we tell our scouts, ‘We can’t control the environment they’re in.’ So, my question to them is, ‘How does he skate? How does he think the game? What’s his work ethic like? Is he a good teammate?’ Some are playing in the elite league like [2026 first-rounder Oliver Suvanto], some are playing in college, some are playing in junior, some are playing in high school. And I think sometimes high school kids don’t get looked at as much as they should.
“It’s probably a little more of a projection with him, because he was playing high school hockey and we had the opportunity to watch him play also in the Midget National Championship in Las Vegas. Our US scouts really like him a lot; they like the size, they like the reach, they like the skating.
Growing up as a Bruins fan, McFadden lists Zdeno Chara, Charlie McAvoy and Brandon Carlo as defensemen he enjoyed watching as he grew up. This weekend in Annapolis, McFadden is sharing the ice with several players who have pro experience, including a couple – Cole Hutson and Ilya Protas – who finished last season in the NHL.
“It’s just all experience and understanding what you need to be better at, and work on our strengths,” says McFadden. “But your weaknesses are what you have to keep going at, and you kind of just have to live in the gym and keep getting bigger.”
Mahoney sees McFadden as a player that championship caliber teams need.
“He’s kind of a typical 6-4 or 6-5 defenseman with the long reach that should and we hope will develop into more of a two-way guy, and probably heavier on the penalty kill side as opposed to the power play side of it,” says Mahoney. “He’s the type of defenseman that you win with. When you look at Stanley Cup champions, you’ve always got your Cole Hutsons, so to speak, on your power play and one or two guys who can carry the puck out of your end at will and play on the power play.
“But usually, those champions have three or four other players that are sort of like [McFadden], where they’re taller, longer space eaters. They’re strong, able to box people out and keep people from getting to the net and keeping everything to the outside. We think he’ll develop into one of those types of players.”
McFadden is just getting started, and his development arc is likely among the longest of the 21 players here in Annapolis. That’s not just because he hasn’t played at the higher levels yet, but because he is among the youngest players currently in the Caps system.
“I think I just played a winning brand of hockey,” says McFadden of what attracted the Caps to him. “And I’m someone that you want on your team who is obviously not going to stand out by doing all the flashy stuff, but there’s obviously guys for that, and the Caps have a good amount of those. But it’s always good to have a bigger guy on the back end that will shut stuff down.”
That’s always going to be true in the NHL, and those players are worth the wait, so we’ll be keeping an eager and watchful eye on McFadden’s progress this season and beyond.
