After enduring a longer summer than they’ve grown accustomed to having, and after skating through the shortest full-season training camp – the new norm in the NHL going forward – of their careers to date, the Caps would certainly be excited to get the upcoming 2026-27 season underway in any event. But the offseason in Washington was not only long, it was also highly eventful, creating plenty of buzz and anticipation as the Capitals get set to embark on what is now an 84-game regular season.
In May, the Caps extended defenseman Timothy Liljegren, obtained from San Jose in March, to a two-year contract extension. In June, the Caps traded for scoring wingers Jordan Kyrou and Alex Tuch – both are three-time 30-goal scorers – and they also added a quartet of prospects to the organization via the 2026 NHL Draft in Buffalo. In July, they signed veteran forward and former Columbus captain Boone Jenner as a free agent, and they signed behemoth blueliner Vincent Desharnais to a free agent deal. Liljegren and Desharnais are expected to shore up a right side that has lost veterans John Carlson and Trevor van Riemsdyk since this time last year.
Days after those July free agent additions, Caps captain Alex Ovechkin also signed a one-year deal to return to the District for his 22nd NHL season, making him the longest tenured pro athlete in Washington history, surpassing Walter “The Big Train” Johnson, who pitched 21 seasons for the Washington Senators from 1907-27.
Finally, in mid-September, just ahead of the start of training camp, the Caps inked up-and-coming forwards Ryan Leonard and Justin Sourdif to eight-year contract extensions.
Now, with both Cole Hutson and Ilya Protas showing well in late-season NHL trials with the Caps last spring, there is plenty of anticipation as the two 20-year-olds – both of whom were 2024 Washington draft choices – prepare to take on their rookie NHL seasons together.
It all adds up to a deep and versatile group – particularly up front – featuring a blend of size, speed and skill. And although the Caps are bumping up against the upper limit of the League’s $104 million salary cap this season, a large chunk of the roster is under contract for multiple seasons and is either approaching or has already entered his prime seasons.
Washington has nine forwards, five defensemen and one goaltender under contract through at least the next three seasons. During the third of those seasons – 2028-29 – six of the nine forwards and three of the five defensemen will still be in their age 30 season or younger. Goaltender Logan Thompson will be 31.
A key feature of the forward group is the team’s center depth. An early season injury to Pierre-Luc Dubois limited the center to 29 games in 2025-26, and the Caps had difficulty replacing the 200-foot consistency of the minutes delivered by a healthy Dubois. With the addition of Jenner, the Caps have added a fifth center to a group of pivots that leans young in the bottom six, where Sourdif (84) and Ilya Protas (four) are still on the south side of 100 career NHL games played.
Sourdif and Ilya Protas are the only two of Washington’s top dozen forwards who don’t have at least one 20-goal season to their credit in the NHL. Both appear to have the ability to reach that plateau at some point during the careers.
“For me on the depth piece, the two positions that I think is important to have some redundancy in is center and defense,” says Caps senior vice president and general manager Chris Patrick. “And then with Boone, he was top of our list for that kind of role. I've talked a lot with Carbs, and he wanted a guy that he could put first over the boards on the PK, that he knows what he's getting from him every shift, a 200-foot guy.
“And plus, the work we did on him from a leadership perspective, from a guy in the room with some pretty important young players on our team, someone that can help mentor them and show them how to be a good pro, those were all huge benefits of adding him for us.”
Jenner’s versatility both vertically and horizontally on the team’s depth chart offers the team added flexibility, as do his initial linemates, Sourdif and Beauvillier.
“What we did at center, I like because a guy like Boone Jenner can play wing or center,” says Patrick. “So before even having to bring in a guy from Hershey, if a center goes down, you have an NHL body right there that can do it. And maybe you call up a center because Boone's playing really well on the wing, or his line's going good or whatever. But you've got at worst five NHL centers on your NHL roster.”
And most NHL coaches will tell you they’d take two centers on every line if they could.
“I think Chris and his group have done a tremendous job of building us such a deep forward group,” says Caps coach Spencer Carbery. “And one of the most important parts of it is that now we have depth. You would call them third- or fourth-line players that are so versatile they can play first line, they can play on the power play, they can kill penalties, they can finish checks, they can play center, left wing, right wing.
“So, when you talk about a possible fourth line of Sourdif, [Anthony] Beauvillier and Jenner, I could see all three of those guys playing first line at some point in an 84-game schedule and playing on the power play. And so, it gives you – through a long NHL season – a ton of options. And when you’re fully healthy, you can balance some minutes out and you’re a real, true four-line team. It’s just made us very, very deep and given us a lot of options and when we’re healthy – knock on wood – we can hopefully be a team that can come at you wave after wave of well-balanced attack.”
Washington will open the season with 14 forwards, including a whopping eight right-handed sticks. Four of the team’s seven defensemen are also righties. The additions of righties Kyrou and Tuch give the Caps a pair of right-handed forwards for their power play, which struggled throughout last season. And with Kyrou and Tuch, and Hutson and Protas, the Caps have four power-play performers who weren’t on the roster seven months ago.
Having a healthy Dubois plus Kyrou and Tuch thickens not only the forward depth, but also that of Washington’s special teams.
As the season opens, Ovechkin will man his left dot office on the first unit. A lower body injury kept him from seeing any preseason action, but he has plenty of experience working with Dubois, Jakob Chychrun, Dylan Strome and Tom Wilson, the remainder of the first unit.
Hutson and Protas injected some life into the power play during their brief NHL splashes last spring. They will begin the season working on the second power play unit with Tuch, Kyrou and Leonard.
In its limited viewings through a brief, four-game preseason, the Caps’ extra man unit looked to be much improved.
“It definitely helps confidence, process,” says Carbery of the extra-man unit’s preseason showing. “Goals aside, it just looked good. All the things you want to do and accomplish on the power play, if you had a bunch of boxes that you [wanted to check]: enter, puck recoveries, win face-offs, attack the net, create high danger [chances]. Like, check, check, check; and finish those opportunities would probably be the last box.
“It is just preseason, but we should have a lot of confidence going into the regular season that what we’re doing can work and can carry that over – hopefully – into the regular season.”
The Washington penalty kill was a strength last season, especially after the beginning of December. Adding Desharnais and Jenner to that mix and adding penalty killing to Sourdif’s responsibilities this season should enable that group to maintain its place in the top quarter of the League. Jenner has won upwards of 50 percent of his face-offs in each of the last 11 seasons. The availability of Jenner, Tuch, Beauvillier, Sourdif and Aliaksei Protas for penalty killing duty should lighten Wilson’s load in that regard, freeing up his minutes for other roles.
At 5-on-5, the Caps’ opening night lineup is likely to feature 11 forwards who stand at least six feet tall, and half a dozen who are at least 6-foot-4, including the top trio of Tuch, Dubois and Wilson. That line is expected to be a two-way unit that can neutralize the opposition’s top lines while chipping in with a fair amount of offense on its own.
“Tuchie and Willie make me feel safe out there,” smiles Dubois. “It’ll be a lot of fun, and I think we can be a hard line to play against. We’ve already talked here, and obviously everyone wants to score goals, but we want to be the line the goes out there and has the puck the whole shift, and we do it over and over and over again. We’re building the chemistry right now, but those are two smart players and they make it easy for me, and it’s my job to do the same.”
The line of Ovechkin, Strome and Leonard is the only comprised entirely of players who were part of last season’s team, but they’ve yet to play together this fall because of Ovechkin’s injury.
“I think it’s going to be a little bit of a feeling out process for us, too,” says Strome of his line. “Lenny and I have had some great chemistry together throughout camp, and actually [Ovechkin] the last couple of days, we’ve had great chemistry, it feels like. There is going to be an adjustment period, but someone who has played the game for 21 years knows how to adjust to the game pretty quickly, so he should have no problem with it.”
Ilya Protas starts his first full NHL season in the middle of a line with Kyrou on his right and brother Aliaksei on his left.
“I think he’s in a good spot now,” says Aliaksei of his younger brother. “He’s got a coaching staff to help, and if he needs some advice from me, for sure I will say something and I will help as much as I can. But I think he is in a good spot. He also understands the structure and all the little details. If there is a little help needed, I am always ready to help. But I think he’s good.”
Washington’s fourth line features Jenner on the left side; he has four 20-goal seasons in the NHL and he reached 30 goals in one of those campaigns. Sourdif centers the line; he scored 15 goals as a rookie last season while averaging less than 15 minutes of nightly ice time. And veteran Anthony Beauvillier – who also has a 20-goal season in the NHL – skates the right side. He also scored 15 goals while playing all 82 games for the Caps last season, and he has averaged 17 goals per 82 games across his 10-year NHL career.
“With the shortened camp, and the season starting a little bit sooner,” begins Sourdif, “I think as much as you get chemistry on the ice with touches and doing a lot of 3-on-2 drills, and 5-on-5 stuff, communication and talking about, ‘What do we want to do out there? What's our goal? What do we want to accomplish?’ And then play style, and then obviously doing some video, which we'll probably start doing line meetings soon.”
As the season gets underway, the Caps are carrying two extra forwards. Both of them – Ethen Frank and Ivan Miroshnichenko – are offensive minded players who are also capable of filling in on the power play, and both begin two-year contract extensions this season. Frank saw some duty on the penalty kill during the preseason.
On the back end, the Caps are without Carlson on for the first time since the outset of the 2009-10 season; he began his 17-season run in the District later that season. The blueline depth chart loses experience and gains youth in that trade-off, but the Caps will also be without Rasmus Sandin (offseason knee surgery) for the first several weeks of the season.
Chychrun and Matt Roy are expected to comprise the top defense pairing at 5-on-5, with Huston skating the left side of a duo with Desharnais, and Fehervary forming a tandem with Liljegren. Assistant coach Patrick Wellar manages the defense, and he will put together pairs situationally, too, so don’t expect strict pairings over the course of a 60-minute contest.
“I would say we are similar style of players,” says Fehervary of playing with Liljegren; the two have known and played against each other since they were teens playing in Sweden. “We are two-way defensemen, I would say, and he’s a really good skater and he can manage the gap. I think we work pretty well together.”
Veteran Dylan McIlrath is the seventh defenseman at season’s outset; the team is carrying just seven blueliners to start with after carrying eight for the better part of Carbery’s three seasons behind the bench.
And for the third straight season, the Caps will roll with the undrafted duo of Thompson and Charlie Lindgren in the nets. Thompson enters this season on the heels of consecutive 31-victory seasons – matching Jose Theodore’s club standard of 62 wins in his first two seasons as a Capital – and will be aiming to stay among the top four or five goaltenders in the League this season.
“I think a lot of it is mental now,” says Thompson of his game. “Being a goalie, you're not always going to make the save, right? And I think whether that's practice, and there are going to be practices where you're letting in more than you're saving, and there are going to be games where you let four goals in on six shots, right? Like [last season] against Tampa.
“And I think last year was the best year I felt mentally of just being able to say, ‘Tomorrow's a new day,’ and that's just part of the position I signed up for. And the older I've gotten, the more I realize that there are going to be days where you feel amazing and you're just going to let goals in; that's just the nature of the sport, and that's how good some of these shooters are in the best League in the game. And the one thing that you can never stop getting better at is just once this day is over and you leave the rink, just turning it off. And I think I've started to learn how to turn the brain off. You wake up in the morning and it's a new day; come to the rink and forget about yesterday.”
Injuries limited Lindgren in the back half of last season, but he is feeling healthy after the long summer, and he’s ready to contribute and battle in his own unique and inimitable fashion, as we witnessed last weekend in the Caps’ preseason finale in Philadelphia.
“I don’t know what exactly the load breakdown is going to be,” says Lindgren of the upcoming campaign. “Obviously, LT has put himself in a really good spot. In my opinion, he is one of the best goalies in the League, and he deserves to play a lot of games. I certainly want to keep pushing myself and want to play as many games as possible as well. I think it’s just finding that balance.”
On Friday night in Raleigh against the defending Stanley Cup champion Hurricanes, the Caps will take the ice a slew of new faces who weren’t in last season’s opening night lineup. They were in a similar situation two seasons ago when Chychrun, Dubois, Roy and Thompson all joined the team at the same time and helped it to a 20-point improvement in the standings and the team’s first playoff series win since 2018.
That quartet of players that joined the Caps two seasons ago is now firmly established as a part of the team’s core moving forward, and they’re as excited about the season ahead as the guys who have been here a bit longer.
“I think we've always had high expectations,” says Chychrun. “From the first year I came here, there was a lot of turnover, and I don't think anyone really knew the way it was going to go. But we had a great year, and I think internally we always had high belief in this group.
“Last year was a tough one for us; even last year we had high expectations with the way the previous year went. And again, another year we’ve got high expectations, so I think it's going to continue. It's just great; you want to be on these teams. You want to be on these rosters where you feel you have the talent to succeed. I think we have great leadership in this room that is able to bring in new faces. There's been new faces every year, and the beauty of it is, guys come here and they absolutely love it here. They love playing here.
“We've got a very tight knit group, and it's a great city to play for, great place to live, great place to have a family. We’ve got lots of young kids on this team, and guys just love coming here, and guys that leave here say great things about it. So, it's a great place to be, and I think the expectations are something we will we will welcome. We know that we're a really good team, and we're going to have to push the envelope to make sure we're showing that on a night-to-night basis.”
“I think we all know that we have the pieces to the puzzle,” says Dubois. “Now, it’s just for us to do it on a nightly basis. Every team at training camp, they come in and they say they want to be the hardest working team in the NHL. They say they want to be hard to play against, they want to be great offensively, and every team in the League thinks they’re making the playoffs. And it’s not different for us.
“But between doing it for five, six, 10 games and doing it for 84, there is a big difference. Your bad nights can’t be bad, and your good nights have to be up there. Your bad nights just can’t big those big waves. We have the pieces to the puzzle and now we’ve just got to put it all together. But with this group here and the coaching staff, everybody here is well-intentioned. I have no doubt we’ll figure it out.”
Believe it or not, Wilson starts his 14th NHL season in 2026-27, and he is now the second-longest tenured pro athlete currently working in DC. He enters this season on the heels of consecutive 30-goal campaigns, and along with Ovechkin, is one of the last two remaining players from Washington’s 2018 Stanley Cup championship squad.
The way Wilson sees it, the Caps are set up and built to win in one of these next several seasons, if not this one.
“I think we have a window,” says Wilson. “And [with] the players we brought in, we have a window right now, with a lot of really solid players locked in for a bunch of years. We're hungry. It's going to be that time where you can't take no for an answer; you’ve got to go out there and get it done.
“There's no excuses anymore. We’ve got a great team, and you're going to start building now. And if it doesn't happen this year, then we're going to do it next year. If it doesn't happen next year, we're going to do it the following year. And it's going to get to the point where, ‘Hey, we're hungry now. We want this thing.’ The last few years we just haven't been where we want to be, so we get some pretty good backup and some new faces this year.
“But we're excited. I'm hungry to go and see what this team can do, because there's some hype, there's some expectation there. And we've created that standard in Washington that you're always going to be a pretty solid team, but missing the playoffs last year wasn't good enough. It’s going to happen quick; the season's going to be upon us, and I think every single day, every single practice, starting now with this group, I want this organization to win a Cup.
“We’ve got a really solid [team]. You can't just snap your fingers and win the Stanley Cup. It's the hardest trophy in sports to win. I'm not going to be that naive to say, ‘Hey, we're just going to automatically win it this year.’ But we're going to start putting in the work and we're going to start pulling in our direction, and we're going to try and really make some noise and be a team that other teams don't want to be in our way.”
