Washington Capitals revamp quickly in NHL offseason

General Manager Brian MacLellan said he planned to be aggressive this offseason, and he has been.

“Pretty excited about it. Our group did a good job,” MacLellan said Wednesday. “We had a good draft, good free agency and a couple good trades. We’re excited to start the season. … We added some size, some speed, some youth, and solidified some depth throughout the lineup: forward, defense, goaltending.”

Chychrun and Roy were the headline moves Monday, the opening day of free agency, as the Capitals reshaped their defensive core. Washington traded Jensen and a third-round pick to Ottawa for Chychrun, who is in the last year of a contract paying him $4.6 million per year, and signed Roy as a free agent to a six-year, $34.5-million deal.

“The Chychrun thing, the offense, the shot, the ability to jump in the play, and then Roy is stabilizing,” MacLellan said. “And I think [Roy] has a little more offense too in his game, where he can jump into plays. He’s a good skater. So, the group skill-set now seems to fit better now than it did before.”

The Capitals had been interested in Chychrun previously; his name regularly popped up in trade rumors before he was traded to the Senators by the Arizona Coyotes in March 2023. The time was right this time around to get the move done, and while Chychrun was surprised at first, he quickly found joy in the move.

“This situation was a little bit different in the sense that I was just trying to live my life, be present,” Chychrun said, contrasting this move to his previous trade. “I got engaged this summer, just trying to be with loved ones, with family, do my best to prepare myself. Getting ready for the season and just kind of let the chips fall where they need to, where they’re supposed to. And I think that’s exactly what happened.”

Both Roy and Chychrun expressed their excitement at seeing the moves the Capitals made over the last several weeks — and it was particularly exciting for Roy, who was enticed to sign with Washington in part because of the flurry of activity.

“Every player wants to win, you want to go to a winning team,” Roy said. “That was part of my mind-set coming in. I thought Washington was checking all the boxes and making some good moves toward that.”

Although the Capitals sneaked into the playoffs last season, it was no secret to anyone inside the organization that the team would need to be better going forward if they wanted to remain competitive.

MacLellan has used the phrase “threading a needle” to describe what he’s trying to do, retool the roster and stay competitive while not sacrificing the future in the process, and so far this offseason, he’s found a way to do just that.

Duhaime and Raddysh will bolster the fourth line at a low cost, Chychrun and Roy upgrade the defense, Mangiapane is motivated after a down year last season and Dubois is a potential home-run swing. The Dubois trade, MacLellan said, received a thumbs-up emoji from captain Alex Ovechkin.

“We’re better,” MacLellan said. “I just think it’s a better slotted team. It should be better offensively. We’ll find that out later. It’s overall just a deeper, better-structured team than it was last year.”

The moves MacLellan made aren’t without risk — the trade for Dubois, who has somewhat of a complicated past and has yet to consistently put it all together, is the most notable example — but they’re risks the Capitals have to take at this point in the core’s life cycle.

“We’ve been trying to take risks,” MacLellan said. “Looking for upside in players. Trying to find players that we think we can create environment where they’re more successful. That’s been our philosophy, versus let’s just tank it and go down and try and win the lottery, which is a painful approach to it. We are taking a lot of risks.”