- Washington added Alex Tuch, Jordan Kyrou, Boone Jenner and Vincent Desharnais before Alex Ovechkin re-signed
- GM Chris Patrick calls the summer a best-case scenario for a team that missed the playoffs by three points
- Read below for the full Capitals outlook heading into 2026-27
Chris Patrick set a bar for the Capitals this summer and then cleared it by a mile.
Washington’s general manager brought in two 30-goal wingers, a veteran middle-six center and a new defenseman, all before Alex Ovechkin agreed to come back for a 22nd season. Asked how the offseason went, Patrick called it “kind of the best-case scenario.”
“A really good offseason for us would have been getting one guy that we feel is a top-six forward, and maybe one more forward and a ‘D’ that can play on your third pair,” Patrick said in NHL.com’s team-by-team season preview. “I think we really hit on a lot of things that we’d hoped for on the high end.”
Kyrou arrived first, on June 23, with St. Louis taking back Connor McMichael, Milton Gastrin and the No. 16 pick in this year’s draft. Tuch followed a day later on an eight-year, $84 million contract, with a 2027 third-round pick and David Kampf heading to Buffalo.
Jenner signed for four years and $23 million. Desharnais got four years and $16.8 million on July 1. Nobody in the league was busier, which is why we already tabbed the Capitals as the team that won the offseason.
Ovechkin watched all of it before signing his one-year deal on July 2. He turns 41 on Sept. 17 and sits at 929 career goals, and his return makes him the sixth player in NHL history to spend 22 seasons with one franchise:
That spending spree doubled as a message to the room, and Patrick said so directly.
“I think we all thought it was important internally that we do some stuff that the players are going to see and say, ‘Hey, management’s all-in here. They believe in us,’” Patrick said.
His captain read it the same way. Ovechkin, who led Washington with 32 goals and 64 points a year ago, said flatly that this group is built to win now.
“When you look at our roster, it’s a Stanley Cup contender.”
Spencer Carbery isn’t putting a number on it. His team went 43-30-9 for 95 points last season and finished three points behind Philadelphia for the last playoff spot in the East, a year after running away with the conference at 111 points.
“I think with the additions, there’s a lot of excitement and optimism around our team and now it’s on us to go out there and deliver,” Carbery said. “Whether the expectations are playoffs or contender, I’ll leave that for people to evaluate.”
Others are already evaluating. Washington drew 17 national TV windows on the 2026-27 schedule:
Two holes remain. Rasmus Sandin, one of the club’s better defensemen last season, is working back from April ACL surgery and probably won’t be available until January.
Carbery is also handing real jobs to a pair of 20-year-olds. Ilya Protas is lined up at third-line center and Cole Hutson is expected to hold down a spot on the blue line.
Camp opens in a few weeks, with Logan Thompson and Charlie Lindgren behind the deepest forward group Carbery has coached in Washington:
Patrick got his best-case offseason. The Capitals now have to turn it into the playoff spot they missed by three points.
