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Washington Capitals are setting the new NHL standard
Photo credit: NHL
The Washington Capitals finished the 2023-24 season with the second playoff wildcard spot in the Eastern Conference. Only one year later, the team finished first. In the summer of 2024, the Capitals would eventually tweak their roster, overhauling one-third of their players, setting a new standard for how to improve a team on the fly.
According to Pierre Lebrun of The Athletic, with fewer teams expecting to sell in this offseason, General Managers want to improve by following on the Washington Capitals' footsteps.
"It seems that teams that need to get younger," Lebrun wrote, "are looking at the fantastic re-tool the Washington Capitals pulled off...teams are deciding that's the model they want to follow."
Capitals GM Chris Patrick and President of Hockey Operations Brian MacLellan acquired Pierre-Luc Dubois, Jakob Chychrun, Andrew Mangiapane, and Logan Thompson, then signed Brandon Duhaime, Taylor Raddysh and Matt Roy. That is a lot of new faces in a short period of time.
The breakout of young players Aliaksei Protas and Connor McMichael, Ovechkin's GR8 Chase, and Caps' overhaul in personnel, all under the leadership of head coach Spencer Carbery, led the team to the top of the Eastern Conference standings.
This summer, however, looks to be a lot quieter, though Caps do expect to find a 3rd-line center solution, a skilled winger, and get younger in the process.
"I think we're willing to be aggressive, but our goal, as within the last two years, is to get younger," MacLellan said. "We're transitioning from a mature, older team...We're going to inject a bunch of prospects into Hershey next year that we're pretty excited about. But over the next two years we're going to be adding young guys, and hopefully we can compliment it with a good transaction or two in free agency or the trade market."
So far, the re-tool model seems to be working for the Caps, as the team looks to be getting younger and faster, with excellent prospects also looking to impress and crack the lineup.
| POLL | ||
JUIN 14 | 24 ANSWERS Washington Capitals are setting the new NHL standard Do you believe the re-tool on the fly model is preferable to the standard rebuild-over -several- seasons model? | ||
| Yes | 21 | 87.5 % |
| No | 3 | 12.5 % |
| List of polls | ||
