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 defense. Washington traded Jensen and a third-round pick to the Ottawa Senators for Chychrun, who is in the final year of a contract paying him $4.6 million per season, 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 sent to the Senators by the Arizona Coyotes in March 2023. The time was right this offseason to get the deal 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 with 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.”
Roy and Chychrun expressed their excitement about the moves the Capitals made over the past 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 in the organization that they would need to add talent to the roster if they wanted to remain competitive.
MacLellan has used the phrase “threading a needle” to describe what he’s trying to do to retool the roster and stay competitive while not sacrificing the future in the process. So far this offseason, he has 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 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 their 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 an 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. … We are taking a lot of risks.”
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