Washington Capitals: Top 3 reasons to be hopeful for the future

#1 Team believes the window is still open

In order to be hopeful for the future you have to have players that buy in and believe in the future. From the players to the front office, we do know that the team needs a retool but they haven’t reached that stage of needing a rebuild, at least not yet.

Capitals General Manager Brian MacLellan told the media at his end of season press conference via JJ Regan of NBC Sports Washington:

"“I don’t know that we’re at that stage where we need to rebuild. We made the decision here to bring back [Nicklas Backstrom] and to bring back [Alex Ovechkin], I don’t think that’s a rebuild situation when you’re doing that.”"

Caps head coach Peter Laviolette believes there’s still talent within the organization that can win another Stanley Cup:

"“I believe that this team can still win. I believe that we can win rounds in the playoffs. That’s what’s disappointing and frustrating for us, is that we didn’t get it done. We had an opportunity playing the Bruins, and the Bruins are still playing and we’re not. So everybody’s frustrated about that. There’s still a core here, you look at the production from some of the players, like T.J. Oshie had a really good year from a production standpoint, Nick Backstrom is still able to produce, John Carlson had a good year. Right through the lineup there was a lot of players, not all, but there was a lot of players who produced well.”"

It is highly likely the team will re-sign Ovechkin so him and Backstrom can run it back with most of the same group of guys that were left from the 2018 championship team. They knew how to win back then. So did Laviolette. Give it time. Hopefully one year from now, we’ll be talking better on the state of the team.