This Could Be A Crucial Off-Season For The Washington Capitals

For the fourth straight year the Washington Capitals have been eliminated from the playoffs in the first round. That is not good for any team. If you’re not a Stanley Cup contender and you get knocked out in the first round multiple years it likely means you’re a team stuck in the middle. Not a Cup contender, but not a bad team. Not making deep runs, but not getting high draft picks to help a potential rebuild.

For the past four season the Capitals have tried to tell us that this is a Stanley Cup contending team. On paper they are. On the ice at the most important time of the year they are clearly not.

Some of these playoff performances have been better than others. In 2019 vs Carolina you could argue Washington played three very good games and they won those games. The games they did not play great in they lost. The problem is they didn’t play great in four games and they lost that series. The bubble playoffs in Toronto were a disaster. The effort was better in 2021 vs the Bruins, but they were clearly the lesser team in that series as well.

This season vs. the Florida Panthers, the Capitals looked like the better team for a lot of the series. At one point the Capitals looked poised to go up 3-1 in the series and the way it was going to that point looked destined to knock off the Presidents’ Trophy winning team.

I don’t have to tell you how things went after that. We all know where we are now. About a week later the Capitals are sitting at home waiting for next season as eight other teams get ready to start the second round of the playoffs. The Capitals and their management now look forward to the off-season, other teams still have dreams of winning the Cup in about a month.

That off-season for the Caps management could be a massive one when it comes to the near and long term future of this franchise. For a team that has had Stanley Cup ambitions and falling incredibly short for four straight seasons what in the world do you do?

Do you continue to try to win with the veterans on this team? Do you continue with ages like 36, 34, 35, 33 and 32? Those guys being Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, T.J. Oshie, Lars Eller and John Carlson. It is potentially very dangerous to continue chasing with aging players, trust me as someone who watched that happen on another team.

All that happens when you do that is toil in mediocrity for years. Maybe you sneak into the playoffs, likely you will miss the dance completely but still not get high draft picks.

If the Capitals do decide to “run it back” with this group they are gambling on every one of these veterans to stay steady in terms of production. That could happen, could just as easily not as well. They are also hoping and praying that all of these aging players remain healthy too. That one seems less likely.

We could possibly already be seeing two of those key players starting to wear down on us. T.J. Oshie missed 38 games this past season and apparently was still not healthy in the playoffs. Nicklas Backstrom on the other hand has had hip problems and that has started to cause some real concern among Capitals followers. The word retirement has even been thrown around. I’m not saying expect that to happen, I highly doubt it would, but that is not a good sign for a 34-year-old hockey player.

What’s the other option? Rebuild is the obvious answer. If it is not a full rebuild it would have to be a pretty severe retool.

The Capitals will have to stick with these players and hope everything works out well or be forced to part ways with some long time and fan favorite Caps.

But who?

Ovechkin will never go anywhere. He really should be the only untouchable but I fear loyalty will probably end up hurting this franchise and they may hold on to some players for too long. Again, this is a fan speaking from experience. A fan of a great team that held on too long and now don’t have much hope going forward.

Here is the downside though. If the Capitals do decide to do a rebuild or retool, how does that affect the captain? If the Caps wanted to trade or part ways with some veterans and friends of Ovechkin, would he want to stay? Would he sign up for a down season or two knowing he doesn’t have much time left?

Ovechkin doesn’t seem like a guy who would demand a trade from the Capitals. He could retire from the NHL though, go home and abandon chasing Gretzky. Would that be out of the question if Capitals management decided to make a move or two that looked more to the future?

The more and more I think about it, the more it seems the Capitals are boxed in here. It seems like the Caps will be forced to keep going with aging and potentially breaking vets even though it seems smarter to try to move some of them and get younger.

If the Caps do stay the course, can you see them making a run vs younger teams in the next couple of years? Can this aging team beat the Hurricanes? What about the Rangers who are young and just beat the Penguins in round one? You would think they are only going to get better in the coming years. A lot of the Panthers best players are in their prime years. You just lost to that team. Can you beat them in the next couple of years? Toronto is a terrific team. I know they cannot get past the first round either, but this year they looked great in the playoffs, unfortunately they had to play an insane Lightning team. Can you expect to beat the Leafs or Lightning in the next year or two?

I expect the Capitals will try to hold on. Owner Ted Leonsis has already said as much essentially.

No matter what the Caps do, this off-season seems like it could be crucial for this franchise. It could signal the end of one era, or the beginning of the end at least. Or they could try their hardest to hold on while their stars get older and other teams get younger and better.

In the future we could look back at the 2022 off-season and say that was the off-season where things changed, either for the better or for the worse. It should be an off-season filled with very, very difficult decisions and I think we all should be grateful that it is not us that has to make these calls.