Washington Capitals News: Jakob Chychrun officially joins team at informal skates

The Washington Capitals continued to put in work at their informal skates at MedStar Capitals Iceplex as Jakob Chychrun was the latest player to skate with the group. He was in high spirits joining his new team at informal workouts with training camp set to kick off in mid September.

Sammi Silber of The Hockey News wrote about the Florida native who turned 26 in March had 14 goals and 27 assists for 41 points with the Ottawa Senators and he's looking to improve on those numbers with his new team. He started out in Arizona for seven years then spent two years in Ottawa.

The defenseman joins Dylan Strome, John Carlson, Matt Roy, Pierre-Luc Dubois, Logan Thompson, Alex Alexeyev and many more for the on ice sessions and it's another way for him to prepare as he trained all summer for the season.

To begin the summer he attended an open skate in Sarnia playing junior hockey for the sting for two years and other than that kept busy with off ice workouts. He was acquired on the opening day of free agency in exchange for Nick Jensen, who was also at informal skates for the Caps earlier in the summer.

Chychurn is part of the roster overhaul of the Brian MacLellan era which saw the Caps turn over nearly a third of their team. In addition the team also signed defenseman Matt Roy to further bolster the defense but Chychrun is expected to possibly suit up next to John Carlson of course depending on the long term defenseman's health.

He will also give the defense the offense that they need and many expect him to get some play on the power play as well. He's listed at six foot two and 205 pounds and this season will also determine whether Chychrun stays on the team long term as he becomes an unrestricted free agent at the end of the season but could end up as a core piece of the team's future going forward.

In other news the Caps prospect pool improved from 21st last year to 19th this year with some key players like Ryan Leonard, Andrew Cristall and Ivan Miroshnichenko contributing. Steven Ellis of The Daily Fac-eoff writes this:

"Right now, the Capitals' pipeline is in an interesting spot. There's some quality talent on the high end of the spectrum, with Ryan Leonard in the upper echelon of the prospect world. I really like Andrew Cristall, too. There's some decent depth throughout, even after Hendrix Lapierre graduated out of prospect status after playing more than 50 games this season. I also like Clay Stevenson and Hunter Shepard, two goaltenders who looked good in the minors last year. I do think Washington's top three prospects, especially Leonard, are doing a lot of the heavy lifting here, though.