Better luck next year: The Washington Capitals should take a big swing this offseason

They missed the playoffs, but I would not let that discourage me from going after a star.

Welcome back to Better Luck Next Year, a series that will focus on each team as they get eliminated from Stanley Cup Playoff contention and the Stanley Cup Playoffs. What went wrong, why it went wrong, what (if anything) went right, and what is next. We continue today with the Washington Capitals.

It has been a pretty wild four-year run for the Washington Capitals.

A quick recap:

• During the 2022-23 season they finished with 35 wins and only 80 points, making it their worst season since Alex Ovechkin’s first two years in the league. If you are keeping score at home, that was nearly two decades ago.

• The next year they bounced back, somewhat slightly, and ended up getting back to the playoffs with what was arguably the worst playoff team of the salary cap era. Maybe even further back than that. They had just 91 points, were outscored by a staggering 37 goals and did not do anything even reasonably well or above the league average. It was, for the most part, a fluke to end up in the playoffs. It was a classic case of “good results, bad process.” They were unceremoniously swept out of the first round. As they should have been.

• To the front office’s credit, they knew the season was a fluke, and instead of just sitting back and hoping for it to repeat itself, they went wild the following offseason and completely overhauled the roster by adding Pierre-Luc Dubois, Jakob Chychrun, Matt Roy, Logan Thompson and Andrew Mangiapane. Combined with some emerging young talent in the organization, a full season of Rasmus Sandin after acquiring him at the previous trade deadline, as well as some holdovers from the previous championship core (specifically Alex Ovechkin, Tom Wilson and John Carlson) they came back the next year (last year), won 51 games, finished with the second-best record in the NHL and made it to the second round of the playoffs. It also didn’t seem to be anything flukey with strong underlying numbers, a solid 5-on-5 performance and excellent goaltending from Thompson. It was an objectively good team across the board. A really good team.

• That created reasonably high expectations for this season, only to watch them fall short and take a small step backwards. But was it? I mean, yeah, objectively it was. They won fewer games, had fewer points, and missed the playoffs while trading several veterans at the deadline, including Carlson. But they still won 43 games and finished with 95 points. In most years 95 points is a secure spot in the playoffs. They won more games and had more points than they did in their playoff year two years ago. Even more than that, they are the only team with at least 43 wins and at least nine overtime/shootout losses to miss the playoffs in the salary cap era. They are the only team in the salary cap era to have a goal differential of plus-23 or better and miss the playoffs. They are one of just eight teams with at least 95 points to miss the playoffs in the salary cap era. The team two years ago probably shouldn’t have been a playoff team. This team probably should have been a playoff team.

This team had a lot going for it. It won a lot. It had solid underlying numbers. It had a good mix of veterans still performing at a high level and young players starting to emerge.

It is easy to look at a team with an older core (in some places), coming off a non-playoff season where it finished in the middle of the standings, and say that it needs to dramatically rebuild and tear it all down.

I am not sure that is the case here.

Especially when you look at why this team ultimately failed and what it still does well. It was not a hopeless situation. It is not a hopeless situation going into the offseason.

It does need to take care of a couple of things this offseason, and it does need to make one big addition.

Given the salary cap flexibility, the young players in the organization, and the draft pick capital at their disposal this is a team that should be willing to take a big swing in the trade market.

Let’s talk about it.

What went right this season