The Washington Capitals need to face the future while accommodating Alex Ovechkin’s record chase

The Washington Capitals snuck into the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs with just 91 points before being swept by the New York Rangers in the Eastern Conference quarterfinals. Not great, not terrible.

After a sluggish start to the year, Alex Ovechkin ended up with 31 goals and played an instrumental part in helping the Caps return to the postseason — only to go without a single point against the Rangers.

With very few remnants from the 2018 Stanley Cup team still on the roster and a new wave of young talent heading ashore (including Ryan Leonard, Hendrix Lapierre, and Connor McMichael), the Capitals appear to be on the verge of a seismic shift. But they won’t go all-in on the future until Ovechkin retires.

On Tuesday’s episode of Daily Faceoff Live, Frank Seravalli and Tyler Yaremchuk discussed what lies ahead for this retooling Capitals team.

Tyler Yaremchuk: What an interesting team to take a look at heading into the summer, because they don’t have a lot of key free agents. I mean, McMichael is an RFA, you’re gonna bring him back. Max Pacioretty … like, the point I’m making, they have a roster that barely made the playoffs, is getting older in a lot of key areas, and yet a lot of these guys are signed, and they don’t have a ton of cap space right now. What’s the plan this summer in Washington?

Frank Seravalli: Well, the plan is to continue to compete. I think they’re also now trying to do it in a really manageable way. They’re not going to be going out and trading young pieces to try and prop up this team in the short term. Brian MacLellan was really clear at the trade deadline that they’re looking toward the future, and the fact that they were able to make a late-season push with an historically low bar in the Eastern Conference and make the playoffs in Spencer Carbery’s first year was not only a tip of the cap to the job that Carbery did but really to how much that team competed in the second half of the year. They were left for dead at the deadline, and that was only in March. That team really willed itself toward the postseason, and it also gave us some proof that it’s not necessarily over yet for Alex Ovechkin. We know he’s going to get the goal-scoring record — the question in the chase is just simply, ‘When?’ How long will it take?

In the meantime, can you continue to hang in the mix? Because they’ve essentially made a promise to Alex Ovechkin that they’re gonna try and do that as long as they can, and they really need to, in my opinion, reshape their defense corps. John Carlson coming back after the significant period of time he missed one season prior was hugely important for that team. He transformed their ability to compete based on the way he plays, but they need more. They need more depth, they need more Rasmus Sandin-type players that fit that age profile and that scheme, to really help turn over this roster a bit more, and that’s where, even for a team that, at times, struggled to score, I think they should focus their attention.

Watch the full episode here: