Alex Ovechkin became the fresh face of the franchise for the Washington Capitals more than two decades ago when they selected the big, skilled Russian winger with the first pick in the 2004 NHL draft.
He's now 40 and nearing the end of his 21st season with them. He hoisted the Stanley Cup as playoff MVP in 2018 and last year passed Wayne Gretzky as the league's career goal-scoring leader.
Ovechkin has yet to say whether this is it or if he wants to play
again in 2026-27, so the front office is planning for either contingency. While doing so, Washington is ushering in a youth movement on the fly, with the trade of 36-year-old organizational cornerstone John Carlson the latest step in turning the page on a generation of players responsible for not only a championship but 16 playoff appearances in 18 seasons.
Gone are longtime No. 1 center Nicklas Backstrom, do-it-all winger T.J. Oshie, goaltender Braden Holtby and now Carlson, who has been the team's top defenseman almost from the time he made his debut.
“They’re these guys (who go from) sometimes they don’t even have a shaving kit to getting married and having families and having the careers that they’re having,” assistant general manager Ross Mahoney said in a phone interview. “Things don’t last forever.”
The Capitals have done something rare in the NHL since the salary cap era began in 2005: replenish talent while consistently contending. Brian MacLellan, the general manager from 2014-24, and successor Chris Patrick have simultaneously bought and sold at times and made some shrewd offseason trades and free agent signings along the way.
The result is a new core of players in their mid-to-late 20s and early 30s, all signed through at least 2029: goalie Logan Thompson, defensemen Jakob Chychrun, Matt Roy and Martin Fehervary, and forwards Dylan Strome, Pierre-Luc Dubois, Aliaksei Protas and Tom Wilson, the latter of whom is likely to succeed Ovechkin as captain.
“That’s a pretty good starting point for a competitive team, a Stanley Cup-winning team,” Patrick said. “We just felt like going into the deadline, if we are going to make moves, we should make moves with that in mind — giving us assets that we can use to try to add impact players to this current group."
Sending Carlson to Anaheim less than 15 hours before the trade deadline made it a sad day for former teammates. He spent 17 years with the Capitals, so Ovechkin called it probably the toughest day of his career from a personal standpoint.
The first- and third-round picks the Capitals got in the trade were among the best returns any team received for a pending free agent rental player. That deal and trading mid-30s fourth-line center Nic Dowd to Vegas added to a stockpile of draft capital: 13 selections in the first three rounds over the next four years.
Some of those picks will be used and others dealt for immediate help. A fast-rising cap has reduced the pool of high-end free agents available on July 1 because teams have plenty of space to re-sign their best players, so the trade market has become the place to go for talent.
“There’s not as big a bucket to shop from this summer, so I think having assets that are tradeable is good," Patrick said. "Are those trades going to happen? I don’t know. We hope. There tend to be names that become available for some reason or another.”
The rare playoff misses and sell-offs have allowed Mahoney and his staff to infuse the organization with prospects from all over the world.
Already in the NHL are Ryan Leonard, the No. 8 pick in 2023, and fellow winger Ivan Miroshnichenko, a first-rounder the previous year. Defenseman Cole Hutson, selected 43rd in ‘24 is joining them this week after signing his entry-level contract Sunday fresh off his college season at Boston University ending. Ilya Protas, a find at No. 75 in that same draft, is leading the American Hockey League’s Hershey Bears in scoring at the age of 19 and is close to following his older brother to Washington.
“I’m really happy with where we’re at,” said Mahoney, who been head of amateur scouting since 2000. “My guys have done a fantastic job of trying to kind of stockpile the shelves again.”
Protas, a 6-foot-5 center, might be able to slide into Dowd's old spot as soon as next season. Hutson is a dynamic, offensively minded right-handed shooter whose impending arrival in part paved the way for Carlson to go to the Ducks, because there's a succession plan in place.
"We felt a little bit more comfortable saying if we have to let a guy kind of towards the end of his career, in his mid-30s go, and could get good assets in return, hopefully we’re in a good spot,” Patrick said. “We won’t be right away, but within the next couple seasons hopefully we’re in a pretty good spot with where our younger guys have come.”
Mahoney, as he did in the late 2000s when the likes of Ovechkin, Backstrom, Mike Green and Alexander Semin were 20 and 21, would love to “speed up the clock” and fast-forward this next crop of prospects to being NHL ready. He knows that's not possible, acknowledging, “You’ve got to be patient and let it evolve.”
And yet the expectation still is to win now — and whenever Ovechkin hangs up his skates. The Capitals are confident the players who have studied under him will keep the positive culture going and trust that management will keep making moves to supplement the core already in place.
“No one can replace Alex Ovechkin and what he brings to a team,” Patrick said. “Those guys, they just want to know that we’re going to be a competitive team and when it’s time to push the chips in, we will."
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