The daily lead story on HockeyHotStove is powered by Benevolent Bakery, by SoShel beverages and by Smokiez vegan fruit choice, dedicated to quality and consumer education. Today’s topic: Capitals strong finish falls short.
While the Washington Capitals ended up going 11-5-2 after the trade deadline, their playoff hopes officially expired on Monday. The Philadelphia Flyers’ shootout win over the Carolina Hurricanes Monday night clinched third place in the Metro Division.
While some will point to a thin Hurricanes lineup being the cause of their early vacation, in reality, the seeds of this year’s disappointing campaign can be traced back to last summer.
As the free-agent market opened last July 1, Washington put themselves in the market for a Top 6 forward to bolster the team’s scoring, but weren’t able to land a scorer via trade, and so put the onus on landing one in season.
The Capitals even held cap space open up until the trade deadline, and despite injuries to Pierre-Luc Dubois and Ryan Leonard and with a team struggling to score in December in January, only some minor call-ups were utilized to try and right the ship.
Even up to the trade deadline, Washington remained largely inactive, and instead of trying to get a Top 6, the ended up shipping John Carlson and Nic Dowd out of town, and really while the Capitals played decent hockey, the team just wasn’t good enough to erase the deficit that kept them out of a playoff spot since mid-January.
Capitals made a late push
The arrivals of Cole Hutson and Ilya Protas helped the post-deadline push, and the question is why the latter wasn’t called up earlier when the team was thin on offense and the front office unwilling to make a deal.
The Capitals just didn’t get the roster they needed to overcome the injuries to forward, and the strange trade deadline moves just sapped the team enough in terms of defensive play and delivered a tough blow to the locker room that they couldn’t quite overcome.
So, now, the Capitals will have some questions to answer this offseason.
Decisions loom for Capitals
First of all, while Alex Ovechkin left his future up in the air, it’s important to remember he really can’t commit to another season without a contract in place. Certainly, what Capitals General Manager Chris Patrick does this off-season will play a lot in if Ovechkin returns to the only franchise he has played for, but when offered a chance to shake hands with the Pittsburgh Penguins Sunday – Ovechkin’s trademark farewell utilized with Marc-Andre Fleury last year and Anze Kopitar this year – he declined, and clearly did not tip his hand towards retirement.
Most likely, Ovechkin will be back, as his 32 goals are tied with former Capital Anthony Mantha for most among pending unrestricted free agents, and is also the team’s leading point-getter, so would require Patrick to acquire two Top 6, which certainly would be a very expensive prospect.
Washington also needs to go out and actually land a Top 6, as while Protas has been a nice addition, clearly, the team’s thin forward corps couldn’t survive Dubois’ lengthy absence. The team was already thin at center, and missing their top one for half the season just was something the team never addressed and could not overcome.
Defensively, shipping off John Carlson seemed to be a move for the future, but also really the remaining defensive corps had a tough time filling in his minutes. Hutson coming in certainly helped a struggling power play, but he isn’t the type of minutes-eating defenseman the Caps needed down the stretch. Too many post-deadline games the blueliners were scrambling and needed offense, or their goaltending to bail them out.
Speaking of the net, with Logan Thompson playing all but two of the post-deadline games, it figures that Charlie Lindgren may be playing elsewhere next season, especially with the emergence of Clay Stevenson in Hershey. Stevenson was reportedly a waiver-wire target this season, and it seems unlikely he would pass waivers again next season, so he probably gets a backup role while Lindgren ends up traded elsewhere.
Opportunities missed
Despite the strong start and strong finish to the 2025-26 season, Washington’s December and January, coupled with inactivity from the front office to address glaring needs, left fans and players lacking this season. Had Washington made an attempt to fix issues known to the club, it would have been a bit more acceptable to punt the season, but clearing players without an attempt to fix the issues certainly won’t go down as Patrick’s finest work.
Washington got several chances down the stretch to recover from bad losses seemingly putting them out of the playoff hunt, but even though they recovered a few times, their luck finally ran out Monday.
And, the points left on the table with the lack of action as well as some tough losses down the stretch are enough to keep what probably should have been a playoff team shut out of the postseason party.
Home › Forums › Capitals’ 2025-26 Season Left Lots on the Table