Labor Day in nearly upon us. The calendar flipping to September next Monday. The Washington Capitals will be back in action just three weeks from Sunday to open their preseason in Boston.
This has been a very quiet offseason for Washington as well as many other teams. Now it’s time to ask what is in store for fans this coming cam paign. What’s the encore to Alex Ovechkin’s record-breaking season and the Caps’ surprising run to top of the Eastern Conference standings? Those will be tough match.
Let’s take a shot at answering some of the top questions before the long and winding 2025-26 journey.
Capitals Question 1: Is this is for Ovechkin?
We’ve already had a few false starts about Alex Ovechkin’s future plans already this summer. His five-year contract expires at the end of the 2024-25 season. There’s been no real indication if Washington’s captain will elect to head back to Moscow Dynamo after this season. Likewise, there’s no sense if he will sign at least a one-year extension to remain in the NHL.
Ovechkin turns 40 on September 17, and certainly has defied time so far, notching 44 goals in 65 games last season despite suffering a broken leg in November. Ovechkin has spent more than half his life as a Washington Capital now, and while at some point it will end with him heading back home, the question now becomes when.
The broadcast networks certainly seem to think him skating away from the NHL is a real possibility, as the Capitals leads the league this season with 18 nationally broadcast games, including the last five games on Washington’s regular-season schedule. Nearly a quarter of the team’s schedule will be available nationally, and all this coming minus the excitement of the chase of Wayne Gretzky’s record which dictated the large number of national games last season.
Even with that anticipated hype, should Ovechkin be as productive as he was last year and happy with his ice time that likely will drop somewhat as the record is behind him, and the team remains in contention for the Stanley Cup, the chances are he at least signs a one-year extension to remain in Washington.
Ovechkin’s numbers do likely drop as his ice time will be managed carefully. The Caps want to keep him fresher for what could be his final chance to win another Stanley Cup. The Gretzky scoring record chase proved draining. He couldn’t find the seams in the playoff series less to the Carolina Hurricanes.
Let’s assume Ovechkin is satisfied with his 2025-26 production. We’ll also suppose that he remains healthy. Lastly, we’ll say the Capitals appear to have a potential Stanley Cup window. Under these circumstances, it’s hard to envision Ovechkin simply walking away next summer.
On the flip side, what happens if Ovechkin shows signs of slowing down. What if the Capitals notably regress? The likely answer: it’s his NHL swan song.
The tricky part: What if the reality is somewhere in between the best-case and worst-case scenarios? Speculation will follow the team from city to city. The local press will wonder aloud if this could be the NHL’s leading goal-scorer’s last visit.
Bottom line: Until the star himself says otherwise, anything is on the table.
Question 2: How will Ryan Leonard do in his first full season?
Washington 2023 first-round pick Ryan Leonard came into the NHL in April with a lot of expectations on his shoulders. The team heades to the playoffs with hopes the youngster could make an immediate impact.
The forward struggled to get up to speed upon arrival. He faced steep adjustments from college to NHL hockey. He ended up with just a single goal – an empty-netter – and one helper in 17 games with the Capitals. His presence, overall, was a non-factor for the team.
It was a difficult ask of Leonard. Even in his short NHL stint, he played nearly half the number of games he did in Boston College’s full season (37 games). The NHL schedule pace far exceeds the workload in the NCAA. That’s true even with World Junior Championships added to the mix.
Leonard seemed fatigued. He played 44 games with the Eagles and the gold-medal winning U.S. WJC team. Right after that, he suited up in 17 NHL games. Bottom lineL fans didn’t see the best of Leonard’s game in his first days in Washington.
But after a summer to adjust to pro hockey and having a full camp with Washington ahead, it’s expected that the Leonard fans expected when he arrived will be more present this season, as he will get more acclimated to both the speed of the game and more hectic pace of the schedule.
While Leonard spent the 2024-25 chasing a Frozen Four title at BC, it may have helped him and the Capitals more had he made the jump at the end of last year, when there was a little more room for a player with training wheels with trying to just squeak in the playoffs rather than one who was trying to get up to speed during a team with legitimate Stanley Cup hopes. But the Capitals wanted to make sure they signed the Hobey Baker finalist and badly wanted him in a Washington sweater for over a year, they had little choice to sign him once he wanted to jump, and they did so.
With his college career behind him and now that it’s a fresh season, it will be more time for him to use the learning curve in the dog days of November and December to adjust properly rather in the pressure cooker of the playoffs.
Expect a Leonard more matching expectations this year rather than the player who at times looked overmatched last season. The talent is certainly there, it will just take time to match the speed and workload.
Question 3: Who is this year’s Leonard for the Capitals?
As last season marked the waiting period for a key piece to the team’s offense to arrive, this season will be waiting for a dynamic addition to his year’s defense.
Cole Hutson decided to return to Boston University this season after a very strong freshman year with the Terriers last season, as he scored 14 goals and 34 assists in 39 games in a season that ended just a win short of a national championship.
Hutson is in a bit different situation than Leonard was last year, as the path to the NHL will clear more at the end of this season than had he wanted to sign at the end of last year. With the Washington blueline fairly jammed before the Martin Fehervary injury in April , Hutson made the right move in waiting to make the jump to the NHL where he would have more time to get ready for the top level.
Hutson is a bit small for the blueline, but he does make up for it by almost playing as a fourth forward, not afraid to rush the puck up ice and create offense. One of the interesting adjustments may be how much Washington will allow him create the rush into the play as much as he does on college, but certainly he has skill level to do so and should get the green light to skate up ice.
And, as his brother Lane showed in his Calder Trophy-winning season in Montreal last year, a player of a similar size and skill set should be good enough to allow him to do as long as you pair him with a responsible defenseman who can cover if the rush turns the other way.
And, after this season, there will be more openings on the back end as both John Carlson and Trevor van Reimsdyk are slated to become UFAs next summer, and so the timing will be right in April to begin his NHL career with the Capitals, and adding a dynamic puck-rusher for the future.
Question 4: How will the Capitals use that rare cap space?
Washington had a much quieter offseason compared to a year ago, but they certainly weren’t alone, as the rise in the salary cap allowed most teams to hang on to their players they may have had to make a difficult choice had they had in a tighter cap world.
After a 2024-25 where total salary spending exceeded $100 million for Washington with roster players and LTIR contracts, as of this year’s camp, the Capitals enter with $4.13 million in space per PuckPedia.com, which is right about the middle of the pack in terms of other NHL teams.
Gone are the overages of Nicklas Backstrom and T.J. Oshie. This summer, the only question mark health-wise is where Sonny Milano’s $1.9 million deal fits in the big picture. Milano, who missed almost all of last year with an injury but is working back to trying to get a roster spot again, is a UFA after this season and may have a harder time making the roster this year with a deeper team than when he arrived three years ago and was a bottom six regular.
Washington also didn’t need to add players this past summer to make themselves a playoff team, as they likely felt more urgency to add last summer to try and make it back to the tournament. This year, they didn’t feel the need for major changes to qualify for the playoffs was needed, and with the goal of a Stanley Cup in sight, they felt a little more patient to see how this team develops before making a swing for the fences later in the year if needed.
Should Washington not use their space on any last-minute trades of teams needing to shed cap space before the regular season begins, look for the Capitals to be a bigger player at the deadline than in years past – particulary should it seem like Ovechkin would just have one more shot at the Cup and they could use to load up on rentals for one last run to try and close the gap with the contenders.
Clearly the Capitals didn’t spend a lot in the offseason, but with the retirements of their two stars, the team is a lot more flexible cap-wise heading into this season, and that may come into play later in the season.
Question 5: So, just where do the Capitals end up?
After a suprising 111-point season and top seed in the East in 2024-25, it’s probably natural to expect that point total to dip a bit this year, simply for the reason that teams who pile up the points between October and April and don’t match those results the postseason tend to scale back a bit to save something in the tank for after Game 82 the following year. The Capitals looked absolutely spent by the second round last year, as between the Ovechkin chase and the strong regular season draining the energy needed to advance much further than they did.
However, this coming season, Washington should remain in contention to repeat as the Metropolitan Division regular-season champions, simply because there isn’t a lot of competition from the other contenders – the top contender being in the same boat as Washington.
Carolina certainly made a splash in the offseason, and after seven straight years of reaching at least the second round, the Hurricanes have nothing to prove in the regular season, other than to just be ready for the playoffs. The Rangers and Devils both stumbled badly last year and hope to rekindle the magic of seasons past, but it would take a big jump for either to win the division crown. And the rest of the division certainly doesn’t seem to be a threat to first place this season.
Barring a major rash of injuries, figure the Capitals will finish above 100 points, and in one of the top three slots in the Metro Division. It probably won’t be as solid a regular season, but likely a more consistent ones without the long stretches of good and poor play that saw the team look terrific one evening and like an also-ran the next.
Stanley Cup-wise, clearly while the Capitals have elements of a team who can make a run, including solid netminding and depth, they will probably need a bit more up front to battle teams like Carolina and Florida, as Washington is 0-for-3 against those two teams in the postseason, all coming in the years after Washington’s 2018 run. If Washington is close and doesn’t make any siginficant financial moves earlier, a strong push would be expected at the deadline to address holes in the roster or fill in injury needs wherever they arise.
Even though Capitals fans won’t have the Gretzky chase this year, it should be a stronger finish than last year as while Ovechkin gets one of his last runs at the Cup, the team also will have some younger players learning about making deeper runs in the playoffs.
