- Capitals center Nic Dowd told reporters including NHL.com’s Tom Gulitti (Twitter link) that he was playing through a couple of injuries and a decision about whether he’ll need surgery will be made within the next couple of weeks. Despite playing through the injuries at the end, the 32-year-old had a career year this season, setting new benchmarks in goals (13) and points (25) despite missing 17 games due to other injuries. Dowd has two years left on his contract with a $1.3MM AAV.
Capitals Rumors
Washington Capitals, Peter Laviolette Agree To Part Ways
The Washington Capitals and head coach Peter Laviolette have mutually agreed to part ways, per a team announcement. Laviolette’s contract was set to expire on June 30th.
Capitals general manager Brian MacLellan issued the following statement regarding Laviolette’s departure:
We are grateful for Peter’s leadership and dedication to our organization for the last three seasons. Peter is a first-class individual who has represented our club with integrity and guided our team through many difficult circumstances in his tenure as our head coach. We wish him all the best moving forward.
Laviolette, 58, has guided the Capitals for the last three seasons, posting a 115-78-27 record along the way. Laviolette was hired by the Capitals after former coach Todd Reirden’s two-year tenure. The Capitals had declined since their 2018 Stanley Cup championship under Reirden, and the organization wanted to go with a bench boss with more experience to lead a resurgence.
The 2020-21 season went relatively well for Laviolette. He helped the Capitals navigate the difficulties presented by the COVID-19 pandemic and led them to a 36-15-5 record, which ranked them second in the MassMutual East Division.
His Capitals fell in the first round of the playoffs, though, and the main culprit responsible for the team’s demise was largely considered to be unreliable goaltending.
An inability to get reliable play in the crease plagued Laviolette’s second year in Washington to an even greater degree than his first. The player who started the most games for that Capitals team, Ilya Samsonov, posted a .896 save percentage and ultimately did not receive a qualifying offer in the summer. The other, Vitek Vanecek, posted a .908 save percentage but only played twice in the team’s first-round loss to the Florida Panthers, and ended up shipped to the New Jersey Devils in the offseason.
This year, significant injuries to key contributors such as John Carlson, Nicklas Backstrom, and Tom Wilson presented a significant challenge for Laviolette, and the Capitals ultimately did not have the organizational depth to cope with the extended absences of those franchise pillars.
With Alex Ovechkin chasing down Wayne Gretzky’s all-time goals record and the club desperately seeking a first and now second Stanley Cup championship, the Capitals’ front office has been operating with a win-now mentality for quite a while. While that win-now mentality ultimately fueled the team’s eight-year playoff streak, most understood that the bill would eventually need to be paid.
Eventually, it was believed, the lack of high-end prospects and the depleting pipeline of talent between Washington and their AHL affiliate, the Hershey Bears, would come back to bite the Capitals. This season was the year where the cracks in the foundation of the Capitals’ organization seemed to finally show, and prompted MacLellan and the team’s front office to make a pivot in terms of priorities.
As long as Ovechkin is chasing Gretzky’s record, a traditional rebuild is surely off the table. But what MacLellan did this season showed that the organization would prioritize acquiring NHL-ready young talent. He flipped the first-rounder he acquired from Dmitry Orlov to acquire Rasmus Sandin, a 23-year-old blueliner who had an impressive 15 points in 19 games after the deal.
It seems the Capitals’ priority is now infusing the team with younger players, and affording those young players the types of on-ice opportunities that might be reserved for veterans in seasons of true Stanley Cup contention.
For Laviolette, that new organizational priority is likely not what he signed up for, and as a veteran head coach who happens to be the winningest American bench boss in NHL history, it’s unlikely that he’d be the best fit for a developmentally-minded Capitals organization moving forward.
So with his contract set to expire and the Capitals headed in a new, more youth-focused direction, Laviolette’s exit from Washington is far from a surprise. The 2006 Stanley Cup champion ultimately didn’t accomplish what he was brought into Washington to do — deliver more playoff success than the team had under Reirden — but he nonetheless deserves commendation for leading the franchise through some significant challenges. He’s likely to be a top name on the offseason coaching market, should he want to immediately jump back into a new job.
Photos courtesy of USA Today Sports Images
Capitals Reassign Aliaksei Protas, Two Others
- The Washington Capitals have reassigned forwards Aliaksei Protas, Joe Snively, and Beck Malenstyn to the Hershey Bears. Hershey is gearing up for what they hope will be a long Calder Cup playoff run, and both Snively and Protas will likely be counted-on scorers for head coach Todd Nelson. Additionally, the Capitals reassigned prospect Alexander Suzdalev to Hershey from the WHL’s Regina Pats, whose reason recently ended. The 2022 70th overall pick scored 38 goals and 86 points this season playing alongside expected 2023 number-one pick Connor Bedard.
Washington Capitals Reassign Henrik Borgstrom
April 13: Borgstrom has been returned to the AHL after making his season debut and seeing just eight minutes of ice time.
April 11: The Washington Capitals have recalled forward Henrik Borgstrom from the AHL’s Hershey Bears, the team announced Tuesday.
Borgstrom joins the Capitals due to a rash of injuries as their season draws to a disappointing close. T.J. Oshie, Nic Dowd, Trevor van Riemsdyk, and Anthony Mantha will stay out of the lineup tonight against the Boston Bruins, per head coach Peter Laviolette. Alex Ovechkin will also sit out of the lineup, not traveling with the team due to an upper-body injury. He remains day-to-day.
With just a few days left on the 2022-23 regular season calendar, this is Borgstrom’s first recall since clearing waivers at the beginning of the year. The 25-year-old signed a one-year deal with Washington in free agency after the Chicago Blackhawks did not issue him a qualifying offer.
He’s recorded 21 points (eight goals, 13 assists) in 54 games with Hershey this season, disappointing production for the 2016 23rd overall pick. The 6-foot-3, 199-pound forward had seven points in 52 games as a full-time Blackhawk last year.
Borgstrom’s offensive production has trailed off since leaving the University of Denver in 2018, where he recorded 52 points in 40 games during his sophomore campaign. He’s managed just over 100 NHL games since then, failing to make any notable impact.
Washington Capitals Sign Reid Cooper To ATO
Another NHL organization will have an amateur goalie on the bench tonight, as the Washington Capitals have signed Reid Cooper to an amateur tryout agreement. Cooper will serve as the backup against the New Jersey Devils after Charlie Lindgren suffered an injury and is unavailable.
Cooper, 24, has played the last two seasons at Curry College, a Division III school in Massachusetts. Before that, he was the backup at Robert Morris for three seasons and played in the BCHL.
He was outstanding for the Colonels in 2022-23, posting a 20-6-1 record and .935 save percentage, taking home the CCC Goaltender of the Year trophy.
Thanks to several injuries, the Capitals already have three emergency exemptions on the roster to finish the year. The club is pushed right up against the salary cap ceiling but will miss the playoffs for the first time since 2014 and for just the second time since 2007.
As ATO goaltenders become more prevalent, there will likely be some discussion between the NHLPA and NHL on potential exemptions. The league doesn’t want amateurs playing regular season games, especially with playoff seeding on the line.
With the Devils just one point behind the Carolina Hurricanes for the top spot in the Eastern Conference, it would be rather embarrassing to see Cooper forced into the net to try and hold off New Jersey’s attack.
Capitals Notes: Laviolette, Oshie, Sheary, Smith
Tarik El-Bashir of The Athletic is reporting that the Washington Capitals are preparing for a potentially big offseason in which a lot of personnel decisions will need to be made. The Capitals missed the playoffs for the first time since the 2013-14 season and while much of their 2018 Stanley Cup championship roster has moved on, some very important pieces remain.
El-Bashir reports that there is no update on the status of head coach Peter Laviolette. The veteran coach is a free agent at the end of this season and would still be in demand should he or the Capitals elect to part ways and start fresh next season. It is believed that Laviolette still has the support of many of the veterans in the Washington dressing room, but the recent stretch of games would give anyone pause as the Capitals have seemed indifferent at times. Laviolette is in his third season as the Capitals head coach and is the eighth winningest coach in NHL history. The 58-year-old has led three different organizations to the Stanley Cup final in his career, including a Stanley Cup victory in 2005-06 with the Carolina Hurricanes. However, in Washington he hasn’t been able to get the Capitals back over the hump and out of the first round.
In other Washington notes:
- T.J. Oshie was shut down earlier this week with the same back injury that has caused him problems all season. Oshie missed a total of 22 games this year after dressing in just 44 games last season. El-Bashir writes in The Athletic that he is being told that Oshie shouldn’t require surgery on his ailing back and that he should be able to recover with rest and rehab. For his part the 36-year-old Oshie has seen his offensive production slide the last two seasons. He’s failed to reach 40 points two years in a row now after missing that number just once in the previous 12 seasons. Oshie can still score, evidenced by his 19 goals this season in 58 games, but Washington will be counting on him to stay healthy going forward, especially with two years left on his contract.
- El-Bashir also writes in The Athletic that he expects the Capitals to move on from Conor Sheary and Craig Smith. Sheary is in his third season with Washington and has been a good depth scoring option with 37 points in 80 games. His scoring is down from last year, but the 30-year-old two-time cup winner should find an NHL job for next season as a depth forward with speed who can chip in on offence.
- Craig Smith will also be looking for a new job this summer. The former Nashville Predator has seen his numbers fall off a cliff this season as he bounced between the Boston Bruins and Washington. The 2009 fourth round pick had topped 30 points in five straight seasons as a dependable third liner but hasn’t been able to duplicate that success this season. He is in the final year of a three-year contract he originally signed with Boston and will likely be forced to take a one-year deal around league minimum to secure an NHL job in 2023-24.
Hershey Bears Sign Dru Krebs
The Washington Capitals AHL affiliate Hershey Bears poached the WHL today as they announced the signing of Dru Krebs from the Medicine Hat Tigers to an amateur tryout agreement. This will be the second time the young blue liner has signed an ATO with Hershey, signing in April of last year but never receiving any playing time.
Krebs has spent the last four seasons for the Tigers, getting drafted 176th overall in the 2021 NHL Draft by the Capitals after his first season in major junior. This season, by far his best, saw Krebs rack up 41 points, 33 of those assists, in a total of 67 games played. He helped the Tigers secure a playoff spot for the first time throughout his junior career, but they were quickly swept in the opening round by the Winnipeg ICE.
Washington Capitals Recall Joe Snively
The Washington Capitals have recalled forward Joe Snively from their AHL affiliate, the Hershey Bears, according to a team announcement.
With three games left in the Capitals’ season and making the playoffs out of the picture, Snively now gets the chance to play in his first NHL game since March 14th, when he played 11 and a half minutes in a 5-3 loss to the New York Rangers.
NBC Sports Washington’s Matt Weyrich relays word from Capitals head coach Peter Laviolette that veteran forward T.J. Oshie is being shut down for the season, so it’s likely that this recall was made now that the possibility of Oshie returning to the lineup has been scuttled.
On the status of Oshie, Laviolette also said that he can’t at the moment give an “accurate answer” on whether Oshie’s injury will require surgery, but noted that it’s something that has bothered the 36-year-old for a while. Oshie is under contract through 2025 at a $5.75MM cap hit, and ranks third on the Capitals with 19 goals this season.
Snively, 27, first truly popped up on scout’s radars during his freshman season at Yale University, where he led the team with 28 points in 32 games and captured ECAC Rookie of the Year honors. Snively ended up having an illustrious collegiate career, finishing with 58 goals and 139 points in 129 games.
He was named an ECAC Second-Team All-Star as a junior and First-Team ECAC All-Star as a senior, and after wrapping up his NCAA career Snively signed with the Capitals, who play their home games about 25 miles away from Herndon, Virginia, where Snively is from.
After a hot nine-game start to his pro career and two more years developing in Hershey, Snively made his NHL debut last season. He played quite a bit above expectation, scoring four goals and seven points in 12 games.
He managed to give the middle of the Capitals’ lineup some life for the brief time he spent on their active roster, highlighted by a game against the Montreal Canadiens where he scored a goal on an impressive individual effort and finished with three points.
In March of last season, after the impressive February run he went on, the Capitals re-signed Snively to a two-year $800k AAV contract, which will expire at the end of next season. While he hasn’t made as much of an NHL impact this season (three points in nine games) he’s remained a quality AHL scorer and a reliable depth player. Over the past two AHL campaigns Snively has scored 63 points in 66 games, and has been a first-line winger for the Bears when healthy.
While there isn’t much left for the Capitals to play for this season, they can deal a blow to the playoff hopes of a division rival, the New York Islanders, by winning tonight. Now on their NHL roster, Snively will have a chance to help in the Capitals’ effort to do so.
Evening Notes: Ovechkin, Harrington, Hughes
Alex Ovechkin will miss the Washington Capitals game this evening according to a team release. The Capitals star goal scorer is listed as day-to-day with an upper-body injury. The 37-year-old winger has scored 42 goals and 74 points in 72 games this season, leading the team in scoring once again and reaching the 40-goal plateau for the 13th time in his illustrious NHL career.
The Capitals have already been eliminated from playoff contention in a disappointing season for the veteran team. They sit 13th in the Eastern Conference with 77 points in 78 games, but Ovechkin continues to chase history. He has scored 822 goals in his career, which puts him 74 back of Wayne Gretzky for most goals in NHL history.
- Anaheim Ducks defenseman Scott Harrington will miss tonight’s game with an upper-body injury, per a team statement. The 30 year old has played 45 games this season with the Ducks, and has played over 20 minutes in each of the team’s past three games. The team did not give any further details other than to say Harrington would not play tonight.
- Luke Hughes, recently signed to an entry-level contract by the New Jersey Devils, will get some game action soon according to General Manager Tom Fitzgerald (twitter link). Hughes was drafted by the Devils fourth overall in the 2021 NHL Draft and just finished his second college season. The 19-year-old defenseman scored ten goals and 48 points in 39 games this season and will likely make his NHL debut in the coming days.
Decision On Laviolette Won't Come Right After Season, Ovechkin Questionable For Tonight
Once the regular season ends next week, don’t expect an immediate decision on Peter Laviolette’s future in Washington. In the latest TSN Insider Trading segment, Pierre LeBrun noted that the belief is that the Capitals will take their time to fully assess the situation while also allowing the veteran bench boss to have some time to ponder his future. The 58-year-old has spent the last three seasons with the Caps and his contract is set to expire so he’ll need to decide if he wants to stick around or see what might be available with another team. While this season has been a tough one, Washington still has a .588 points percentage during Laviolette’s tenure.
- Still with the Capitals, winger Alex Ovechkin is listed as a game-time decision due to an upper-body injury, relays NHL.com’s Tom Gulitti (Twitter link). The 37-year-old already has reached the 40-goal mark for the 13th time in his career to help him lead the team in scoring with 74 points in 72 games. Meanwhile, winger Anthony Mantha will miss his second straight contest due to a lower-body injury that also kept him out of Thursday’s game in Montreal.