If Alex Ovechkin was going to shatter Wayne Gretzky’s NHL career goals record as a member of the Washington Capitals, he had some conditions that needed to be met.

Before re-signing, Ovechkin told Capitals owner Ted Leonsis that he didn’t want to be “a third-line guy playing 8 to 10 minutes a game.” He didn’t want to be someone the team “trotted out on the power play” just to pad his goal totals, according to Leonsis.

Most of all, he didn’t want to play for a rebuilding team. Before signing a five-year contract extension in 2021, he asked Leonsis to promise him that the owner would keep the team competitive, that the Capitals would be the annual playoff contender they had been for most of Ovechkin’s career. In turn, he promised Leonsis that he’d stay in shape and that his eyes wouldn’t be fixated on breaking Gretzky’s record of 894 goals, but on bringing another Stanley Cup to Washington.

Leonsis promised him that the Capitals would not enter a rebuild if Ovechkin was still on the roster. “To me, a rebuild is when you look the players, the coaches, the fans in the eye and say we’re gonna be really, really bad. And if we were really, really bad, I don’t think Alex would break the record,” Leonsis told ESPN in 2022.

This season is the fourth year of Ovechkin’s contract extension.

It appears everyone has kept their promises.

The Capitals’ captain has smashed the scoring expectations for a 39-year-old player. He had the best goal-scoring start of his career, collecting 17 tallies in 20 games before a broken leg interrupted his season. With 21 goals in 30 games, he’s just 21 goals from becoming the NHL’s all-time goal-scoring leader.

Rather than ice a shambolic roster playing out Ovechkin’s record chase, Washington was the NHL’s best team after 46 games, compiling a .728 points percentage. The Capitals were a surprise playoff entrant under first-year coach Spencer Carbery last season. An aggressive offseason augmentation of that roster propelled them to the top of the league.

“There has to be an expectation that we’re going to win,” forward Tom Wilson said. “That’s a culture that’s been built. The new guys came in this year and complemented that.”

This isn’t how it usually works for teams that contend for a dozen seasons.

Look at the Chicago Blackhawks, who followed their dynastic run by tearing down the roster to the foundations in order to draft Connor Bedard and subsequently linger in the league’s basement. Look at the Pittsburgh Penguins — home to Ovechkin’s greatest rival Sidney Crosby — who have unsuccessfully surrounded a veteran core with whatever talent they can scrounge. Their goal was a fourth Stanley Cup in the Crosby era. The result has been prolonging the inevitable.

Since Ovechkin entered the NHL in 2005-06, the Capitals have the third-best points percentage as a team (.608) behind the Vegas Golden Knights and Boston Bruins. The Capitals won the Stanley Cup in 2018. If they had skated into hockey purgatory, waiting for Ovechkin to play out the string before transitioning to the next thing, it would have been understandable.

But that’s not what he wanted. That’s not what the Capitals wanted.

Instead, the present is potent and the future is bright in Washington. Here’s how they pulled it off.

OVER THE PAST 42 years, the Capitals have had four general managers. When David Poile left to join the expansion Nashville Predators in 1997, George McPhee was imported from Vancouver to become the next general manager. Since then, the line of succession has been internal: Brian MacLellan had been McPhee’s assistant GM when he was elevated to replace him when McPhee was fired in 2014. Chris Patrick was MacLellan’s assistant when he was elevated to replace him last offseason, with MacLellan moving up to president of hockey operations.

“It’s pretty similar to how we’ve interacted over the years. I’m just making more phone calls now and dealing with agents at the NHL level than I was before,” Patrick told ESPN. “I think what Mac does really well is understanding what a team’s needs are, how the team’s playing, what areas we need to address.”

Assistant general manager Ross Mahoney, team president Dick Patrick and Leonsis have been the other constants.

“We all put our time in, we all learned from our mistakes,” Mahoney said.

Mahoney believes there are three key areas for building a team: drafting and developing, signing free agents and making trades. He has seen teams master one or two of those tasks but struggle to succeed in all three facets. But this Capitals team has aced all three tests.

In July 2021, Ovechkin announced he had re-signed for five years ($47.5 million). He would be over 40 years old by the end of the deal. The majority of the team’s core — center Nicklas Backstrom, forward T.J. Oshie and defenseman John Carlson — were also signed long term, and not getting any younger.

“I think there was a recognition, probably around when we signed that deal with Ovi, that we were kind of moving to the next phase here,” Patrick recalled. “You just look at the history of the league and how guys perform as they age. Let’s be realistic and understand that we can’t just rely on [Ovechkin and Backstrom] to carry the team anymore. It’s not physically something they’re going to be able to do.”

The realization for Capitals management was that supporting Ovechkin’s record chase with a competitive team did not mean propping up the roster with veteran mercenaries until he retired.

“If there are opportunities to add players that are in their early 20s outside of the draft, we should be looking at those types of deals,” Patrick said. “It doesn’t feel like teams would ever trade guys like that, but it happens more than maybe you realize. You just have to make sure you’re kind of on those opportunities.”

Like when the Blackhawks didn’t tender Dylan Strome a qualifying offer in 2022, and the Capitals signed the 25-year-old center. He’s their leading scorer.

Like when the Toronto Maple Leafs traded 23-year-old defenseman Rasmus Sandin to Washington in 2023, as the Capitals flipped a first-round pick they acquired in sending Garnet Hathaway and Dmitry Orlov to the Bruins at the deadline. He has been a mainstay on the team’s second defensive pairing.

play

Dylan Strome nets goal for Capitals

Dylan Strome nets goal for Capitals

Washington added two more players like this with their biggest swings of the offseason: trading for 25-year-old Los Angeles Kings center Pierre-Luc Dubois and 26-year-old Ottawa Senators defenseman Jakob Chychrun.

Patrick cited Matthew Tkachuk as the kind of young player who could become available via trade; the star winger was available for the Florida Panthers in 2022. Though he’s not Matthew Tkachuk, the Chychrun trade was similar in that the Senators did not expect him to re-sign after this season. The Capitals pounced, sending defenseman Nick Jensen and a third-round pick to Ottawa for Chychrun, a top-pairing, puck-moving defenseman.

Through 41 games, Chychrun leads all Washington defensemen with 31 points.

The Dubois trade was one of the offseason’s most shocking moves. The Capitals acquired the disappointing center — and the remaining seven years of his contract with an $8.5 million annual cap hit — for goalie Darcy Kuemper in a one-for-one trade.

Acquired from Winnipeg to potentially ascend to the Kings’ No. 1 center spot after Anze Kopitar retired, Dubois was a massive disappointment in his first season in Los Angeles, finishing with 16 goals and 24 points in 82 games and skating to a minus-9. He continued to underwhelm in the Kings’ postseason loss to Edmonton, notching one goal and 20 penalty minutes in five games.

The Capitals were Dubois’ fourth NHL team in nine seasons — unusual for a third overall pick — having previously fallen out of favor in Columbus and Winnipeg. All of those teams were banking on his potential, enchanted by the brief flashes of its fulfillment.

That included the Capitals, who watched him step up in the 2018 playoffs with two goals, two assists and dominant play. “Every time he was on the ice it was like, ‘Oh my god, this guy again.’ He was such a handful and I don’t even think he was even 22 years old at the time,” Patrick said.

The Capitals tracked Dubois’ path from Columbus to Winnipeg. They tried trading for him in summer 2023 before the Jets sent him to Los Angeles. They got their man last offseason, with his stock the lowest it has been.

“He was playing behind two good centers in L.A. It seemed like he wasn’t getting the opportunities he needed to get,” Patrick said. “There was still a good player there, but he was too buried in the lineup.”

Tim Barnes, who has run the analytics department in Washington since 2014, had his group confirm that Dubois’ issue was mostly usage. The Capitals did their due diligence to make sure there weren’t other issues off the ice.

“You do the work on who he is as a person and in the room. From what we learned, he was a great teammate, hard worker, wants to get better, loves the game,” Patrick said. “It’s just the situation wasn’t great for him in L.A.”

But none of this would have mattered if their coach didn’t want him. There were plenty of reasons to be wary, from the long-term contract to his underwhelming play with the Kings.

“I think a lot of coaches would be like, ‘I don’t want that problem.’ But Carbs was open-minded about it. He did his work, he understood who the person was,” Patrick said. “Maybe some stuff that some coaches saw as negatives, Carbs didn’t mind them. He felt he could deal with it.”

Dubois has resurrected his career in D.C. with 36 points in 46 games, including 8 goals.

play

Pierre-Luc Dubois capitalizes on the power play

Pierre-Luc Dubois capitalizes on the power play

Goaltender Logan Thompson also falls into the “aggressive acquisition of players of a certain age” gambit. Thompson, 27, played parts of four seasons with the Golden Knights. Injuries to starter Adin Hill led to Thompson playing a career-high 46 games last season, posting a 25-14-5 record with nearly identical stats to Hill’s.

Vegas GM Kelly McCrimmon said Thompson requested a trade, and the Capitals swooped in with two third-round picks — including one acquired from Toronto in a deadline trade for defenseman Joel Edmundson.

The Capitals were comfortable with Thompson, who played with their ECHL affiliate in 2019-20 and had a good relationship with Washington goalie coach Scott Murray. Whatever went on with Thompson in Vegas, the Capitals weren’t concerned.

“I mean, that’s the biggest thing a lot of times in trades and free agency, just trying to get a sense for what the person’s like and what they’re like in the group and in the room,” Patrick said. “And so we felt like we had a pretty good feel for that.”

The Capitals have also been adept in finding players who are “maybe underappreciated in their roles with other teams” said Patrick, who points to center Nic Dowd and defenseman Trevor van Riemsdyk as examples. Defenseman Matt Roy was used a lot by the Kings, but has played an important role for Washington after he was signed as a free agent last summer.

All of these moves speak to a cap flexibility that the Capitals didn’t always anticipate. One of the primary differences between the Capitals’ resurgence and the Penguins’ fade is the composition of their respective cores. Pittsburgh has $30.9 million in cap space dedicated to Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang and Erik Karlsson — 35% of its cap space dedicated to four players.

The Capitals used to have a similar plight with Ovechkin ($9.5 million), defenseman John Carlson ($8 million), Backstrom ($9.2 million) and Oshie ($5.75 million). But Backstrom and Oshie are on long-term injured reserve this season. Backstrom returned from hip surgery to play just eight games last season before “stepping away from the game” last November. Oshie is expected to miss the entire season due to a chronic back injury.

Patrick said that if Backstrom could have returned, the Capitals would have welcomed him back and “gone in a different direction” with their offseason acquisitions.

“Maybe you still make that deal for Dubois and you just free up money somewhere else,” he said. “It’s all a little bit ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’: If something comes in front of you, then you figure out the next moves you’d have to make.”

Instead, the clarity Backstrom gave the Capitals last summer regarding his health “helped us understand where we could go in our decision-making process,” Patrick said.

TYING ALL OF THIS together is Carbery, 43, one of the most critical NHL coaching hires of the past several seasons.

After the Capitals defeated the Penguins on Jan. 18, Carbery was asked about his team being atop the NHL standings.

“I don’t really know how to answer that,” he said through a smile and a chuckle. “We feel good. I mean, we’re happy. The guys should be really proud where we are after 46 games. We’ll just continue to build and continue to grind.”

His tone was that of a coach who knows there’s a long road ahead, but Carbery’s Capitals have already come so far.

In 2023, Carbery was an assistant coach with the Maple Leafs, and generated a lot of buzz in the coaching market. The Capitals had parted ways with head coach Peter Laviolette after missing the playoffs. MacLellan coveted the young coach. Carbery, in turn, fancied the idea of coaching the Capitals after having coached their ECHL team in South Carolina for five seasons and the Hershey Bears for three seasons.

It took a bit for the Capitals to find an identity under Carbery last season. “We were very defensive. We weren’t scoring many goals as a team,” Carlson said. “When your team is not as offensive as in years past, we all have to change. We all have to find different ways. And I think it just took us longer.”

Last season, the Capitals were 28th in goals per game (2.63) and 16th in goals against (3.07). This season, they’re second in goals per game (3.57) and third in goals against (2.43).

Patrick has praised Carbery’s communication skills and his boldness — like in signing off on the Dubois deal, for example.

“I worked with him a lot in Hershey. I guess I didn’t have that appreciation for his willingness to go against the conventional coach thinking,” Patrick said.

“He’s a bright, intelligent guy who’s competitive. I think a really, really good communicator. I think Spencer’s as honest as they come. He will tell you what he expects of you. He will tell you what he wants,” Mahoney said. “He’s got the X and O’s and all that, but I think being able connect to all 23 players is not easy to do.”

Carbery is also young enough to be an effective coach for the NHL veterans as well as the next wave of prospects for the Capitals — who are another reason this retool has worked.

MAHONEY HAS RUN the Capitals’ draft for 27 years, first as director of amateur scouting and then as assistant general manager. The foundation of the Ovechkin Era has been built through the draft, starting with the Great 8 going first overall in 2004.

Since 2008, Ovechkin’s first trip to the postseason, the Capitals have missed the playoffs only twice. They’ve maintained that success without bleeding their prospect pipeline dry. Since 2008, there were only three drafts in which the Capitals didn’t make a first-round pick.

The Ovechkin Era was fostered by picks such as forwards Backstrom, Evgeny Kuznetsov, Marcus Johansson, Alex Semin and Wilson; defensemen Carlson, Mike Green, Dmitry Orlov and Karl Alzner; and goalies Braden Holtby and Philipp Grubauer. In Game 5 of the 2018 Stanley Cup Final, the Capitals had 12 players drafted from Mahoney’s boards in their lineup. That’s not considering the talents that Washington drafted who blossomed elsewhere, such as forward Filip Forsberg and goalie Semyon Varlamov.

Time is the ultimate judge of a team’s draft success. But Mahoney believes the past few drafts could be as fruitful as some of the best of the Ovechkin Era.

“I think we’re kind of in another phase right now that’s like the one we were in back then,” he said.

Look no further than the 2025 IIHF World Junior Championships, where two Capitals prospects led Team USA to another gold: Defenseman Cole Hutson, selected 43rd overall last summer and winger Ryan Leonard, taken eighth overall in 2023.

Hutson led all scorers in the tournament with 11 points in seven games, including a goal and an assist in the gold medal game, becoming the first defenseman to do so in tournament history.

U.S.-based scouts Jeremy Browning, Rich Alger and A.J. Toews identified the defenseman as a player the Capitals should target one year before the draft.

“We had him higher than where we took him,” Mahoney said. “He’s not the biggest player, but he plays big. He could really skate, has exceptional confidence with the puck. I think that really came through in the world junior tournament. In all honesty, he played even better than I thought he would.”

As far as when Hutson might join the Capitals, Mahoney said that’s up to the Boston University star. If he shows the right trajectory, he could force Washington’s hand in getting him to the NHL sooner than later.

“He’s on the right path. Next year, we’ll see where he’s at. My advice to them is always make it hard on the coaches or make it hard on the development team,” Mahoney said.

In the 2023 NHL draft, the Capitals held the eighth overall pick. They watched the expected top picks come off the board — Connor Bedard to Chicago, Leo Carlsson to Anaheim, Adam Fantilli to Columbus and so on — but as the first round continued, there wasn’t a chance that Russian star Matvei Michkov would still been available at No. 8.

The Philadelphia Flyers drafted Michkov at No. 7, then the Capitals selected Leonard of the U.S. National Team Development Program at No. 8.

Would Washington have gone Michkov over Leonard at No. 8? Mahoney wouldn’t say, but admitted that he had to pace himself walking to the podium before enthusiastically making Leonard the pick.

“I wanted to run up there, but I thought that would be a little bit immature in my part,” he said.

Leonard was tied for second in points at World Juniors (10), up from his six points in seven games during Team USA’s 2024 gold medal win. He captained the team to gold, something that wasn’t lost on the Capitals.

“I’m quite sure someday here in the future that not only Ryan will be contributing in a major way to the Capitals, but I could see him taking on a leadership role also,” Mahoney said.

Leonard had 60 points in 41 games at Boston College last season, starring on a line with Will Smith, now with the San Jose Sharks, and Gabe Perreault, a top New York Rangers‘ prospect. The winger’s 31 goals set a freshman record at the school. He decided not to join the Capitals last season, opting to return with Perreault to BC this season, but Mahoney said the team wants to see him in Washington “sooner than later.”

If Leonard makes the leap from Boston College to the Capitals, it would make him a rarity in the team’s prospect pipeline. Only a handful of players — forward Tom Wilson being one of them — have joined the NHL without getting considerable seasoning in the AHL with the Hershey Bears. On the current roster, center Aliaksei Protas spent parts of three seasons with the Bears, while center Connor McMichael played 90 games in Hershey, Pennsylvania.

Having a team in Hershey gives Washington a geographic advantage, in part due to the short travel time for call-ups but also enabling Capitals executives to be more hands-on with prospects. Since Ovechkin joined the Capitals, the Bears have won the AHL Calder Cup five times, including back-to-back championships in the past two seasons under head coach Todd Nelson. That continued success is vital to player development, according to Patrick.

“Having good teams in Hershey is important because it puts players into bigger game environments, playing important games against good teams,” he said. “I think all those situations are huge for their development and I think it really helps them when they get into the NHL. Players need to find ways to be mentally ready to play those games. And I think going through that process in Hershey really helps.”

Among the players who are percolating in the Capitals’ pipeline: Defenseman Vincent Iorio (55th overall in 2021), forward Ivan Miroshnichenko (20th overall in 2022) and center Hendrix Lapierre (22nd in 2020). Among those on the way: Wingers Andrew Cristall of the WHL’s Spokane Chiefs (40th overall in 2023) and Terik Parascak of the Prince George Cougars (17th overall, 2024), as well as Hutson.

“We’re really patient with our prospects, never been ones to rush players into the NHL and it’s worked out really well for us. We’ve got really good coaches down there [in Hershey],” said Mahoney, who also credits former NHL players such as Brooks Orpik and Jim Slater in the team’s player development program.

“We do everything we can on our end to help them. We just need them to do everything on their end. And we feel really good about what we have coming in our pipeline,” he said.

A promise made was a promise kept for the Capitals. Alex Ovechkin is thriving on a Stanley Cup contender, as the gap between his goal total and Gretzky’s seemingly unbreakable record continues to narrow. And he’s surrounded by players, with more on the way, who indicate there might be life after Ovi in Washington.