Brian MacLellan rolled the dice last summer. Without many great veteran options in goal, the Capitals general manager decided to bring back his young goaltending tandem of Ilya Samsonov and Vitek Vanecek for another season. The decision ultimately did not work out.

Both goalies started the same amount of games in the regular season (39) and neither separated themselves as the full-time starter. Vanecek got the opportunity to start Game One in the playoffs against the Florida Panthers, but ultimately yielded the net to Samsonov in Game Two after a poor performance. Sammy was mostly sensational in the postseason but sported career lows in save percentage (.896) and GAA (3.29) during the regular season. Both players showed promise. They also showed maddening inconsistency.

While MacLellan admitted there was a chance the team could turn to both goalies again next year for the third consecutive season, he made clear that the team would address all options in how to improve the position.

“I think our goalie decision will be our first one,” MacLellan said of the team’s offseason plan. “And then we’re going to go from there depending on how much money we have.”

Both Capitals goaltenders will be restricted free agents over the summer and are eligible for arbitration. Samsonov, 25, made $2 million last season while Vanecek, 26, is coming off his entry-level contract where he made $716k.

“We’re going to explore,” MacLellan said. “There’s a couple guys. I don’t know if it’s a deep free-agent market. We’ll talk to other teams and then we’ll evaluate. [Samsonov and Vanecek] have both been pretty good but not great.”

The unrestricted free agent market is a dicey one this summer. It’s led by Marc-Andre Fleury who reportedly spurned the Capitals at the deadline due to his ties with the Penguins. Colorado Avalanche netminder Darcy Kuemper, who has been unflappable in this year’s playoffs, could be available but will likely command a high salary and just turned 32-years-old this month. The rest of the pack includes names like Jaroslav Halak, Martin Jones, Joonas Korpisalo, Jack Campbell, Thomas Greiss, Mikko Koskinen, Casey DeSmith, and Braden Holtby.

If the free-agent route is deemed too volatile, the Capitals could probe the offseason trade market and see if any other possibilities open up. The Islanders are one possible team the Capitals could talk to. NYI is tied to both Semyon Varlamov ($5 million) and Ilya Sorokin ($4 million) through the next two seasons and could potentially jettison one of those players to open up salary cap space after missing the playoffs.

Regardless of the goaltenders’ inconsistent play during the regular season, the Capitals still managed to be a 100-point team with them.

“I don’t think it was the reason why we lost the series,” MacLellan added. “I thought Sammy played well. Vitek played well in the first game. I don’t think that’s the reason we didn’t beat Florida. It’s positive for the guys. During the year, [their play] is probably in and out, which is expected for inexperienced goalies I think.”

As for the rest of the team, MacLellan believes the Capitals will get younger — “I think we need a youth injection ” — after not winning a playoff series since their Stanley Cup season in 2018.

“We’ve lost in the first round the last four years,” he said. “We’re going to explore changes. I don’t think anything is off the table. We’re going to talk to different teams and monitor the trade market. We’re going to identify free agents. We gotta figure out our goalie situation.”