The Washington Capitals made a big move this past week that signaled a change of direction from the organization’s top brass. The Caps, who were supposed to be fighting for a deep playoff run this season, saw general manager Brian MacLellan deal away Dmitry Orlov and Garnet Hathaway to the Boston Bruins.

It was a trade that now has them better positioned to sell at the league’s March 3 deadline than contend for another Stanley Cup. According to The Athletic’s Tarik El-Bashir, that’s something that Caps captain Alex Ovechkin needed to speak with MacLellan about to get a better understanding of.

Ovechkin is well known to be incredibly close friends with Orlov. A selling Caps team is also something that Ovi has never really been a part of in his career. When Ovechkin signed his five-year extension with the Caps in 2021, team owner Ted Leonsis promised The Great Eight that the Caps would not rebuild during those seasons and would do their best to stay competitive.

El-Bashir writes in his story that while Ovechkin “isn’t happy about the situation”, he has come to understand it, is very aware of where the team currently sits in the standings, and recognizes how injuries to key players have really derailed matters.

Ovechkin himself has missed five games this season for the Caps. The most recent four were due to the tragic passing of his father Mikhail. Without their captain and leading scorer, the Caps have gone 0-5.

However, things could still move in a direction that Ovechkin would be more in favor of pretty quickly. On Friday, TSN’s Darren Dreger reported that the Caps are interested in Arizona Coyotes star defenseman Jakob Chychrun and that they could use their newfound draft capital to acquire him.

El-Bashir adds that Chychrun is the exact type of player that MacLellan is looking for when it comes to commencing an on-the-fly roster retooling. He also says that while the Caps will listen to offers on players like Nick Jensen, Conor Sheary, Trevor van Riemsdyk, and Erik Gustafsson at the deadline that MacLellan is not going to part with any of them for “meager returns”. MacLellan would, in fact, prefer to extend all four’s contracts than do that.

The Caps, with their win over the New York Rangers on Saturday, have now collected 64 standings points. Unless they rattle off a near-unbeatable run to end the season, it is almost guaranteed that they will not be a playoff team for the first time in almost a decade. Chychrun or no Chychrun.

It’s safe to say that this next week is going to be a very important one for the franchise.