HERSHEY, PA — The Washington Capitals’ season at the NHL level has not gone according to plan. Instead of solidifying a playoff spot and putting its focus on a run for the franchise’s second Stanley Cup, the team sits well out of the second wild card position in the East with 20 games to go.

The Capitals already dealt pending UFAs Dmitry Orlov and Garnet Hathaway last week, signaling the team will be sellers ahead of the league’s trade deadline on Friday, March 3. In a possible attempt to “re-tool on the fly,” GM Brian MacLellan is reportedly considering dealing a fortune in draft picks and top prospects, like Connor McMichael and Hendrix Lapierre, to land an established young player like defenseman Jakob Chychrun from the Arizona Coyotes.

Whatever ends up happening this week, the Capitals will most likely look different by this weekend and the ramifications could be felt 130 miles north, too.

The Hershey Bears, who are attempting to win their 12th Calder Cup championship, have been one of the best teams in the American Hockey League all season long. They currently sit fifth in the league, with a record of 32-13-5. But they will be forced to supply the Capitals with whatever they need if there is a big sell-off of veterans at the NHL level, and could lose valuable parts of the team in exchange for an NHL player they will never see.

For individual Bears players, they could end up playing in Washington or traded to another NHL organization by week’s end. For the Bears team in general, the trade deadline could weaken one of the strongest rosters in the AHL.

“The next week or two, I want to see wins, that’s for sure,” Bears head coach Todd Nelson said when I asked if the deadline could be a distraction. “We’ll be tested heavily because we’ll play some teams that we haven’t seen for quite a while. But no, I’m not talking to players about the trade deadline. They’re all smart enough. They’ve been through it before. They’re all on social media so they find out before any of us do. …Right now we’re just focused on the games.”

The decision on what’s next for center prospect and 2019 first-round pick, Connor McMichael, could end up being a bellwether on the philosophy and direction of the Capitals. McMichael has spent parts of the last three seasons in the NHL. A possible member of the Capitals’ new core in the future, McMichael’s shown promise at the center position at the NHL level but has been unable to carve out a bigger role under head coach Peter Laviolette.

If GM Brian MacLellan trades McMichael and other young prospects to land a more established young player, the move will signify the Capitals will be interested in aggressively re-tooling at the NHL level until Ovechkin’s retirement, thus depleting its farm system of top prospects and turning to a “hard rebuild” in a few years. Capitals owner Ted Leonsis previously signaled that the team would not rebuild during the remainder of the Alex Ovechkin era.

If the team’s prospects stay, the Capitals will likely try to integrate them for the stretch run to see what they have and those players could be part of a younger and faster Caps team moving into the future. Since mid-November, McMichael has played for Hershey, regaining his confidence and working on the details of his game after sporadic usage at the NHL level. I asked him if he thought about what could possibly be next.

“Not really, I’m just taking it day by day,” McMichael said. “Just putting my head down and doing the work I’m doing down here. We’ll see what happens but no matter what, I’ll be the same player.”

There may also be an NHL opportunity for veteran Bears like Beck Malenstyn. Malenstyn, who has never looked out of place at the NHL level, notched a goal and an assist in five games earlier in the season with Washington, playing on the team’s fourth line. The Delta, British Columbia native has been frequently used as an injury replacement in three of the last four seasons for the Capitals, though a broken finger prematurely ended his most recent NHL stint.

“I think any chance that you get to go up there and play your game and just try to earn that full-time role is going to be huge,” Malenstyn said. “We obviously don’t know what’s going to happen. If the chips fall and I find myself up there, I’m just going to make the most of that opportunity, and if I stay down here, I’m just going to continue to work and try to earn that chance.

“Like you said, we don’t really know what’s going to happen. We don’t know what pieces they’re going to pick up, move, might stay the same, there might be some bigger moves, we really have no clue. The next week will kind of be telling on that, but just like I said I’m going to show up to the rink day by day, do my job, and whatever happens after it happens.”

Malenstyn admitted that he’s a huge hockey fan away from the rink and that players catch a lot of the talks that are going on.

“Trade deadline season is always an exciting time for fans, and players obviously it can be a little bit stressful,” he said.

“Our main focus down here with a very talented group is to win games,” Malenstyn added. “But individually you want to continue to build your game that every opportunity you can get you’re going to take full advantage of there, too.”

Headline photo: Elizabeth Kong/RMNB