Connor Brown did not have the 2022-23 season that he thought he was going to have when the first puck was dropped. Brown played just four games for his new Washington Capitals team before tearing his ACL and being ruled out for the rest of the year.

Heading into the offseason, Brown is without a contract for next season. To earn one, he’ll have to prove to teams that he’s fully back from his injury and ready to contribute at the same rate he was before getting hurt.

Brown documented some of his recovery process on his Instagram account on Saturday.

The photos and videos include shots of pre-injury Brown before quickly transitioning to a photo of him on crutches with fresh surgical work done on his knee, videos of band work and further workouts being done to re-strengthen that knee, and finally a video of him getting back out onto the ice in a Capitals practice sweater.

Brown was spotted publicly skating for the first time post-surgery at MedStar Capitals Iceplex in early March.

The 29-year-old winger was initially brought in by the Capitals to temporarily replace Tom Wilson who was rehabbing his own offseason ACL reconstruction surgery at the time. Brown said on Breakdown Day that he’s had no discussions yet about returning to DC for next season.

“There hasn’t been any sort of contract discussion here,” Brown said. “I’m sure that they’ve got a lot of moving parts too so I think that they’ll let everything unfold and see how the summer goes.”

Those sentiments were echoed in MacLellan’s own interview. He plans to talk to Brown’s camp before free agency opens on July 1.

“The situation we’re in now, I guess we’ll talk to his representatives and see what they’re thinking just before free agency,” MacLellan said. “We’ll examine what we think we can get done trades and free agents and put that decision in that group.”

Screenshot via @dtbrown28/Instagram