The captain of the 2023 Calder Cup champion Hershey Bears is staying in Chocolatetown.
The Washington Capitals announced they re-signed defenseman Dylan McIlrath to a two-year, two-way contract where he will make $525,000 guaranteed each season.
McIlrath’s contract, per CapFriendly, will pay him $775k at the NHL level and $525k in the AHL. The deal is a $50,000 raise for McIlrath compared to the salary he earned with the Bears last season.
HERE TO RUN IT BACK. The Washington Capitals announce the re-signings of Dylan McIlrath and Hunter Shepard to two-year, two-way contracts for the 2023-24 and 2024-25 seasons. pic.twitter.com/xneYQB5s6u
— Hershey Bears (@TheHersheyBears) July 2, 2023
McIlrath’s deal anchors him to the Bears’ blueline after he helped Hershey win its first championship in 13 years playing next to Gabriel Carlsson on the team’s top pairing. McIlrath is one of four, current, non-roster defenders with an NHL deal next season. He’s joined by Hardy Häman Aktell, Vincent Iorio, and Lucas Johansen in that regard.
McIlrath is coming off of a season that saw him play NHL games for the first time since he was a member of the Detroit Red Wings in 2019. The Caps called him up for six games before eventually returning him to Hershey for the Bears’ stretch run. In 60 games for Hershey, the rugged rearguard notched 13 assists and 102 penalty minutes.
In the playoffs, McIlrath featured in all 20 games and was the first player to hoist the Calder Cup in Coachella Valley as the team’s leader.
The 2023-24 season will mark McIlrath’s third in Hershey and it will break a long bobblehead curse that stretched back to 2004.
Stat of the day: Dylan McIlrath becomes the first Bear since Brett Clark in 2004 to have a bobblehead giveaway and return the next season.
The previous nine bobbleheads did not play a game for the Bears in the following season after their bobble was released. https://t.co/3q300L7yf0
— Kyle Mace (@kylemace) July 2, 2023
If Todd Nelson does not get a promotion in Washington or elsewhere in the NHL, McIlrath will look to run it back with his longtime head coach who he’s won two Calder Cups with. Before 2023, the two combined to win a championship with the Grand Rapids Griffins in 2017.
Headline photo: Ian Oland/RMNB
