The Washington Capitals are losers of three in a row and are sinking in the Eastern Conference standings after overachieving in the first half of the season. An impactful losing streak like that just a little over a month away from the NHL’s March 8 trade deadline means the team should see an uptick in trade rumors about some of its key, potentially available players.
The name that seems to be garnering the most interest around the league is the team’s “fourth-line” center, Nic Dowd. Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli recently wrote about teams “lining up” to trade for Dowd and has reaffirmed his report in the latest edition of Daily Faceoff Live on YouTube.
One of the guys that’s sort of way off the casual fan radar that is a name you should know and has been generating a lot of interest all season long is Nic Dowd. He’s sort of the perfect versatile center for a team. Doesn’t make a ton of money, plays big minutes, impacts your game with all the different ways he contributes, is steady, reliable, and you know exactly what you’re getting. Because he has one additional year of term, that’s what makes him really exciting for teams. Teams would absolutely love to get their hands on him.
The hockey insider also added that Dowd’s name will appear on the next version of his trade targets list. Previously, the only Capitals player to be on that list was Anthony Mantha.
Dowd, 33, is under contract for that pivotal extra year through the 2024-25 campaign which makes him not a pure rental and increases his value. His annual cap hit is also just $1.3 million which is cheap for a player who is on pace to match his career-high in goals (13) and skates over 15 minutes of time on ice per game. Those minutes are not easy ones either as Dowd is deployed by Capitals head coach Spencer Carbery almost exclusively in defensive situations against the best players in the league.
In his 33 games this season, at five-on-five Dowd has just 21 offensive zone shift starts compared to a combined 280 defensive zone and neutral zone starts. Despite that, his five-on-five, goals-for percentage (60.7%) ranks second on the team behind just fourth-line linemate Nicolas Aube-Kubel (65.4%).
Dowd provides additional value through his dominance in the faceoff circle. Since his arrival in DC for the 2018-19 campaign, he is the only Capitals center to have won more than 51 percent of his draws (52.3%). Only Lars Eller is comparable, winning 50.9 percent of his.
The Alabama native is also one of the league’s top penalty-killing forwards. Among all qualified players, Dowd’s 2:35 of shorthanded time on ice per game ranks eighth in the entire NHL.
