The Washington Capitals orchestrated an aggressive retool that saw them acquire four veteran additions via trades in the span of a few weeks last summer. According to those closest to the action, a lot needed to go right — and thankfully for the team it did.
“I know it probably looks and seems seamless – and it did sort of fall into place – but there is always a lot of stuff moving in and out,” head pro scout Brian Sutherby told Mike Vogel for an oral history of the Caps’ activity at the 2024 NHL Draft in Las Vegas. “But overall, we were busy. And it worked out well overall.”
The first domino to fall was a deal struck with the Los Angeles Kings ahead of the draft where then-general manager Brian MacLellan sent goalie Darcy Kuemper in exchange for centerman Pierre-Luc Dubois. The team was ready to move on from one of its netminders and needed to bring in an asset to fill the large gap left by centers Nicklas Backstrom and Evgeny Kuznetsov.
“I remember thinking… right away that there was a fit there for a deal,” then-associate general manager and now current general manager Chris Patrick told Vogel. “You could tell LA was in the market for a no. 1 goalie. And based on how things ended that season with Kuemper and Lindgren, it felt like Kuemper was a guy that we could potentially move. And it felt like if they were looking for a no. 1 goalie, would Dubois be a guy that they would move for him? And obviously the conversations between [then-Kings GM Rob] Blake and Mac went that way and that started fairly soon.”
But the deal almost never happened according to MacLellan. He had to act fast to stop Los Angeles from going in another direction.
“It seemed like he was going down the road of a different thing, with another goalie,” MacLellan told Vogel. “And then we jumped in, and we were able to get the Kuemper for Dubois deal done.”
Dubois, 27, finished the 2024-25 campaign with a career high in points (66) and assists (46). MacLellan’s quick decision making in that gamble opened up the flood gates for the Caps to continue filling holes on the roster.
“Like anything, the list [of needs] evolves as players go away or come at you,” Sutherby said. “I would say the process was fluid, but… It started with the Dubois thing, and then some of the other stuff just happened organically.”
On top of adding another forward in Andrew Mangiapane from the Calgary Flames, MacLellan orchestrated another deal to fill the hole created by the now absent Kuemper. The team acquired Logan Thompson, a former undrafted signee of the Caps in 2019, from the Vegas Golden Knights on night two of the draft.
“We had a history with [Thompson], and when we do the Kuemper trade, we’ve got to find a goalie,” MacLellan explained. “Vegas was considering moving [him], so we focused on that one and got a trade done. We liked him because we thought there was a lot of potential there to be a no. 1… We went through the options and there wasn’t a whole lot available. So we ended up focusing on Thompson.”
In his first year rocking the red, Thompson finished fourth in the Vezina Trophy voting as the league’s best goalie with 31 wins in 42 starts. That’s the most a Caps netminder has recorded since Braden Holtby in 2018-19. Thompson was rewarded with a six-year, $35.1 million contract extension that will see him tied to DC through the 2030-31 season.
MacLellan finished his trade spree with one last swap for defenseman Jakob Chychrun from the Ottawa Senators. His 47 points (20g, 27a) were the second-most on the team at his position behind only John Carlson (51 pts).
Going all out for those four guys had the team’s brass excited for the on-ice product later that year.
“Right away, from the first practice, I was like, ‘Holy cow, this looks good,” Patrick said. “I was actually surprised that we didn’t get more of, ‘Wow, look what the Caps did,’ right away, which we didn’t. And then you heard all the stuff in the preseason when nobody really predicted us to do much. But I was like, ‘Do you guys realize we just traded for a pretty good goalie and a really good center, a pretty good winger, and a really good defenseman?’”
The Caps produced an 111-point season, good for the top spot in the Eastern Conference, just a year removed from clinching the final playoff berth on the final day of the regular season. For MacLellan and his staff, it felt like vindication for their offseason ambition.
“That’s your job, and to hit on all of it is pretty gratifying. It’s fun. And it’s kind of amazing how it worked from day one,” MacLellan said. “It was pretty fun to watch.”
