The Washington Capitals are facing a lengthy stretch of the 2025-26 season without one of their top-six centers, Pierre-Luc Dubois. The team revealed this week that while Dubois isn’t expected to be done for the season, they’re preparing for the long term without the 27-year-old pivot.
Dubois was one of the most important players on last year’s East-best Capitals, serving as head coach Spencer Carbery’s primary shutdown center. While some around the league may expect the Caps to explore the trade market to try and fill some of that responsibility, one of hockey’s top insiders revealed Tuesday that they have no immediate plans of that sort.
“Obviously, there’s no quick fix for a loss like this, and I know Pierre-Luc Dubois is going through the second opinion process to make sure his recovery path is headed in the right direction,” TSN’s Darren Dreger said on Insider Trading. “It’s believed that he’s not going to be out the entire season, but as the Caps have acknowledged, he is going to miss a significant amount of time.
“The Capitals, of course, would explore the trade market, but they need to be careful of moving out current or future assets, being mindful of whenever the post-Alex Ovechkin era begins. So, in the meantime, they’ll try to fill the hole internally. Connor McMichael is a natural center. He’s already been flipped into that role, and I expect that he’ll get a real, long look by Spencer Carbery down the road as well.”
McMichael has already played down the middle in several games this season and has spent the past two days of practice between Aliaksei Protas and Tom Wilson on Washington’s second line. While McMichael will see an increase in responsibility, the Capitals and Carbery are aware that losing Dubois will not be a simple problem to handle.
“Yeah, it’s a huge hole,” Carbery said Monday. “Arguably, right up there last year with one of our most valuable players and most important players on our roster. I’m not going to sit here and sugarcoat it and say that you can replace him at this point in the year, but you still can be a good hockey team and win a lot of hockey games with injuries.
“That’s part of the attrition that you need to be able to handle in this league. He’s out now, and now we’ll need other players to step up. We’ll need the entire group to do a little bit more, including the coaching staff. That’s the way that we’ll look at it, and that’s how we’ll approach it.”
The Capitals have been dominant at five-on-five with Dubois on the ice since he arrived in DC ahead of the start of last season. During his minutes, the team has seen 52.9 percent of shot attempts, 54.7 percent of expected goals, 56.1 percent of scoring chances, and 56.3 percent of high-danger chances.
McMichael is not an exact like-for-like replacement, but the team has also been dominant with him on the ice five-on-five through 12 games this season, seeing 56.1 percent of shot attempts, 54.8 percent of expected goals, 59 percent of scoring chances, and 56.9 percent of high-danger chances.
Trying to fill Dubois’s shoes internally also makes more sense, given the team’s belief that the Quebec-born center will return to their lineup at some point this year.
