The Washington Capitals took to the ice for the first day of training camp, and big news emerged just from the colored jerseys the players were wearing.
Heading into this year’s shortened camp, Capitals head coach Spencer Carbery revealed that the team’s philosophy would shift with two fewer preseason games.
“We’re approaching it as much more, ‘Get the Washington Capitals ready for game 1 against the Carolina Hurricanes,’ as opposed to, ‘Let’s take a look at all these young players, let’s try some different things, let’s evaluate.’” Carbery told NHL.com earlier in the week.
With that said, Carbery grouped together in Gropu A what appears to be this year’s Opening Night lines. The players on the bubble include forwards Ivan Miroshnichenko, Jonny Brodzinski, and Ethen Frank along with defensemen Justin Holl and Dylan McIlrath.
Lines & Pairings
After Group A’s skate, Carbery spoke to the media and confirmed his new philosophy.
“I think you saw one of the changes out there today. is it’s basically our NHL group, which we haven’t done in my time here,” he said. “It is rare. Some teams do it from year to year, but just with the limited and the change in the CBA to the training camp being short, I think you’re going to see a lot of teams around the league going to this format because you just don’t have as much time to get your group together, create that chemistry, get everybody on the same page, communication. And then I think with the new faces as well, I think it was important to get basically our NHL group together as quickly as we possibly could. So that’s the way that our camp will look group-wise.
“Now to say that, if you’re writing off guys in group B, you’re in the second group, there’s a lot of guys there that are still going to fight for whether there’s an injury, whether they get into an exhibition game and they really impress. There’ll be plenty of opportunity for that through training camp and through the exhibition games.”
After a buy offseason that saw the Capitals land Alex Tuch, Jordan Kyrou, Boone Jenner, and Vincent Desharnais, the updated lines are much more deep and formidable than last season.
Ovechkin-Strome-Leonard
The Ovi line suggests a big promotion for Ryan Leonard, who just signed an eight-year deal that will make him — along with Justin Sourdif — the Caps players contracted for the longest duration, through 2035. This trio played together for just 21 minutes last season, but Ovechkin and Strome are no strangers — clocking 700 minutes together in 2025-26 and 640 minutes together in 2024-25. They have been fearsome, outscoring opponents 39 to 26 last season, powered at least partially by Logan Thompson’s lights-out goaltending.
The hope here is that Strome will continue to drive play, helped by the D corps, so that Leonard and Ovechkin can finish the chances he enables. Leonard is still relatively green, and his ability to get the puck into the offensive zone is unproven, but no one doubts he’s tenacious once in there. His speed, near the league’s tops, should be a good complement to Ovechkin and Strome, are, um, slow.
Tuch-Dubois-Wilson
The Caps’ big-dollar offseason signing ($10.5M) will join two of the team’s best play-drivers. That’s a cushy gig for an elite sniper; Tuch has shot 15.9 percent over the last four seasons. I’d expect his shot volume to improve this season – Dubois and Wilson should be stronger linemates than Peyton Krebs was in Buffalo, for example.
While one might wonder if the team is putting all its play-driving eggs in one basket, this line is giving Tuch the context he and the team need to justify that price tag.
A. Protas-I. Protas-Kyrou
Did you know Ilya Protas is a center? RMNB did.
Another prized summer addition, Jordan Kyrou, will have two very large boys at his flank. They’re officially both listed at 6-foot-6 and 250 pounds (Aliaksei) and 225 lbs. (Ilya). Kyrou is a modest 6-foot-1 and 189 pounds, bringing this line well below the 700 threshold of the Pro-Pro-Wilson line of last year.
But size isn’t the main quality of these players, as anyone who has seen one of Aliaksei Protas’s rare body checks can attest. Protas won’t have his most common linemate of last season, Tom Wilson (636 minutes), to provide the physicality here. Those two had demonstrable chemistry, controlling about 4 percentage points more of the shot attempts than when apart, but Kyrou is no slouch. He’s one of the best two-way players in the league, even if his minutes in St Louis were unfortunate (just 15:44 per game). I’d bet he sees at least two more minutes a night, and if these three are deployed as a shutdown line to match the opponent’s most dangerous, it’ll be even more.
Jenner-Sourdif-Beauvillier
Here’s the grab-bag line. It seems like the Dowd era of elite play by the Caps fourth line is finally over.
Jenner is the oldest and least impressive of the big-name summer signings. Beauvillier spent most of his time on the top line (Ovechkin and Strome) last season. Justin Sourdif’s best performances of 2025-26 came when he was with Wilson and Protas the elder. There are a lot of question marks here, as well as with the nominal fifth line of Ivan Miroshnichenko, Ethen Frank, and Jonny Brodzinski – all of whom will be posturing to get into the lineup for Opening Night.
