The Washington Capitals open their 2026-27 NHL season schedule with a road matchup against the defending Stanley Cup champion Carolina Hurricanes on Friday night.
Last season, the Capitals missed the playoffs for the first time under head coach Spencer Carbery, despite recording the seventh-most regulation wins (37) in the NHL. After that failure, the Caps had one of the league’s busiest offseasons, remaking their roster for what could be a serious run at another Stanley Cup.
Capitals hype video ahead of first game in 2026-27 season
If you completely checked out on the team and our coverage over the summer — tsk, tsk — there are a few important things you absolutely need to know before puck drop.
The new guys should transform the Capitals into a more dynamic team.
Capitals general Chris Patrick got to work early and often this offseason, adding several marquee players through both trade and free agency. The Caps first made big splashes with the long-awaited arrival of two top-six forwards, Jordan Kyrou and Alex Tuch.
Kyrou came from the St. Louis Blues in a trade that sent Connor McMichael, prospect Milton Gastrin, and a first-round pick in the other direction. The speedy, 28-year-old winger has scored 30 or more goals three times in the last four seasons and recorded a career-high 75 points (27g, 48a) for the Blues during the 2021-22 campaign.
Tuch landed in Washington via a sign-and-trade deal with the Buffalo Sabres, inking an 8-year, $84 million contract with the Capitals. The 30-year-old forward has scored at least 33 goals in each of the last two seasons and was thought to be the biggest prize in free agency before the Caps swooped in and acquired him before he could hit the open market.
While Kyrou and Tuch were the big fish of the summer, the Capitals also addressed some key holes elsewhere in their lineup with the signing of veteran forward Boone Jenner and hulking defenseman Vincent Desharnais. Jenner, former captain of the Columbus Blue Jackets, is expected to fill some of the void left by Nic Dowd‘s departure last season, while Desharnais is set to soak up some of the minutes left by John Carlson and Trevor van Riemsdyk.
In addition to the brand-new faces, the Capitals will also see prized young stars Cole Hutson and Ilya Protas play their first full seasons in the NHL. Both players debuted at the end of last year and are among the favorites to take home the Calder Trophy as NHL Rookie of the Year at season’s end.
The Capitals are very lorge this season.
The Capitals roster, bluntly, is full of big bois. With the added “beef” on their roster, the Capitals are, per the NHL, the tallest and heaviest team in the NHL.
The average Caps player is 6’2.6″ and weighs 213 pounds. They are one of only four teams with an average height over 6’2″ and, on average, weigh five more pounds than the second-ranked Boston Bruins (208 pounds).
Aliaksei Protas is the team’s heaviest player at 250 pounds, followed by Dylan McIlrath (245), Alex Ovechkin (238), Vincent Desharnais (230), Ilya Protas (230), Tom Wilson (230), and Alex Tuch (225). The lightest player on the team is their 20-year-old young star defender, Cole Hutson, at 180 pounds.
Desharnais is the tallest on the roster at 6-foot-7, followed by the two Protas brothers (6-foot-6), McIlrath (6-foot-5), and five other players at least 6-foot-4.
Alex Ovechkin is back for his 22nd NHL campaign.
Impressed by the team’s offseason, Capitals captain Alex Ovechkin signed a one-year contract in July to return for his 22nd season. Ovechkin will start the season with 929 career goals and just 11 goals shy of passing Wayne Gretzky (1,016) for the NHL’s all-time lead in combined regular-season and playoff goals.
The 41-year-old winger missed time in training camp due to a lower-body injury. Due to the ailment, Ovechkin did not play in any of the team’s four preseason contests, but will be ready to dress against the Hurricanes. Ovechkin has now been fully practicing with the team again for nearly a week, back in action at MedStar Capitals Iceplex for longer than he was out injured.
“I feel okay, but it sucks that I miss games,” Ovechkin said earlier this week. “But it is always better to feel healthy during the year than to get some more injury in the preseason.”
Ovechkin has not scored in a season-opening game since he potted two goals on October 13, 2021, against the New York Rangers. Over his legendary career, he has scored 53 goals and tallied 110 total points in 96 games against the Hurricanes. He has scored more career goals against only the Philadelphia Flyers (54) and the Winnipeg Jets/Atlanta Thrashers (58).
The Capitals have a new power-play coach and new power-play personnel.
One of the main reasons the Capitals struggled to qualify for the postseason last year was their ineffective power play. Under assistant coach Kirk Muller, they finished seventh-worst in the league last season at 17.8 percent effectiveness. The Caps’ power play was also one of just three in the NHL to allow more than 10 shorthanded goals (11), which led to a 29th-place net power-play percentage (13.3 percent).
Muller departed the organization shortly after the regular season and was replaced by Ray Bennett in May. Bennett has been an NHL assistant coach for the past 25 seasons, beginning his time in the league with the Los Angeles Kings in 1999-00. After six years in LA, Bennett then coached 10 seasons with the St. Louis Blues (2007-2017), eight seasons with the Colorado Avalanche (2017-2025), and the 2025-26 campaign with the New York Islanders as part of Patrick Roy’s staff.
With Bennett now at the helm of the man advantage and with several new high-powered options on the roster, here is how the Capitals are starting the season lined up when up a man.
PP1: Alex Ovechkin, Dylan Strome, Tom Wilson, Jakob Chychrun, Pierre-Luc Dubois
PP2: Ryan Leonard, Alex Tuch, Cole Hutson, Jordan Kyrou, Ilya Protas
During the preseason, the Capitals started slow on the man advantage, but ultimately finished with five power-play goals in their last three games.
The Capitals’ new lines.
Carbery has kept the same lineup throughout training camp, while also mixing in his lines across three of the team’s four preseason games.
He is not changing anything for the matchup against Carolina, sticking with the same combinations at the club’s final practice before playing the Hurricanes.
Capitals projected lineup against Hurricanes
None of the team’s big additions up front will start on the same line, as Carbery has spread the scoring depth across all four forward lines. On the backend, Desharnais will get his start next to Hutson, while Logan Thompson kicks things off in net.
Other things to look for when the Capitals take the ice.
- Alex Ovechkin and Tom Wilson will be joined in the leadership group by two new alternate captains: Dylan Strome at home and Matt Roy on the road.
- Logan Thompson has two new masks for the season, one Mars Attacks-themed and the other Wedding Crashers-themed. Charlie Lindgren also has a new mask with his “Ch Ch” nickname on the chin.
- The Capitals’ new players have selected their jersey numbers: Vincent Desharnais is wearing 73, Boone Jenner has taken 22, Alex Tuch will don 89, and Jordan Kyrou will rock 25.
- The NHL is seriously cracking down on uniform violations, specifically handing out penalties during the preseason for jersey tucks and tilted visors.
- Ryan Leonard and Justin Sourdif both signed massive contract extensions ahead of the season, keeping them with the team through 2034-35.
- Rasmus Sandin is skating, but still out injured after undergoing surgery on his torn right ACL this past spring.
Questions we have about the Capitals heading into the season.
- How quickly will the Capitals’ new forward lines gel with three new veteran forwards?
- The Capitals are big. Like really big. Will they be able to handle teams that play with more quickness? Are they too one-dimensional?
- How will Ryan Leonard and Justin Sourdif respond to different roles? Leonard is starting on the first line with Alex Ovechkin, while Sourdif will center the fourth.
- Logan Thompson wants to play a lot. Spencer Carbery said 70 games. Can he follow up last season’s Vezina-worthy performance with another great year?
- Are the Capitals going to be a team that’s good — and fight for a playoff spot — or be great and dominate the NHL?
- The Capitals have so much more talent up and down the lineup. Will they be better in the shootout?
- The team’s defense will perhaps be its weakest link. How will the team rebound without John Carlson and lean more on rookie Cole Hutson?
- Will Alex Ovechkin be booed at road arenas across the NHL? Ovechkin has been widely criticized online since participating in a United Russia campaign ad. An ESPN interview asked pointed questions he had few good answers for. Fallout has included the country of Latvia even banned him indefinitely from entering the country in the future and a scathing opinion article by Dominik Hasek in the Washington Post.
Puck drop for the game against the Hurricanes is set for 7 pm. Monumental Sports Network will broadcast the action, with Joe Beninati and Craig Laughlin officially on the call for the first game of their 30th season together in the booth. Join us in the live blog.
