The Washington Capitals and their offseason additions are one of the big topics around the NHL heading into the 2026-27 season. With the work of general manager Chris Patrick and his staff, the club has built a roster with the true intent to compete for the franchise’s second Stanley Cup and right the wrongs of missing the 2026 postseason.
Not only did Patrick finally find the top-six winger he had been searching for since taking over as GM, but he acquired two of them, trading for Jordan Kyrou and getting Alex Tuch in a sign-and-trade with the Sabres. The Capitals also addressed other areas of their roster in free agency, signing veteran contributors like Boone Jenner, Vincent Desharnais, and Justin Holl, while also retaining right-shot defender Timothy Liljegren.
With those additions in place, head coach Spencer Carbery expects to steer a much different Capitals team from the 2025-26 squad that failed to qualify for the playoffs by three standings points. After the Capitals’ Development Camp scrimmage on July 3, Carbery was recently asked to compare his new lineup to the one he deployed this past year, and identify why the team is now closer to achieving its ultimate goal.
“I just think deeper,” Carbery said. “Deeper up front especially. I think there’s some good opportunity on our backend, especially with Rasmus being hurt. The addition of Desharnais, Liljegren coming back, Dylan McIlrath, Justin Holl, all we feel really, really good about. That is a little bit more: who plays where, who plays with who? Does Matty Roy come out of the gate playing with Jakob Chychrun? Does he play with Cole? Do we play Marty with Desharnais in a shutdown role? Like what does that look like? So that’ll be a little bit more to be determined.”
Carbery’s mention of playing Chychrun and Roy together makes a lot of sense, as the two formed one of the best defensive pairings in the league last season. During their 640:28 of shared five-on-five ice time, the Capitals controlled 54.2 percent of shot attempts, 55.7 percent of expected goals, 54.2 percent of scoring chances, and 56.4 percent of high-danger chances.
Martin Fehervary will need to find a new partner to gel with after struggling away from John Carlson last season. In the 399 minutes Fehervary played without Carlson, the Capitals controlled just 43.6 percent of the shot attempts and were outscored 31-22. Playing with Desharnais may give Fehervary more license to use his elite skating ability and carry the puck more.
The addition of Desharnais completed a now jam-packed defense corps that also includes Holl, Liljegren, McIlrath, young star Cole Hutson, and the injured Rasmus Sandin. As Carbery notes, the situation is similar up front, as the club will now be able to deploy a very strong forward group with no obvious weak links every single game, which is something they have struggled to do since winning the Cup in 2018.
“Our forward group as a whole, I just think what you’re going to see is we are going to be able to rely on all four lines way more consistently,” Carbery said. “I think people’s minutes will come down, which I don’t think is a bad thing. Tom Wilson, maybe he played 18 minutes a night (last year), probably the highest or close to the highest in his career. If he can come down to 16 now, how much more effective do you make his minutes on the penalty kill, getting to a loose puck to get it out of the zone? Not necessarily scoring a goal, but it’s going to help our whole group. I think we’re just a deeper team that now can rely on our depth a lot more often in a game through 84 games.”
Carbery actually undershot how much Wilson played during the 2025-26 campaign: 19:27 of ice time per game, 44 seconds more than his previous career-best (18:43) set the season before. Among wingers to play in at least 50 games last year, Wilson ranked 15th in the league in average ice time per game, more than names like William Nylander, Mark Stone, Travis Konecny, Clayton Keller, Filip Forsberg, and Cole Caufield.
The forwards the Capitals added are used to a big workload, with Tuch playing at least 19 minutes per game for the last four seasons, Kyrou previously playing 18:19 of ice time per game during the 2023-24 campaign, and Jenner three times averaging over 20 minutes per game in the last five seasons.
While taking some of the responsibility off the shoulders of players like Wilson is one added boost provided by the new faces, they should also help the Capitals on special teams. The Caps finished with the 25th-best power play and 14th-best penalty kill last season, with the first mark likely a major reason they didn’t make the playoffs.
“The penalty kill, I think, from December 1 to the end of the year, I think it was first in the NHL,” Carbery said. “But we lost Nic Dowd, who played a lot of those minutes. And so Boone, I think, coming in is going to take a massive role in that. So there’s a great job by Chris and his group of filling that void. Alex Tuch has penalty killed.
“Power play-wise, I think we’ve just added, not necessarily on the backend, but up front, some real game breakers that are going to be able to help us in the power play. Kyrou entries, Alex Tuch entries, speed – it’s been an issue for us in the past, so that’ll be welcomed additions.”
The Capitals will hope their revamped roster, alongside another strong season from goaltender Logan Thompson, will help propel them in what should be a very competitive Metropolitan Division. Carbery will get his first chance to be hands-on with his new options when the Caps open up their training camp in early September.
