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It’s not often you replace McMichael, Lapierre and van Riemsdyk with Boone Jenner, Alex Tuch and Jordan Kyrou and call the latter worse than the former.
On an episode of The Hockey News Wraparound, hosts Emma Lingan, Michael Augello and Eric Cruikshank discussed which NHL team had the best offseason. When it came to the Washington Capitals, there was resounding “yes” as to whether or not Washington belongs in the #1 spot.
After finishing just three points out of the postseason last year, general manager Chris Patrick and company turned their cap flexibility into elite talent and made major improvements across the board to form a Capitals club that should be competitive in the stacked Metropolitan Division come regular season.
Knowing that Alex Ovechkin’s competitive years are slowly beginning to dwindle, it was clear for Chris Patrick to make aggressive moves in the offseason instead of implementing a slow, gradual rebuild.
Washington kept the strong majority of its core intact (all nine of their top-nine forwards returned) from last season, but made moves to upgrade where their team fell short, the bottom six. In a sign and trade with the Buffalo Sabres, Washington landed winger Alex Tuch and a reliable 30 goal scorer to slot onto the top line. In a trade with the St. Louis Blues, the Caps picked up speedy and skillful attacker, Jordan Kyrou, to inject more pace and attacking prowess onto this year’s club. A trade with Columbus acquired Blue Jackets’ centreman Boone Jenner to add some depth down the middle, and round out a significantly upgraded bottom-six. A couple of bottom-four defenders in Vincent Desharnais and Justin Holl have also been added.
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