Ryan Leonard was thrust from his spring college classes right onto a Washington Capitals team with Stanley Cup aspirations. The 20-year-old winger played nine regular-season games with the Caps before making his NHL playoff debut in the first round against the Montreal Canadiens.
Leonard ended up skating in eight total postseason games against the Habs and the Carolina Hurricanes, recording just one point, an assist. While his production wasn’t enough to earn a $275k performance bonus for winning the Conn Smythe Trophy, the club’s top brass believes the experience will be a boon for their top prospect.
“I think the benefit of him playing at the end of the season and then into the playoffs [is that] he now has a crystal clear vision of what it feels like to play in the most difficult times of the year against arguably the hardest team to play against in the Carolina Hurricanes,” head coach Spencer Carbery said last week. “That is on-the-job experience. That is not someone telling you, ‘It’s going to be hard,’ or, ‘Get ready for the NHL, it’s the best league in the world.’ He felt that. And that experience cannot be replaced with anything else.”
While Leonard didn’t have much personal success on the scoresheet, the Capitals dominated five-on-five play during his playoff shifts. With him over the boards, the team saw their best shot-attempt percentage (48.3 percent). They also earned 55.4 percent of expected goals, 53.2 percent of scoring chances, and 54.1 percent of high-danger chances.
The ultra-competitive environment should represent a good foundation for Leonard to build off of heading into what could be a full rookie 2025-26 campaign in the NHL. After signing his entry-level contract with the Caps in late March, Leonard will attend his first-ever NHL training camp in the fall.
“I think [he’ll] truly have a grasp on the things he needs to do and work on to get him on the trajectory of being an elite player in the NHL,” Carbery said. “Him coming in next year, it’s not now, ‘Oh, he just trained this summer, so Ryan Leonard should be a top player in the National Hockey League.’ It’s going to take him time, and it’s going to be a process for him. But I expect the experience he just went through will be extremely valuable for his development.”
Ahead of the trade deadline this past March, general manager Chris Patrick consistently mentioned Leonard as one of the team’s likely planned additions. Part of the strategy behind only adding Anthony Beauvillier at the deadline was the club needing to consider Leonard’s possible cap hit in their plans.
Leonard’s importance to the team only amplified after, in quick succession, Jakub Vrana was lost to a waiver claim and Sonny Milano suffered a significant injury setback. The loss of the two wingers left the Capitals with just Leonard and Ethen Frank as depth options heading into the postseason.
“I thought Ryan did a great job,” Patrick said. “Very unique situation where you don’t usually have a guy that young jumping into your team at that point in the season, but usually when you do, they’ve been through a couple training camps. They’ve had maybe three or four exhibition games against at least some NHLers, and he had none of that. So, really, it’s like starting from not even at square one. He did a great job just putting his head down trying to learn, trying to get comfortable with the system, comfortable with the players, comfortable with the DC area.”
Leonard was immediately accepted into the tight-knit Capitals locker room, joining captain Alex Ovechkin and a few other players for a night out in Boston on his very first official day as a member of the team. Pierre-Luc Dubois then invited Leonard into his home, as the young winger needed somewhere to stay for his first several weeks as an NHL player.
Heading into next year, Leonard will already have an immediate familiarity and comfort within the organization that he would not have gained had he not been shoved right into the fray this year.
“I think it will be a huge help for him going into next year,” Patrick said. “He can come in and have a kind of normal rhythm of a season, and then he’s played in the second round of the playoffs now against one of the top teams in the league. He knows what to expect at the highest level now.”
Leonard is one of 10 forwards on the Capitals’ roster at the end of the second round with a contract for next season. The 2023 first-round pick is expected to be a big part of the club’s future after scoring 61 goals in 78 games for the Boston College Eagles the past two years.
