Washington Capitals general manager Chris Patrick spoke to the media on Saturday after the team’s relatively quiet start to free agency.
While declining to name names, Patrick appeared to acknowledge that not only did the Caps have interest in the top free agent available in this year’s market Nikolaj Ehlers, but others who re-signed with their teams or were traded before free agency began.
“I’m not going to talk specifically about players, especially players that are signed with another team,” Patrick said. “But yeah, I mean, I think we looked at free agency. As July 1 approached, some big names came off the board, that would have been interesting for our group, that we were evaluating, stayed with their current teams. And then I think we looked to try to do something big and it didn’t go our way.”
The Capitals were most heavily linked with Ehlers, who chose to sign a six-year deal with the Carolina Hurricanes — a division rival — after a days-long deliberation process. Reporting on Friday suggested that, while term and money were important, Ehlers wanted to go to a quieter market where he could go about his business.
“It didn’t come down to the money or the offer or the term or any of that,” Patrick said. “It was a player picking what he thought was the best situation both on and off the ice. Totally respect — the process dragged out, obviously — but totally respect a guy taking his time to make the right decision for him.”
As for what’s next, Patrick says the Capitals will explore the trade market both during the summer and after the season begins to try and potentially improve their top-six. According to PuckPedia, the team has $4,975,000 cap space available with only restricted free agent Hendrix Lapierre left to re-sign.
“Yeah, we’ll explore the trade market, see what’s out there,” Patrick said. “We’ve sent a lot of picks out the last few weeks. So we’re going to have to make sure we’re prudent with how we do it. But I think there potentially could be some interesting names out there. I’ve seen some of the media reports thinking it’s going to be a very busy offseason trade-wise. I’m not exactly sure the basis for that. I mean, I think a lot of teams are in a decent spot cap wise, but we’ll see what happens.”
Patrick believes the Capitals remain in a good position after the hard work the front office did during the 2024-25 season, inking players they acquired last season to long-term extensions. Heading into training camp, multiple roster spots will be up for grabs to younger players after Lars Eller, Andrew Mangiapane, and Alex Alexeyev departed via free agency
“I’m excited,” Patrick said. “I think we did a lot of our free agency work in the season, re-signing guys like (Jakob) Chychrun, (Nic) Dowd, Logan (Thompson), and Chucky (Charlie Lindgren). Bringing Beau (Anthony Beauvillier) back, I think is huge for our group. He’s a versatile guy, can move around the lineup. He’s showed he’s got chemistry with all four of our lines. And we have some cap space now, we have some young kids that are going to get a good opportunity to compete for a spot in camp, and we’ll see where it goes.”
