The Washington Capitals brought Jakub Vrana back via a professional tryout agreement on Thursday. Now it will be up to Vrana to earn an NHL contract with the club for the 2024-25 campaign. Players on tryout agreements have no guarantees heading into the regular season and most get released shortly after the preseason concludes.
Washington has already had a pretty busy offseason including the additions of four forwards via trade or free agency. The new faces will make Vrana’s journey back to the team’s projected roster difficult but not impossible.
Potential Capitals forward depth chart
| Ovechkin | Dubois | Raddysh |
| Strome | Mangiapane | Duhaime |
| Wilson | Milano | Dowd |
| McMichael | Lapierre | Protas |
Vrana’s path back onto the club would likely require TJ Oshie stepping away from the team during training camp and being placed on long-term injured reserve before the home opener. Oshie’s lingering back problems have kept him out of 154 of the Capitals’ last 246 regular-season games. Over the offseason, the veteran forward said he only wants to return if he’s found an answer and a fix to his health issues.
Oshie being out of the picture would leave the Capitals with 12 active forwards on their roster when they usually carry at least 13 during the season. Washington is already set to start the year with five natural centermen fighting for the four spots down the middle in the everyday lineup which could mean Vrana has a leg up on centers like Mike Sgarbossa or Riley Sutter for that 13th forward role as he is a winger.
Vrana won’t be the only winger fighting for a roster spot though as he’ll also need to beat out top prospects like Ethen Frank, Ivan Miroshnichenko, Pierrick Dubé, and Bogdan Trineyev who are all coming off of highly successful seasons with the AHL’s Hershey Bears. The latter three will not require waivers to go up and down from Hershey but Frank would, meaning Washington is more likely to give him a chance than losing him for nothing.
There could be a path for Vrana outside of just 13th forward consideration though if he has a good enough preseason. The Capitals were rumored to be discussing a trade with the Winnipeg Jets involving Connor McMichael earlier this summer and could revisit that if Vrana proves himself in camp.
McMichael and the Capitals opted for a bridge deal this offseason instead of a longer extension. Washington also still has that logjam down the middle that they could have been trying to solve by moving McMichael. Winnipeg still needs a center after losing Sean Monahan to the Columbus Blue Jackets in free agency.
Another possible route would begin with Hendrix Lapierre not making the NHL team out of camp. Lapierre is the lone player on the team’s roster still on his entry-level contract which means he can freely move between Hershey and Washington. The Capitals could get an extended look at Vrana on league minimum salary during the regular season and then waive him and swap him down to Hershey for Lapierre if the move doesn’t work out.
Per the team’s Mike Vogel, the Capitals are looking to replicate what the Boston Bruins did last year with forward Danton Heinen. Like Vrana, Heinen had almost instant success with the Bruins after being drafted by the team in 2014 before being traded and struggling with multiple other teams.
Boston then bet on Heinen returning to form in a familiar environment, brought him back on a tryout agreement before last season, and he impressed enough to earn a contract. Heinen rewarded that faith with a 17-goal, 36-point season for the Bruins and earned a two-year, $4.5 million deal with the Vancouver Canucks in July.
The most recent tryout agreements to earn contracts with the Capitals are Matt Hendricks (2010) and Alex Chiasson (2017). Chiasson played 16 games for the Capitals in the 2018 playoffs en route to the franchise’s first Stanley Cup.
