When Pierre-Luc Dubois takes the ice for the Capitals this fall, he will don a jersey for his fourth team in five years. Before coming to Washington, Dubois spent time in Columbus, Winnipeg, and LA, playing just one year for the Kings despite inking an eight-year contract as part of a sign-and-trade deal.
Now, Dubois looks to put down roots in DC. He spoke with La Presse’s Mathias Brunet about the trade, admitting that the tumultuous end of his time with the Kings took its toll on him.
“I thought I was going to settle down there for eight years. Not get traded after one year,” he said, as translated by Google Translate.
At his best, Dubois could be a transformative player for the Capitals: he recorded back-to-back 60-point seasons for the Winnipeg Jets in 2021-22 and 2022-23, has passed the 20-goal threshold four times in his career, and is set to play on Washington’s first line.
But his more recent results make Dubois a wildcard for the Caps, especially given his $8.5 million cap hit through 2031. Despite big expectations after his move to LA, Dubois scored just 40 points (16g, 24a) in 82 games, while perceived concerns about effort and attitude have followed him around the league.
Looking back at his time with the Kings, Dubois was all too aware that he was falling short.
“I lived the worst-case scenario, hence the scars,” he said. “We understand each other, there are much worse things in life. I still do the sport I love, I still have my family, my friends. My life is fine. But professionally, it was the worst-case scenario. You want to succeed in your career, you want to please your team, the people around you.”
So what exactly went wrong in LA? Dubois highlighted how lack of clear expectations from coaching staff led to internal strife as he struggled to find his footing with the team.
“Take it as you will, but I’ve always needed to have clear instructions to do my job 100%,” he said, later adding, ”I get mixed up when there are gray areas. I question myself too much. I’ve been working on that since I was young. And there, from my first conversations with the team, I didn’t really know what was expected of me. I didn’t know where I stood. You can’t play well when you question yourself too much.”
Although he noted that he had a fairly distant relationship with former Kings coach Tod McLellan until his firing in February, Dubois took the blame for his poor season instead of attributing it to his former team.
“We didn’t talk often,” he said. “Todd is more of a team tactics coach. Maybe we didn’t have that relationship. Maybe I was too demanding, wanting to have the path explained to me. It’s obviously my fault that it didn’t work. You’re not supposed to expect your entourage to help you gain confidence, but it can help. I tried to take on the challenge, but I stayed in a gray area all year. I didn’t feel at home. The players helped me, and I wanted it to unblock, but it just wasn’t working.”
Dubois could find more success on that front with Capitals head coach Spencer Carbery, who has garnered something of a reputation for his ability to “unlock” struggling players. The pair’s relationship begun on a positive note with their first conversation after the trade.
“It lasted 12 minutes and we didn’t even talk about hockey for the first 10 minutes,” Dubois said. “He asked about me, my family. He asked me if I had time to call my father. If my girlfriend had received the conversation well. He asked me my reaction. I had never had a conversation like that with a coach. He was interested in me. I even looked at my phone to see how long we had been talking without mentioning hockey.”
That first phone call left a strong impression on Dubois after years of shuffling around the league.
“That a coach gets to know me, my family, my girlfriend, how I feel about all that, I was really touched,” he explained. “Because in the world of hockey, often, you’re not a person, you’re a number. It’s business. It’s fun sometimes when you feel the human side.”
Carbery, meanwhile, may be just as excited to coach Dubois towards his full potential. After helping bolster Anthony Mantha to his first 20-goal season since joining the Capitals in 2023-24, Carbery will have a similar opportunity this fall.
“I love the challenge, and that’s my job,” Carbery said in July. “When we acquire players that have been very, very productive and have a ton of potential and have shown that potential, that’s what coaching is. That’s what I love to do. Hopefully [he] comes here, the environment, the team, the coaching staff, it enables him to be very, very productive and reach that potential that everybody has seen.”
Dubois has already arrived in DC, moving into a home in McLean and becoming a regular participant in the Capitals’ informal skates at MedStar Capitals Iceplex ahead of his first training camp with his new team. While his year with the Kings ended on a sour note, Dubois sees plenty to look forward to in Washington.
“I enjoyed my conversations with [the Capitals], not just the coach, but the general manager, Brian MacLellan,” he said. “Tom Wilson helped me find a home. I’ve been following the Capitals since I came into the league: the city, the rink; watching [Alex] Ovechkin on TV when I was young. And I had my mind set on coming back East. All of that together, I was lucky.”
