General Manager Brian MacLellan and the Capitals have kicked off an aggressive retooling campaign early this summer, completing a bevy of acquisitions that are expected to pay immediate dividends in improving the roster that had made the playoffs this past season.
To recap, here’s some of the moves we’ve seen so far:
All of these moves address considerable issues the team faced last season: top six quality center depth, quality on the blue line, a top six scoring winger, and an improvement in net over Darcy Kuemper.
The impact of these moves are substantial. Let’s unpack the impact using Evolving Hockey‘s goals above replacement (GAR) projections to see the net impact on GAR for this upcoming season. If you’d like to learn more about GAR and other statistical terms, please check out our NHL Analytics Glossary.
To note, this will only include forwards and defensemen since Evolving Hockey does not provide GAR projections for goaltenders.
Outgoing players
The four skaters that were moved or not retained going into free agency that were on the playoff roster last season are Nick Jensen, Nicolas Aube-Kubel, Beck Malenstyn, and Max Pacioretty. Here’s how those players’ GAR projections for next season look:
Overall, we see a projected total of 4.7 GAR moving off the roster as it stood after the playoffs ended. Jensen was by far the most valuable asset moved in terms of GAR, but we’ll see how MacLellan parlayed that into a far more valuable player.
Incoming players
Here’s the real impact of these bold (and shrewd) moves by MacLellan so far:
These six players add up to 23.9 in additional projected GAR for the 2024-25 season. That’s a substantial addition, considering it’s an increase of 19.2 in projected GAR. Also, the average GAR projection for the acquired players is 3.98, compared to the average GAR for outgoing players of 1.175.
The quality of the roster has gotten considerably better over the course of the last couple of weeks. Additionally, even without GAR projections for goaltenders, the GAR value of Logan Thompson compared to Darcy Kuemper is a distinct improvement. Last season, Thompson was worth 13.5 GAR. Kuemper was worth -7.2.
All in all, the Capitals are setting themselves for a return to the playoffs next season, granted Pierre-Luc Dubois returns to the form we saw in Winnipeg during the 2022-23 season.
By Justin Trudel
