Though much of the Capitals roster from last season remains intact, they are in transition at goalie, and could look to acquire one before the season.
With longtime starter Braden Holtby signing a two-year contract with the Vancouver Canucks as an unrestricted free agent Oct. 9, Henrik Lundqvist was signed to a one-year contract the same day after the 38-year-old had the final season on his contract bought out by the New York Rangers. However, Lundqvist, who was expected to compete with and help groom 23-year-old Ilya Samsonov, said on Dec. 17 that he would not be able to play this season because of a heart condition. That means Vitek Vanecek, who turns 25 on Jan. 9 and played in Hershey of the American Hockey League last season, could be the backup.
"I can say for the past two months I've felt so inspired and committed to prepare myself for the upcoming season," Lundqvist said. "The daily skates, and workouts, and just the thought of playing [in D.C.] has really, really brought me lots of excitement. It's still very hard for me to process all of this and kind of shocking, to be honest. But with the experts involved, I know this is the only way of action."
The Capitals' other most-notable offseason additions were right-handed defensemen Justin Schultz, who signed a two-year contract Oct. 9, and Trevor van Riemsdyk, who signed a one-year contract Oct. 10. Each fit into Laviolette's plan for Washington to play an aggressive style with its defensemen being active in the offensive zone to create sustained pressure.
But Laviolette, who coached Nashville for six seasons before being fired Jan. 6, wants to build on what the Capitals have done well in the past. Washington qualified for the playoffs 12 of the past 13 seasons, including six straight, finished first in the Metropolitan Division five consecutive seasons, and won the Presidents' Trophy as the NHL's best team in the regular season in 2015-16 and 2016-17.
"There's ultimate success and then there's success," Laviolette said. "You can make the playoffs consistently and play into the second round or the third round. There's a championship, there's Presidents' Trophies, there's division championships. So this is a team that's experienced a lot of success, and I'm looking forward to coming in and just adding my layer of what it is that I want to do and see if we can't get back to where we were a couple years ago."
The opportunity to do that is one of the reasons defenseman Brenden Dillon passed on becoming an unrestricted free agent and signed a four-year contract to stay with Washington on Oct. 6. Though the Capitals lost to the New York Islanders in five games in the best-of-7 Eastern Conference First Round last season, Dillon said he liked what he saw after he was acquired in a trade with the San Jose Sharks on Feb. 18 and believes Washington is capable of more.
"You look at the roster and the makeup of the team," Dillon said, "and not only are we super skilled and super talented, but we are big, we are made for playoff hockey. We like to play a physical, hard brand of game. We've got a great mix of guys from different parts of the world that just get along so well at the rink. … Just to see the success of winning the Cup in 2018, we are only two years removed from that. A lot of the big pieces are still here."
