NHL Hot Seat Radar 2023: Washington Capitals

Whether it's a trade request or looking to bounce back, the Washington Capitals have a few players on the hot seat and in need of excelling, writes Adam Proteau.

The NHL’s 2023 off-season is almost over, and so is our THN.com hot seat series, continuing today with the Washington Capitals. In this feature, we’ve been breaking down the pressures felt by NHL players, coaches, GMs and team owners.

We’ve been moving through NHL teams in alphabetical order and picking out one player, coach, GM or team owner as someone on their team’s hot seat, facing notable pressure to play or perform extremely well in 2023-24 or wind up traded or fired. A second person will go on the warm seat as someone not likely to be fired or traded soon but who may experience that fate sometime this season. A third player, GM, coach or team owner will go on the cold seat as a person likely to stay with their team for the long term.

Kuznetsov asked to be traded last season and has not rescinded that request since the season ended. The 31-year-old Russian is Washington’s top center, averaging 18:04 of ice time last year while generating a team-high 43 assists and 55 points in 81 games. He’s signed through the 2024-25 campaign at a salary cap hit of $7.8 million, which makes him a cost-certain quantity for potential trade partners.

The only way Kuznetsov will get his wish to be dealt will be to play well. If he struggles, there won’t be a solid market for his services. But if he excels, Caps GM Brian MacLellan will be more willing to move him, as the asking price for him will be quite high. It’s really all up to Kuznetsov at this point. 

He does have a modified no-trade clause that allows him to veto a deal to 10 teams of his choice, but that leaves 21 teams he can be moved to. There must be a match for him somewhere, and it sure feels like he’s in no mood to stay in Washington for the remainder of his contract. That puts him squarely on the Capitals’ hot seat.

The 28-year-old Mantha is coming off a disappointing 2022-23 season that saw him produce only 11 goals and 27 points in 67 games. In the 100 games Mantha has played for Washington in the past two seasons, he has just 20 goals and 50 points – certainly, not an impressive set of individual numbers for a player with a cap hit of $5.7 million. That said, Mantha is playing on a contract that expires next summer, so he could be an attractive asset for teams looking to clear out cap space at the end of next season.

Mantha has no trade protection in his current deal, so he could be dealt to a team like the San Jose Sharks or Arizona Coyotes and have no alternative but to play out the season with one of them. But if he reverts to the form he had in 2018-19 when he produced 25 goals and 48 points in 67 games, Mantha will be a solid impact player for a team – and that team could be the Capitals if they’re close to competing for a playoff spot. 

His salary for 2024-25 and beyond will be dictated by how he plays in 2023-24, and he’s fully aware of that reality, so it’s really now or never for him as a player at his pay grade.

Some might say superstar winger Alex Ovechkin deserves to be in this slot, but he’s only signed through the 2025-26 season, while Wilson just signed a contract extension that can keep him in Washington through the 2030-31 campaign. 

The sandpaper and solid amount of offense Wilson can deliver makes him a key component of any playoff hopes the Capitals currently have, and even if he and the team don’t make the post-season this year, it’s highly improbable MacLellan chooses to deal him.

Wilson is signed in 2023-24 at a cap hit of about $5.17 million, and his new extension kicks in next season at a cap hit of $6.5 million. That’s a significant amount of money for a player who’s never scored more than 24 goals in a single season, but Washington didn’t extend his contract because he’s a dynamic contributor on offense. 

It’s Wilson’s physical presence that makes him valuable to the Capitals’ cause, and he’s one of the league’s most prominent athletes who walks the fine line between legal and illegal play. Another team would definitely pay him what Washington has paid him in his extension, so it was up to MacLellan to step up and give him enough money to keep him from going to the open market.

Wilson is currently 29 years old, and by the time his contract extension is done, he’ll be 37. That means his new deal will almost assuredly be the biggest and best contract of his NHL career. There might be a time when it makes sense for the Caps to trade Wilson, but there’s no sense, from the Capitals’ perspective, to trade him anytime soon. He may well prove to be a Cap for life, and this current contract goes a long way toward making that a reality.