The new Capitals GM wants to remain competitive going into a new era.
WASHINGTON — Over the last few weeks, the Washington Capitals have sent a message to the league with their busy offseason: they want to win. And for new general manager Chris Patrick, that'll be the goal for years to come, even after Alex Ovechkin hangs up the skates.
Patrick made it clear that his goal as he takes the reins from Brian MacLellan is to keep D.C. a playoff team.
"My intention is to be competitive," Patrick said. "I'm not a guy that likes losing, and I truly believe that we can transition, for lack of a better term, past the Ovechkin era with a competitive team."
Ovechkin has two years left on his contract and is 42 goals away from breaking Wayne Gretzky's all-time goals record. When he does decide to retire, Patrick said that he wants to avoid a rebuild, even with the core getting older.
"It's easy for people to say, 'Your superstars are aging, it's time to rebuild, blow it up and do it all over again.' I think in actuality, that can be a lot harder than it sounds. You've seen a lot of teams try and kind of get stuck in an endless cycle of tearing it down and building it up and tearing it down and building it up and never getting where they want to be," Patrick said. "If you look at the Conference Finals this year, you'll see some teams that were able to transition from an older core to a younger team that's competitive. I think that's definitely on the table for us."
"I think we've made a statement already with what we've done in the offseason," he added.
Washington has already started to trend in that direction, acquiring Jakob Chychrun, Andrew Mangiapane and Logan Thompson this offseason while also signing Matt Roy, Brandon Duhaime and Taylor Raddysh.