Chris Patrick confirms Capitals are actively pursuing addition ahead of trade deadline, identifies higher-end skilled winger as team’s biggest need
Washington Capitals general manager Chris Patrick met with the media on Friday afternoon and discussed a wide variety of topics, perhaps most notably his plans for the team at this year’s trade deadline.
With the Capitals presently on the outside of the Eastern Conference playoff picture, the second-year GM is heading into a much different situation with his team than he did last year. The Caps were the cream of the crop in the East at this stage of the 2024-25 season and just looking to tinker with their roster ahead of the postseason. The only addition they made was acquiring winger Anthony Beauvillier from the Pittsburgh Penguins.
This season, Patrick seems prepared to make a bigger splash and has identified what he believes to be the Capitals’ biggest need ahead of their push back into playoff contention in the final three months of the 2025-26 regular season.
“Yeah, definitely actively pursuing an addition,” Patrick said. “With as many teams in the mix right now playoff-wise as there are, I think teams are very much trying to figure out their timing and what they need to do and when they want to do it, and then how aggressive they get or do they stand pat. For us, we view our biggest need as a higher-end skilled winger, and those aren’t always available at the deadline. We’re gonna keep trying to pursue those guys if they’re out there.”
While admitting that the player the Capitals seek is more “higher-end,” Patrick did warn that the club will still be unwilling to part with some of their top, most-coveted prospects. His declaration likely makes names like Cole Hutson, Ilya Protas, and Andrew Cristall unavailable to the prying eyes around the NHL.
“I’ve said this in the past, it’s not necessarily harder for us, but we have a group of prospects that we really like that a lot of teams really like,” Patrick said. “It gets to the point of if we can get a team to move off the top of our prospect list, then maybe there’s something to be done. But we’re not gonna trade away some of our top guys that we think are gonna be a huge part of the team the next 10 years for something that we don’t think is going to have the impact we need it to have.”
Another primary obstacle for Patrick and his staff is the tightness of the playoff races in both conferences. With so many teams still figuring to think of themselves in contention for a spot in the postseason, there aren’t too many raising their hands as sellers this year.
The New York Rangers made headlines earlier on Friday when their general manager, Chris Drury, announced that the team would enter a “retooling” period, signalling that they will likely be one of the few selling teams. According to the New York Post’s Mollie Walker, as part of that process, Drury reportedly informed star winger Artemi Panarin that the team would not be seeking extension talks with him and instead will work with him to try and find a trade partner.
“Well, I mean, it definitely helps to know there’s potentially a seller there,” Patrick said. “I think a couple teams have indicated that they’re more willing to be a seller than a buyer right now, so that definitely helps. But again, the prices only go up the longer you wait, so I think most of them will probably just take their time to aggregate offers and then try to get the best one possible. And, in a team like that, there’s probably some players with trade protection, so it takes a little bit longer to work through deals sometimes.
Panarin, who holds a full no-movement clause in his contract, fits the exact profile Patrick described the Capitals as needing. The Caps were also recently floated by leading hockey insider Elliotte Friedman as a potential trade suitor for the veteran winger.
In the past, Patrick has been wary of committing to adding players who could turn out to be strictly rentals for the rest of the season. He has also been committed to a youth movement with the Capitals after the team’s more aging stars like Nicklas Backstrom, TJ Oshie, and Evgeny Kuznetsov departed for other ventures. Panarin, 34, would represent both a possible rental and an older addition, which Patrick didn’t seem too against this time around.
“I hope we can do something that helps us in the short term for this team getting into the playoffs again, and for [Alex Ovechkin] to have another run of the playoffs,” Patrick said. “It also helps long-term, for whenever he’s not on the team.
“I think if you look at some of our history, like even guys that looked like rentals when we acquired them, a lot of times we’ll end up signing them to deals after. I think that’s a situation we look at too. It might look like a rental-type deal, but maybe we get the guy to sign on for an extension after we get him here.”
The Capitals have also reportedly held interest in other forwards over the past few months, like Brayden Schenn, Phillip Danault, and Nikolaj Ehlers. The profiles of those players could better align with what the team is pursuing.
According to PuckPedia, the Capitals are presently set to have $12.78 million in cap space at this year’s March 6 deadline.
