3 moves the Washington Capitals need to make during the offseason

The Washington Capitals are going home early again. Here’s three moves they should make this offseason to get back on track before it’s too late.

Two years removed from their first Stanley Cup in franchise history, the Washington Capitals have found themselves in a tough spot after back to back first round exits, marking only the second time that they haven’t advanced to the second round in back to back seasons since 2008.

The Washington Capitals were sent home early by the New York Islanders in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs in five games, their second straight first round exit after losing in seven games to the Carolina Hurricanes last season. To call their performance against the Islanders embarrassing would be putting it mildly. After falling behind 3-0 in what was some of the worst hockey in the Ovechkin era, the Capitals managed to take Game 4 on the back of Ovechkin, and bowed out without scoring a goal in Game 5.

The Capitals have a lot of work to do this offseason if they want to avoid the same or worse fate next season. Despite the flat salary cap, the inevitable departure of Braden Holtby frees up quite a bit of cap space to work with. Here are three moves they need to make in order to get back on track towards Stanley Cup contention before it’s too late.

Fire Todd Reirden

Right after the Capitals won the Stanley Cup two seasons ago, then head coach Barry Trotz’s contract expired. There was a negotiated clause in his contract that would give him an increased salary on his next contract if he won the Stanley Cup, but Trotz felt he was worth more, so he got it elsewhere with the Islanders. The Capitals felt confident that assistant coach Todd Reirden would be able to step in and keep the team on the same level. They were wrong. Very wrong.

On the surface, two straight first round exits is not a good look for a coach that took over a Stanley Cup winner, and it doesn’t get any better the more you dig underneath the surface. In both first round losses, the Capitals were dominated at even strength, taking absurd amount of penalties, and being shut down by even the most basic defensive systems. It looked like at times that the difference was both Carolina and New York were trying, and Washington was not. That falls on the coach and his failure to prepare the team, and a lack of established structure.

Outside of the playoffs, this Capitals team from January on was a mess, and the only reason they stayed afloat during that stretch was because of absurd performances from Alex Ovechkin. Once he cooled back down, this Capitals team went through a brutal February where they won 4 of 12 games, and limped into the pause. All those same issues carried over to the resumption in August, and put them in an insurmountable position in the playoffs.

There just isn’t time to wait and see if Reirden is able to regain control of this team in his third season. Time is running out on this core, and they can’t afford to take chances on a maybe. Nothing Reirden has done in his tenure suggests that anything will change next year, and they need a fresh voice in the room to get back on track.