The Washington Capitals were a consensus pick of NHL analysts as having had one of the best offseasons of any team around the league, and with several key additions up front and on the back end, we’re here to take our best crack at predicting what their lineup will look like on opening night.
We know that the Caps will be both the tallest and heaviest team in the National Hockey League this upcoming 2026-2027 season. We know that they have now got a ton of speed and skill in their lineup, and we know that they’ve become a popular choice by experts as the “deepest forward group” in the NHL with the additions they’ve made and the young players that they’ve got coming up.
But how does it all fit together? That’s what Head Coach Spencer Carbery has got on his mind this offseason, although it’s obviously a very good and very enviable problem to have.
Here’s what we think it will look like on opening night:
FORWARDS:
Alex Ovechkin – Dylan Strome – Alex Tuch
Ryan Leonard – Pierre-Luc Dubois – Jordan Kyrou
Aliaksei Protas – Ilya Protas – Tom Wilson
Boone Jenner – Justin Sourdif – Anthony Beauvillier
DEFENSE:
Jakob Chychrun – Matt Roy
Cole Hutson – Vincent Desharnais
Martin Fehervary – Timothy Liljegren
GOALTENDERS:
Logan Thompson
Charlie Lindgren
INJURED:
Rasmus Sandin
EXTRAS:
Ivan Miroshnichenko
Ethen Frank
Justin Holl
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Now, these lines are in no particular order and aren’t necessarily reflective of the ice time that they will be given by Spencer Carbery. For example, I don’t think anyone thinks Alex Ovechkin will be playing top line minutes at age 41.
And Carbery is certainly going to have a lot of flexibility with how he deploys his lineup. There are options to mix-and-match all over the place with this lineup, which is part of the beauty of how General Manager Chris Patrick & Co. have built it for this upcoming 2026-2027 season.
That being said, these lines probably give a pretty good starting point for opening night, and then you can see who develops chemistry from there.
Maybe you end up wanting to swap Alex Tuch and Jordan Kyrou on the top-2 lines. Maybe you want Wilson playing with Dubois again. Maybe you want a Kid Line, maybe Ilya Protas is a top center right away, maybe Ryan Leonard is a top line forward in his sophomore season.
There are a ton of choices and a ton of possibilities for Head Coach Spencer Carbery with this lineup, and as has already been highly publicized, it has a ton of potential to go very well for the Washington Capitals.
What do you think Caps fans, is this lineup a Stanley Cup contender, or do they still need more?
