Capitals general manager Brian MacLellan said the organization is keeping its foot on the gas, noting that they’ll be aggressive in the trade market throughout this weekend’s NHL draft.
MacLellan has said he’d look to free agency and the trade market to add impact pieces when he can. Last week, the “right circumstances” allowed the Capitals to trade goaltender Darcy Kuemper to the Los Angeles Kings for 26-year-old center Pierre-Luc Dubois, the No. 3 pick in the 2016 draft.“We’re still looking to do more, both in free agency and the trade market,” he told reporters Thursday on a pre-draft conference call.
Though the Capitals plan to be active in the trade market, they don’t expect to ship out the No. 17 pick on Friday.The San Jose Sharks are widely expected to select center Macklin Celebrini with the first pick. After that, there’s no clear consensus about which players will be selected. “We’re going to have a good player available to us at 17,” he said this week. “We’ll see how it goes as far as who the other teams are picking in front of us, but we feel confident that we’re going to get a good prospect at that pick.”
“There’s a belief among those I’ve talked to that they’re going to target a this year,” The Athletic’s Scott Wheeler wrote in a mock draft, predicting that the Capitals would select Czech defenseman Adam Jiricek.