The Caps And Kings Exchange Headaches

Washington acquires a reclamation project in Pierre Luc-Dubois.

Pierre-Luc Dubois by Jenn G is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

While the Stanley Cup Final grinds on — the Edmonton Oilers are not ready to go quietly after an exciting 5-3 Game Five win over the Florida Panthers on Tuesday night that cut Florida’s series lead to three games to two — we’re beginning to see a number of interesting hockey trades. Normally, the league frowns on teams transacting while the final two teams are battling to win the Cup, lest fans get distracted from the main event. But with the 2024 NHL Draft set to commence in just eight days in Las Vegas, and free agency beginning on July 1st, the gap between the finish to the Stanley Cup Final and offseason is far too brief.

My hometown team, the Washington Capitals made a trade, one that reminds me of the axiom that Montreal Canadiens Hall of Fame goalie Ken Dryden first noted in his seminal hockey memoir, The Game: more often than not, hockey trades occur when two teams are willing to exchange another team’s problem for one of their own.

Such is the case with the deal that ships goalie Darcy Keumper out of Washington and to the Los Angeles Kings in exchange for serial malcontent center Pierre-Luc Dubois. Keumper, who signed as a free agent with Washington after helping the Colorado Avalanche win a Stanley Cup in 2022, had simply played himself out of a job during his two seasons with the Capitals. After the 2021-22 season, the team cut ties with their incumbent goalie tandem of Ilya Samsonov and Vítek Vaněček in favor of Keumper and journeyman Charlie Lindgren.

When he arrived in Washington with a Stanley Cup pedigree, Keumper was installed as the presumed #1 goalie. That more or less held for his first season with the Capitals, but with the arrival of new head coach Spencer Carbery this past season, the arrangement soon evolved into a tandem as Lindgren proved his worth as a more than capable backup. And as Lindgren’s fortunes waxed, Keumper’s waned in dramatic fashion, as Carbery could hardly rely on him to even allow Lindgren to take a rest while the Capitals battled to secure the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.

By the end of the season, with the Capitals fighting for every last point, the only place you’d see Keumper would be at the end of the bench. With three years remaining on his contract at $5.25 million per year, and with not one, but two viable backups stashed with their AHL affiliate in Hershey, Pennsylvania, Keumper’s time in Washington had clearly run out. But who could Capitals General Manager Brian MacLellan find as a trading partner to take a 34-year old goalie with three years remaining on his contract off his hands?

Enter Rob Blake, retired defenseman, member of the Hockey Hall of Fame and current General Manager of the Los Angeles Kings. He had a problem of his own in Dubois, a player of acknowledged talent who just couldn’t find a happy place in the NHL. Dubois was the third overall pick in the 2016 NHL Draft selected by the Columbus Blue Jackets. At 6’4” and 225 pounds and imbued with obvious offensive skills, he entered the league with great expectations, but hardly ever seemed to fulfill them.

Then came this infamous January 21, 2021 shift against the Tampa Bay Lightning that led head coach John Tortorella to bench him and eventually arrange for him to be traded to the Winnipeg Jets just two days later, the moral equivalent of exiling a baseball player to the Kansas City A’s of the American League in the 1950s.

While Dubois enjoyed some success in Winnipeg, happiness seemed to elude him again, and he made noises that he’d be willing to go elsewhere. A little less than a year ago the Jets traded him to the Kings in exchange for three players and a 2024 second round draft pick — quite the haul for just one player. In retrospect, it’s looking like an incredible steal. Dubois promptly signed an eight-year, $68 million contract extension with Los Angeles that lasts through 2031.

Would Pierre-Luc finally be happy? Who knows? All we do know is that his performance on the ice last season — just 16 goals and 24 assists — didn’t merit the sort of contract that suddenly looked like an albatross in a league with a hard salary cap. One could imagine Blake staring at a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet in his office in the Staples Center crying out loud, “Who will rid me of this troublesome center!”

That’s probably when MacLellan came calling. For Blake, the deal is a masterstroke. Instead of staring down the barrel of a bad contract that had seven more seasons to go that could have sunk his franchise, he’s got a far more manageable financial situation with Keumper, which makes this deal a winner even if he gets bought out and never plays a game for the Kings. As for replacing Dubois, the Kings made the playoffs with him just going through the motions, how can they be any worse without him?

In Washington, they have a much more formidable challenge. They continue to want to remain competitive even as their roster ages in order to aid Alex Ovechkin’s assault on Wayne Gretzky’s all-time goal scoring record. Ovechkin needs just 42 goals to pass Gretzky, a figure that seemed easily achievable a year ago, but looked in grave doubt after the first half of last season where he was nearly invisible on the scoresheet.

Ovechkin’s fortunes, and the team’s, revived after Ovechkin returned from a trip to Dubai over the All-Star break, but the implications were clear. Ovechkin, who was bereft of help last season as buddies Nicklas Backstrom and Evegeny Kuznetsov were forced to move on, needed someone new to get him the puck.

That someone could be Dubois, who will get every chance in training camp to prove that he can click with Ovechkin. The trick for Carbery is finding a way to keep Dubois motivated. Multiple coaches have tried and failed. The good news for Washington is that, of late, the team has proven it can get production out of talented players other teams have given up on — witness center Dylan Strome and winger Sonny Milano. In addition, just last season, winger Anthony Mantha dramatically improved his play in the final year of his contract, helping the team deal him to Las Vegas before the trade deadline while also positioning him to sign one last big contract at the NHL level.

On the downside, this is the kind of deal that could end MacLellan’s tenure in DC. Blake’s problem is now his problem, and it’s one that extends far beyond the last two seasons of Ovechkin’s contract. Perhaps the cap will expand markedly in the next few years, making Dubois contract look like an afterthought. I hardly think so. And in that case, Dubois will need to be potting 30 goals and 30+ assists for the remainder of his Capitals career for this not to look like an epic disaster. I didn’t think Carbery, in his first year behind the bench in Washington, could manage to get the team to qualify for the playoffs. He pulled it off anyway while several key players disappeared from the roster forever. If anyone can motivate Dubois to save his own career, it’s Carbery. I’m sure he’s already talked to Dubois. The rest is up to him.