When Washington acquired Pierre-Luc Dubois from Los Angeles earlier this summer, it pushed Connor McMichael down the Capitals’ center depth chart with Dylan Strome entrenched in the top spot. Accordingly, the Jets were among the teams to inquire about his services; Ken Wiebe of the Winnipeg Free Press relays that there was chatter at the draft that the two sides discussed a McMichael swap.
Winnipeg tried several internal options to serve as their second center behind Mark Scheifele last season. When those didn’t pan out as planned, they moved a first-round pick to Montreal for Sean Monahan in the days leading up to the trade deadline. While Monahan certainly helped stabilize that spot, the Jets couldn’t retain him in unrestricted free agency as he ultimately inked a five-year, $27.5MM contract with Columbus.
GM Kevin Cheveldayoff has since been unable to fill that role so as things stand, the internal options from last season (Cole Perfetti, Vladislav Namestnikov, and even Adam Lowry moving up from the third line) remain the choices to play behind Scheifele. Accordingly, it’s fair to suggest that Winnipeg is still on the lookout for help down the middle.
McMichael would be an interesting target on that front. The 23-year-old was a first-round pick by the Capitals back in 2019, going 25th overall. After spending most of 2021-22 in the NHL (when Winnipeg head coach Scott Arniel was an assistant in Washington), McMichael spent most of 2022-23 in the minors with AHL Hershey before playing a full-time role with the Caps last season. He got into 80 games with them, picking up 18 goals and 15 assists in just under 16 minutes a night of playing time. McMichael struggled at the faceoff dot though, winning just 42.4% of his draws.
With two years left on a bridge deal at a $2.1MM price tag, McMichael is someone who could fit on Winnipeg’s books. The team currently has just over $5.8MM in cap space, per PuckPedia, with Perfetti currently being a restricted free agent. If they went with a bridge deal for him, they should be able to afford both of them without needing to make any corresponding move to clear money.
Having said that, while McMichael is a good fit for Winnipeg, it’s less clear as to why Washington would consider moving him. While Dubois and his $8.5MM price tag would get the early nod ahead of McMichael down the middle, both players have also spent time on the wing in the NHL. It’s quite conceivable that head coach Spencer Carbery could elect to put one of those two on the wing, ensuring that both play in the top six.
With the moves they’ve made this summer, ones that brought in Dubois, Andrew Mangiapane, Jakob Chychrun, and Matt Roy, it’s fair to say that GM Chris Patrick and Director of Hockey Operations Brian MacLellan envision the Capitals getting back to the playoffs so subtracting McMichael from their roster would run counter to that idea at this point of the summer. They sit well over the cap right now on paper but Nicklas Backstrom is expected to remain on LTIR while T.J. Oshie could land there as well which would get them back into compliance so they’re not in a spot where they necessarily need to free up cap space.
Back at the draft, free agency was approaching and there were several centers on the open market so a futures-based return could have worked in theory, knowing there were options about to become available to replace him. (Speculatively, Rutger McGroarty, who has been in plenty of trade speculation lately, could have been a fit in a trade at that time.) But those free agents have since landed elsewhere and there isn’t a great McMichael replacement remaining. Accordingly, it stands to reason that they’d want an NHL-level asset in return which could complicate things if discussions were to get rekindled.
With their second center position needing to be addressed again, Cheveldayoff and the Jets are undoubtedly considering all their options. McMichael would have been an interesting one back at the draft but now, a move involving him looks less feasible so they’ll likely have turned their focus elsewhere.