“I’m not a guy who likes to lose”

The Washington Capitals provided Chris Patrick as the team’s seventh general manager in franchise history on Tuesday. Patrick takes the reins from 65-year-old Brian MacLellan, who is stepping down from his day-to-day role with the team to assume an oversight role as president of hockey operations.

Patrick will now represent the Capitals at the NHL’s General Manager meetings and become the primary point of contact for other NHL GMs. Since assuming the role of Assistant General Manager last summer, Patrick has been responsible for the team’s analytics department, player contract negotiations, hockey operations staff, player personnel, budget and team planning matters, and the Capitals’ affiliate relations.

Patrick, 48, is looking to build on MacLellan’s work over the past few seasons and restructure the team as it adjusts to a new core. The team has traded at two consecutive trade deadlines, prioritizing draft picks over veteran players while acquiring younger talent to prepare for the future.

Patrick held his first press conference as general manager of the Capitals on Tuesday in District E in Washington DC. Joining Patrick on stage were MacLellan, his father and club chairman Dick Patrick, and team owner Ted Leonsis. When asked how he envisions the future of the Caps, Patrick told reporters he has high hopes.

“My intention is to be competitive,” he said. “I’m not a guy who likes to lose. And I really believe that we can, for lack of a better word, leave the (Alex) Ovechkin era behind us with a competitive team.”

“I think we’ve already made a statement with what we’ve done this offseason,” he continued. “It’s easy for people to say, ‘Your superstars are aging. It’s time to rebuild everything, blow everything up, do it all over again.’ In reality, that can be a lot harder than it sounds. And I think you’ve seen a lot of teams that have tried to do that and got stuck in an endless cycle of tearing down and building up and tearing down and building up and never getting to where they want to be. And I think you can also look at some teams that haven’t done that and have had success (with that).”

Patrick’s tenure as general manager comes after the Capitals barely made the playoffs in a borderline season. Washington clinched a playoff spot in the final game of the regular season before being sent home by a sweep of the New York Rangers.

Ovechkin, 38, eventually experienced a decline in his years, scoring just 31 goals in 79 games. The Capitals captain began the year with eight goals in his first 43 games (0.19 T/SP). He finished the second half of the season with 22 goals in his final 32 games (0.69 T/SP), helping the team to its improbable playoff berth.

During an aggressive offseason, the Capitals’ front office made it a priority to find more support for Ovechkin and his fellow veterans. Washington signed seven players to the NHL roster, including potentially key contributors such as center Pierre-Luc Dubois, winger Andrew Mangiapane and defensemen Jakob Chychrun and Matt Roy. The moves were aimed at strengthening the Capitals’ top-six forward and top-four defenseman groups after their lackluster performance in the 2023-24 season.

“When you look at some of the moves we’ve made, like signing Pierre-Luc Dubois, it’s definitely a risk, but I think we’re pretty comfortable with that,” Patrick said. “And so you get a guy that could potentially be a really good player for you for many years and he just turned 26. I think we’re starting to build those kind of next age group players, like Dylan Strome and that age level. And then you’ve got the next level down with Connor (McMichael) and Aliaksei Protas.

“And then you have the guys that just won a couple of championships in Hershey and then you have a couple of players coming out of the draft. So I think there’s a lot of good players coming up that are going to help the team on the ice or that are going to help the team get a player that’s going to help them on the ice. So I think we’re in a better position in terms of prospects and talent than we’ve been in a long time.”

Before Patrick’s promotion, MacLellan and Patrick were part of the Capitals’ front office, along with Ross Mahoney, who serves as assistant general manager and focuses primarily on young players and scouting. As MacLellan described it, player acquisition was a group process even before Patrick’s promotion.

“We’ve worked hard over the last month to prepare for (the offseason) and executed,” MacLellan said. “I think the credit goes to our whole group, the senior team, Chris, myself, everyone that was in the room, the analysts.”

Despite the new titles, the Capitals do not expect there to be any major, if any, changes to the management methodology.

“Mac and I spend a lot of time talking about everything we do,” Patrick said. “Everything, sending a player down, bringing a player up. And that’s been no different with this current process. That’s how I envisioned things going forward. I’ll make the calls and do some of the legwork, but it’s still the same process. We’ll go over every step we make on the phone or in person.”

Patrick sees this level of collaboration as a strength of the organization, with analytics, scouting and video reviews playing a role in the process.

“I like the way our group approaches it, and I don’t know how it compares to a lot of other teams,” he added. “When we look at a trade deadline or free agency, we have analysts, we have pro staff in the room, and we all speak the same language. The pros have learned the metrics and data that the analysts value and can speak their language. The analysts respect what the pros do and respect their assessments. I think 90 percent of the time we get to the same place. Sometimes there are discrepancies, and then you pull up the video, look at it, and try to figure it out. We spend a lot of time on it. It’s a very methodical process. I think you have to trust your eye and you have to trust the numbers, and if they don’t match up, then you roll up your sleeves and get to work.”

As Patrick finishes his tenure as assistant general manager, other team members’ responsibilities will expand. Director of Minor League Operations Jason Fitzsimmons will manage the Caps’ relationship with the Hershey Bears, while chief pro scout and former Capitals forward Brian Sutherby will assume Patrick’s former scouting duties.

Patrick’s first real taste of his new day-to-day responsibilities won’t come until rookie camp and training camp in September, when he, head coach Spencer Carbery and other team members must assemble the team’s final 23-man roster before opening night. Patrick expects it to be a slow process until then.

“I don’t know if we have any money left (for me) to make a special transfer, but I think things are a little quieter in the league now,” he said. “I think teams are trying to finalize the RFAs they have left. I think 14 or 15 players have filed for arbitration, so they’ve got to work through that stuff. And it’s going to be pretty quiet in August. I think there’s going to be a few opportunities here and there for maybe a few smaller things, but we’ll just weigh them as they come in. And really, I don’t expect much until training camp, and we’ll see where we’re at.”

Patrick feels the pressure to succeed. He has been a Capitals fan his entire life and was only six years old when his father joined the organization. Chris played for the Little Capitals as a child and joined the NHL organization as a player when then-GM David Poile selected him in the eighth round of the 1994 draftWhen his playing career stalled, Patrick went into finance before deciding to take a big pay cut and return to hockey as a scout.

The Patrick family is something of a hockey dynasty, including seven Stanley Cup winners and four members of the Hockey Hall of Fame (Lester, Frank, Lynn and Craig). When the Capitals won the Stanley Cup in 2018, Dick and Chris became the sixth and seventh family members to have their names engraved on the NHL championship trophy.

Additionally, the Capitals have only missed the postseason four times since Ovechkin entered the league in 2005. Twice that happened during the Great Eight’s freshman and sophomore seasons. During Ovechkin’s 19 years as a pro, Washington has won 10 division championships, three Presidents’ Trophies and one Stanley Cup.

Whatever happens in the end, Patrick wants to avoid a long, painful moment in team history as the Capitals reposition themselves for the future.

“I think you can look at some teams that haven’t (completely re-engineered) and have been successful and have been able to go from an older core to a younger team that is competitive. So I think that’s definitely an option for us,” Patrick said. “I think we’ve positioned ourselves to be able to pivot either way if we want to.”