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T.J. Oshie brought home boxes and started the process of packing up the home he and his family have rented in Arlington for the past two years. It was early May, and the Washington Capitals’ season had just ended in familiar and bitter fashion, leaving Oshie less than two months from unrestricted free agency. He wanted to re-sign in Washington, but he wasn’t blind to the big picture.
“We kind of just assumed that there wasn’t really enough salary cap space to stay,” he said. “We weren’t really planning on leaving, but we were just figuring we were going to have to find somewhere else.”
While Oshie was pondering the packing ahead, Capitals general manager Brian MacLellan was conducting his end-of-season meetings. It was during those exit interviews that player after player campaigned for the team to retain Oshie.
They didn’t gush about his 33-goal season, nor the fact that he was the first player besides Alex Ovechkin to lead the franchise in goals since 2009-10. They figured his play had spoken for itself. Instead they focused on his constant positivity throughout the draining 82-game seasons and the vigour he brought to every shift on the ice. And they spoke of both in reverence.
“I don’t think I’ve ever played with a guy who has the combination of his talent on the ice and that energy,” defenceman Brooks Orpik said. “I think he’s a guy — I don’t want to say impossible — but he’s pretty hard not to like.”
The steady stream of praise gave MacLellan plenty to think about, and put the Capitals on the course for their most crucial decision of the summer. In Oshie, MacLellan felt he had a player who had the blue-collar attitude to inspire others around him while still possessing the skill to score, two ingredients the team has desperately needed as it has failed to advance past the postseason’s second round with Ovechkin on the team.
“We get in the playoffs, you notice him,” MacLellan said. “He brings you into the fight. He recognizes when the team’s a little flat and he tries to go out and change the energy.”
But MacLellan also faced a complicated off-season picture with 11 play- ers in a contract year and some due for big pay raises, including Oshie, who would have been coveted by other teams as the top unrestricted free agent on the market. On June 23, Oshie signed a $46-million contract that will keep him in Washington through the 2024-25 season.
How the team valued Oshie could probably best be seen in a later move made by MacLellan. To help accommodate the new salaries for Oshie and the team’s restricted free agents, the Capitals traded away Marcus Johansson, a top-six, goal-scoring forward, for draft picks.
The message was clear. While the team liked Johansson, he was a complementary piece over his seven seasons in Washington. Oshie, in the two years since the Capitals acquired him from the St. Louis Blues, had become an indispensable part of its foundation.
Trading for Oshie before the 201516 season became one of the marquee moves of MacLellan’s threeyear tenure as Capitals general manager. Washington had needed a topline complement to Ovechkin and centre Nicklas Backstrom for years, and while Oshie may have started as their sidekick, the change of scenery helped him become a star in his own right. Last season, his 33 goals matched Ovechkin for the team lead.
Goals only accounted for part of Oshie’s value. He’s a threat on Washington’s top power-play unit, he kills penalties and his two-way game is sophisticated enough to match up against opponents’ top goal-scorers. “How many guys do as many things as he does on the ice?” MacLellan asked. “He’s top of the league, I bet, in versatility.”