The Washington Capitals aren’t off to the same hot start they had last season, sitting just outside a playoff spot in the Eastern Conference through 20 games. With the team struggling to score consistently and a long-term injury to a key player like Pierre-Luc Dubois, it’d make sense for general manager Chris Patrick to explore the trade market for reinforcements.

According to hockey insider Elliotte Friedman, that is precisely what the club is currently doing. Friedman briefly referenced the Capitals when listing several teams that are known to be scouring the league for additions this fall in his latest 32 Thoughts column.

“Here’s what’s out there,” Friedman writes. “Calgary gets a lot of calls, but few they’d consider serious. Nashville is starting to get calls and will have decisions to make. We mentioned the Maple Leafs. Minnesota’s been pretty consistent, looking for forwards and edge on defence. Vancouver and centres is the romance waiting to be consummated. Washington, looking for speed. The Hurricanes, as always, and the Senators are lurking, looking to hit a home run.”

The Capitals have been looking to get quicker as a team since hiring Spencer Carbery as head coach before the 2023-24 season. While they have several speedsters dotted throughout their lineup, such as Connor McMichael, Ethen Frank, Justin Sourdif, and Aliaksei Protas, among others, they’ve still struggled in recent years with teams that place more emphasis on a speed game, like the Carolina Hurricanes, Buffalo Sabres, and New Jersey Devils.

The Capitals are a combined 12-13 against those three teams since Carbery took over, and have given up four or more goals in 16 of those 25 games.

After falling to the Hurricanes in just five games during the second round of last spring’s playoffs, the Capitals and specifically Carbery went back to the drawing board over the summer. “Had a few nightmares,” he said in September. “We’ve made a few adjustments to some of our structure.”

The news also comes after the Capitals primarily targeted Nikolaj Ehlers, one of the fastest players in the league, during unrestricted free agency, but lost out to the Hurricanes.

While the 2025-26 season is still young, several players are reportedly available or soon to become available who could add speed to the Capitals. The Athletic’s Chris Johnston recently put together his first “NHL trade board” of the year, and a few names stand out in particular.

Yegor Chinakhov, a 24-year-old winger on the Columbus Blue Jackets, immediately jumps out, as he requested a trade from the Blue Jackets over the summer and has posted a maximum skating speed, per NHL Edge, that ranks in the 90th percentile among NHL players this season. Chinakhov is averaging just 10:20 of ice time through 14 games, a 5:23 decrease from what he averaged in 30 games last year.

Other names on Johnston’s list, like St. Louis Blues winger Jordan Kyrou (86th percentile), San Jose Sharks center Alexander Wennberg (84th percentile), Vancouver Canucks winger Kiefer Sherwood (82nd percentile), and Philadelphia Flyers center Christian Dvorak (72nd percentile), could also make some sense.