Brian MacLellan has called his shot before. In his first offseason as general manager of the Washington Capitals, MacLellan identified defense as a weakness and followed through by signing veteran blue-liners Brooks Orpik and Matt Niskanen. Last summer, MacLellan said a stable top-line right-wing complement for Alex Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom was a priority, and then he traded for T.J. Oshie and signed Justin Williams.
Those changes morphed the Capitals from a team that had missed the playoffs the season before MacLellan took over to one that won the Presidents' Trophy and set a franchise record with 56 victories in his second season. But another second-round playoff exit means a wish list remains. The tweaks will be smaller this time.
"I'm pretty content with the core," MacLellan said Monday. "I think the ninth, 10th forward are where we're going to look to improve."
The Capitals won't have room to do much else, and the success of the regular season shouldn't be completely ignored either. Just three players are unrestricted free agents: forwards Jason Chimera and Mike Richards and defenseman Mike Weber. MacLellan said he'll prioritize re-signing the team's four restricted free agents - Marcus Johansson, Dmitry Orlov, Tom Wilson and Michael Latta - before considering whether the unrestricted ones have a place next season.
But in identifying how a largely successful team needs to improve, MacLellan pointed to the bottom half of the forward corps as needing "a little work," specifically in becoming more offensively reliable.
"You know, we've talked about it: It's turned into a top-nine league," MacLellan said. "I don't know that we had a pure top nine. Maybe we had a top eight or a top seven-and-a-half or however you want to value that, but I think we were a little short on the top nine.
"I think you need two-way guys, guys who can play both ways. Ideally for us, I think we need some offense out of it."
Entering the season, MacLellan pointed to the third-line center position as being open, and by the end of it, that role was never solidified. Jay Beagle started there, but the grinding, defensive center might not be the answer if the third line is expected to take on a scoring role. Coach Barry Trotz moved Johansson there after Beagle got hurt, and while he had success at first, Johansson played wing in the postseason, and Richards was the team's third-line center for most of the playoffs.
MacLellan said Johansson, who has the most offensive upside of the options on the current roster, is versatile, but he's ideally not a center. He said the Capitals could start with Johansson and Beagle at that role, but neither appears to be a permanent solution. MacLellan also mentioned prospect Chandler Stephenson, who played in nine games with Washington to start the season, as a possibility.
"I think it's a tough role to fill," MacLellan said. "There are a couple of free agents that could fill that role, but I don't know that the salary level is going to be the hole that we're going to have. I don't know that we'll be able to afford them. Maybe we'll have to start within."
Another consideration will be adding speed. MacLellan said the Capitals tended to "get exposed with the really fast teams," such as the Pittsburgh Penguins.
MacLellan has said this core has a two-year window, because after next season, Oshie and Williams will become free agents and young stars Evgeny Kuznetsov and Andre Burakovsky will be up for pay raises. That makes this offseason's moves, though expected to be relatively small, still significant.
"I don't know that the window closes off, but it's going to change because money will need to be allocated to different players and that sometimes squeezes out other players," MacLellan said. "So the situation will change after next year. It doesn't alter anything. I basically like the team we have now. I think it's a good team. Obviously I'm as frustrated or as agitated as the players and the coaches that we didn't accomplish more.
"I think we're one of the teams - you have maybe five or six teams that should contend for the Cup and we're one of them. As far as going forward, I think it needs to be tweaked a little bit."
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