The Washington Capitals continue to improve their NHL roster in an attempt to get Alex Ovechkin to the all-time goals record, this time by acquiring Calgary Flames forward Andrew Mangiapane. Going back to the Flames was a second-round pick, and there was no salary retained so this is a straight swap of player-for-pick:

Let's break it down.

What Washington Gets

There are a lot of declining or free agent wingers in the Capitals lineup with both Max Pacioretty and Nicolas Aube-Kubel expected to move on while TJ Oshie and Tom Wilson are on the downsides of their careers (and Oshie's future is in question, period). Adding Mangiapane gives them another scoring option for the top-6 to help supplement what is left.

When Mangiapane was at his best from 2018-2022, he was a kind of offensive Swiss Army knife. He was a solid-not-great playmaker, he could find soft spots in the defence for tips or deflections, and he could help get the puck into the zone with control (from AllThreeZones):

He had that one big season in 2021-22 when he scored 35 goals, but from 2018-2021 Mangiapane scored 1.13 goals per 60 minutes at 5-on-5. That rate tied him with John Tavares and Max Pacioretty and saw this winger land in 96^th percentile of per-minute 5-on-5 goal scoring. That was all before his breakout season, and when we include that 35-goal effort, he was a 97^th percentile 5-on-5 goal scorer. Scoring at that rate across 250 games and four seasons is not a mistake.

However, times have been leaner for Mangiapane of late as he's managed just 22 goals at 5-on-5 over the last two seasons, one fewer than he scored in the 2021-22 campaign alone. He had just seven goals at 5-on-5 this past year, which was one less than each of Justin Danforth, Brett Leason, and Kyle Okposo. From the same tracking data, the deflections and one-timers are down while the zone entries are way down:

Mangiapane still drove play well, but he and Mikael Backlund couldn't recapture the magic they had 2-3 years ago. Calgary is in a re-tool/rebuild mode, and now here we are.

It isn't hard to see Mangiapane having a rebound year. Dylan Strome is one of the most underrated offensive players in the league and Pierre-Luc Dubois should be motivated to have his own rebound effort. Strome is the better playmaker, but both can help Mangiapane create better offensive opportunities than what he had been doing in Calgary of late. How far he can bounce back is a fair question because the offence will still revolve around getting Ovechkin 40 goals, but he should get a very good centre to skate with, at any rate.

There is multi-cat value for Mangiapane. He has surpassed a hit per game in each of the last two seasons and is over two shots per game across the last three seasons while skating 16:11 per night. Washington is also a team that splits its power play units as Ovechkin plays both halves but Frozen Tools has them with five other forwards in the 46%-63% range for share of PPTOI. Mangiapane had about 24% last year in Calgary, so he could double that depending what they do with their PP units. He won't have a big PP production season, but he could push double-digit power play points, and that matters a lot for his fantasy value.

Back in Calgary, this clears cap space if they want to make a big trade/signing or two this summer. It also clears the path for guys like Connor Zary, Martin Pospisil, and Andrei Kuzmenko to earn more minutes at even strength, particularly Zary. This also gives Washington another option to hold off on promoting Ryan Leonard and Andrew Cristall.

Who This Helps

Connor Zary

Dylan Strome

Andrew Mangiapane

Who This Hurts

Connor McMichael

Sonny Milano