Caps issues PTO invitation to Vrana

Amid the quieter part of the offseason, the Caps took care of some personnel matters Thursday morning when they announced they extended a PTO (professional tryout) invitation to former Washington winger and unrestricted free agent Jakub Vrana for the team’s 2024 training camp next month. The Caps and Vrana, 28, know each other quite well.

Ten summers ago, Vrana was the Caps’ first-round pick (13th overall), the first player selected during Brian MacLellan’s tenure as general manager. He came up through the Caps’ system, played for AHL Hershey and was part of its 2015-16 Calder Cup finalist team, and developed into a quick, efficient goal scorer with Washington. By the time the Caps captured their first Stanley Cup title in 2018, Vrana was a 22-year-old rookie who contributed some timely top-nine goals. His two best seasons followed, but so did a trade to Detroit in April 2021, at the trade deadline of the pandemic-shortened 2020-21 season.

Sent to Motown in the deal that brought Anthony Mantha to the Capitals, Vrana had a four-goal game against Dallas just 10 days later, but a shoulder injury suffered in training camp three years ago required surgery and sidelined him for most of the 2021-22 season. Early in the 2022-23 season, he entered the NHL/NHLPA player assistance program. A stint with the AHL’s Grand Rapids followed, and Vrana was traded to St. Louis in March 2023.

Last season with the Blues, Vrana never recovered. He had just two goals and six points in 21 games with St. Louis, and played twice as many games with AHL Springfield, where he had 16 goals and 36 points.

Vrana still holds the reins, and he can still shoot and handle the puck. He’s played a total of just 83 NHL games since leaving Washington 40 months ago, but he’s racked up 34 goals and 52 points while averaging 14:25 per night in ice time. Among all NHL forwards with at least 80 games played during that span, Vrana’s average of 1.46 goals per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 is second only to Toronto’s Auston Matthews (1.76). On the other hand, Vrana hasn’t been a consistent playmaker since leaving D.C.; his possession numbers have declined despite favorable zone deployment.

When he first saw the D.C. area a decade ago, Vrana came to town as the Caps’ big acquisition in the 2014 NHL Draft. This time, he arrives looking to revive a flagging career as the Caps look to engineer another of the turnaround projects they’ve had success with over the past decade.

With the salary squeeze of recent seasons, several veteran NHL players have had to settle for taking paid leaves in an effort to extend their careers in the league. Few of those attempts have been successful; most players are released at the end of training camp. In recent falls, the Caps have signed Matt Hendricks (in 2010) and Alex Chiasson (in 2017) on the back of strong training camps, but the recent success rate in the league is not favorable.

With an invitation to a PTO, there are no commitments, promises or guarantees from the team, and there’s only a brief window (and likely very few preseason opportunities) in which a player can clearly demonstrate that he’s more deserving of a roster spot than any other contender. The Caps have had an extremely active offseason in which they’ve added a quartet of NHL-proven forwards in Pierre-Luc Dubois, Andrew Mangiapane, Taylor Raddysh and Brandon Duhaime, and they have some talented young players knocking on the door of opportunity as well. The odds are stacked against Vrana; they’re stacked against virtually every player who signs a PTO these days, though the loosening of salary-cap restraints could pave the way for a higher percentage of them to succeed in training camp this fall.

Last September in Boston, the Bruins extended a PTO camp invitation to Danton Heinen. A winger the B’s drafted in 2014 who eventually developed into a top-nine player in the NHL, Heinen was traded to Anaheim less than two months before Vrana was dealt to Detroit. After stints with the Ducks and Penguins, Heinen found himself accepting a PTO from his original employer. He made the Bruins’ roster after camp last fall, and after a 17-goal, 36-point season, he signed a two-year, $4.5 million contract with Vancouver on July 1.

The Caps need players to score goals, and while they’ve brought in some good options to boost the attack this summer, competition is a good thing. And Vrana can certainly score goals and still has some ground to cover in what should be the best seasons of his career. Heinen’s successful PTO saga in Boston is the exception rather than the rule, but, as in that case, the team and player have a level of familiarity and comfort with each other.

Vrana and the Caps are looking to replicate what Heinen and the Bruins accomplished last fall. For the Caps, it’s a no-risk, high-reward proposition. For Vrana, it’s a chance for a mid-career reset under a different coaching staff. But he’ll have to earn it; the Caps’ depth chart already has as many as eight former first-rounders vying for a top-nine spot, depending on the health status of TJ Oshie.

There are only a few players left from Washington’s 2018 Cup team, and the number is dwindling each year. Vrana is the first of those players to find his way back to the District as an active player, but whether that return will be fleeting or extended remains to be seen, and will depend on Vrana’s performance, his mindset and the state of his game, but also on the performance of the others vying for significant playing time on the power play and/or in the top nine when training camp begins next month.

Few careers end perfectly, but Vrana is still young enough to forge a prosperous, redemptive exclamation at what lies ahead. Washington is where it all began for him, where he first tasted NHL success and where he was a valuable part of a championship team. And if he doesn’t make the Caps’ opening-night roster, Vrana may still be able to open eyes elsewhere in the league with a strong showing in camp next month.