Washington paid $23 million to solve a problem that still isn't solved
The angle I took in my piece two days ago was that Jenner represents an answer to a question Washington hasn't actually resolved. What I didn't fully press on is the specific shape of that gap — and it's worth pressing on now, with the opener four days away.
Connor McMichael, who left for St. Louis on a six-year deal, posted 31 points across 50 games last season while logging nearly 17 minutes a night. He wasn't a star center. He was something arguably harder to replace: a reliable depth producer who showed up in the box score consistently enough to matter in close games. Washington went 13-18 in one-goal decisions last season — a 42% win rate against a team-wide mark of 53%. That gap between tight-game performance and overall record is where depth centers live and die. McMichael was one of the few players on this roster who could absorb those minutes and still contribute.
Boone Jenner is the man GM Chris Patrick brought in to fill that void. Four years, $23 million — a real commitment, not a stopgap. The problem is that Jenner's production last season was essentially nonexistent relative to what a starting center at this level is expected to provide. He's the nominal top center on the depth chart right now, ahead of Tyler Kopff and Petr Sikora, neither of whom has shown any meaningful offensive output either. That's three centers in a row who, at this moment, aren't producing at anything close to a starter's rate. Dylan Strome anchors the top line and posted 36 points in 48 games, which is real. But below Strome, the center depth is a problem the offseason didn't fix — it repackaged it.
This matters because of what the close-game record told us about this team. Winning one-goal games requires execution in the margins: the secondary scorer who converts a power-play opportunity, the depth center who wins a key faceoff and creates a zone entry in the third period. Washington was outright bad at this last season, and the offseason response at center was to replace a known quantity with a player who, by last season's numbers, produced nothing. My read is that Jenner may be a bounce-back candidate — he has a career track record that suggests the floor isn't zero — but banking on a bounce-back to solve a structural depth problem is a gamble, not a plan.
The broader issue is that center isn't even the only place where this depth concern exists. The left wing situation behind Pierre-Luc Dubois drops off sharply, with Anthony Beauvillier and Eriks Mateiko — still recovering from injury — offering little behind him. The defensive corps behind Jakob Chychrun similarly thins out fast. Washington's core is legitimate: Ovechkin, Wilson with 45 points in 43 games, Chychrun at plus-27, Aliaksei Protas quietly posting 31 points in 47 games. The top of this roster can beat almost anyone on a given night. But the 2026 season already proved that a great top six can't carry a team past the playoff line when the depth layer keeps losing the tight ones. The Capitals didn't fix that this summer. They signed a player they're hoping will fix it — and those are very different things.