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Kevin Shattenkirk trade shows only a Stanley Cup will be enough for Capitals

February 28, 2017 at 12:25 p.m. EST
Capitals General Manager Brian MacLellan heads over to the Verizon center for a game last spring. (Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post)

We can, and should, analyze the particulars of Kevin Shattenkirk’s game, and wonder about how having another right-shot defenseman will affect the Washington Capitals’ depth, and speculate about who he might displace on the power play, and break down the cost of such a trade in prospects and draft picks.

But if we didn’t know before the Caps made the deal Monday night with St. Louis that put Shattenkirk in a Washington uniform, we know now with complete clarity.

At this point, what constitutes a successful playoff run for the never-sniffed-a-Cup Caps?

Let Brian MacLellan say it. He’s happy to.

“Winning a championship,” the general manager said Tuesday morning.

That was the entirety of his answer.

File that away, and be ready to pull it out in May or — dare we dream — June. The definition of success for a franchise that has appeared in one Stanley Cup finals, that has just twice won more than one playoff series in a spring, is now clearly and unabashedly skating around some rink, hoisting that silver chalice above their heads.

Had MacLellan and his front office not pulled off Monday’s deal for Shattenkirk, the GM likely would have said the same thing. He has been frank in his assessment that this group needs a sense of urgency because Alex Ovechkin is already closer to the end of his career than the beginning, because the club won’t be able to sign both essential winger T.J. Oshie and mainstay defenseman Karl Alzner this offseason, and because at some point we’ll be talking about who the pieces are around Evgeny Kuznetsov and Andre Burakovsky.

GM Brian MacLellan explains trade for Kevin Shattenkirk

The core is shifting. But before it does completely, the Capitals have the best team in hockey, both by record and by constitution. They added the most impactful player available in the trade market.

In terms of goals, of parameters for success, what other answer is there?

“All our focus, everything we’ve said and done, is about getting to the next level, being a better team, to do everything we possibly can to have a successful playoffs,” MacLellan said in his post-trade conference call with reporters.

Enter this spring with that mind-set, then. A successful playoffs no longer means reaching the Eastern Conference finals, something Ovechkin has never done. It doesn’t even mean a conference championship, which only the surprising 1998 Caps can claim. It means nothing short of shrugging off the shroud of doom that so frequently covers this team when the weather gets warm.

At some level, setting the Cup as the only acceptable outcome is pure folly, be it in October, February or April. Random number generators can seem more predictable, not to mention fairer, than the NHL playoffs. The Capitals likely are headed to their third Presidents’ Trophy in the past eight seasons.

What does a Presidents’ Trophy look like anyway? It certainly must be hollow. You don’t skate around the ice with one. During that span, the Caps have won four playoff series and lost six. It means nothing.

Stanley Cup or bust? Capitals acquire Kevin Shattenkirk from Blues

So in a way, that regular season success has been a burden for the Caps. When you’ve established yourself as one of the best teams in hockey, there are no plucky, gritty runs to the second round — runs marked by hard-luck losses, a-bounce-here-or-bounce-there what-ifs. There are only monumental, double-over-at-the-waist failures.

And MacLellan just doubled down on that. In his third season as the general manager, he is showing not only that he doesn’t fear pressure but that he embraces it.

Shattenkirk isn’t a complementary piece, the kind of player around the “fringes” MacLellan said he likely would pursue as the NHL’s trade deadline approached. Rather, he’s a former all-star who fits on the power play, who moves the puck in five-on-five situations — and whose contract expires after this season.

For 21 regular season games — and who knows how many in the playoffs, but it takes 16 wins to achieve the stated goal — the Caps surrendered forward prospect Zach Sanford and next year’s first-round pick, in addition to another player and a conditional draft pick.

Win now.

This is not, of course, without risk, and not just because the playoffs could well end in the second round again, because those aforementioned bad bounces can still break the best teams in hockey. Washington girds for disappointment annually, and this spring will be no different.

During the Ovechkin era, Washington traditionally has been active at the deadline. Because Caps fans are conditioned for the worst, this conversation starts with the deal that brought Martin Erat and Michael Latta from Nashville in exchange for prospect Filip Forsberg in 2013. Erat, the centerpiece, managed two goals in 62 regular season games with Washington before he sulked his way out of town in another trade. Forsberg is a 30-goal scorer, a franchise pillar.

Ouch. Still hurts.

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Put that aside, though. In 2008, as the Caps made their first run to the playoffs with Ovechkin, then-GM George McPhee acquired goalie Cristobal Huet and versatile veteran talent Sergei Fedorov in separate deadline deals. The Caps have tried adding toughness and veteran savvy (Matt Cooke in 2008, Scott Walker in 2010, Jason Arnott in 2011). They have tried bolstering their goaltending (Huet in 2008, Jaroslav Halak in 2014). They have tried adding at the blue line (Milan Jurcina and Joe Corvo in 2010, Dennis Wideman in 2011, Tim Gleason in 2015). They have tried both bulking up (Dustin Penner in 2014) and speeding up (Eric Belanger in 2010).

None of it worked. Or, really, came all that close. Each Memorial Day, the Caps have had nothing but tee times and barbecues ahead of them.

Now Shattenkirk must change that. He was set to wear his Caps jersey for the first time Tuesday night in New York against the Rangers. When he pulls it on, he — and everyone else in that room — will understand what’s at stake: his sport’s biggest prize.