The Washington Capitals announced earlier this week that Chris Patrick, the team’s associate general manager for the last year, would be taking over the role of general manager from Brian MacLellan. Patrick becomes the seventh general manager in franchise history – and he’ll have some pretty big shoes to fill.
Since making his own way from assistant GM to George McPhee’s replacement back in 2014, MacLellan has established himself as perhaps one of the best in the game, quickly shaping a team that always seemed to fall short year after year into a team that finally hoisted the Stanley Cup and making savvy moves that will hopefully make the organization’s current “retool on the fly” a quick and relatively painless one.