Washington Capitals projected to be heaviest team in NHL during 2026-27 season

The Washington Capitals built their 2026–27 roster with a deep playoff run in mind, leaning heavily on size and strength as defining parts of their identity.

Washington already featured several of the NHL’s most physically imposing players in Tom Wilson, Alex Ovechkin, Aliaksei Protas, and Ilya Protas. The club only became bigger and more difficult to play against with its marquee offseason additions.

Washington Capitals offseason additions

With the added “beef” now on their roster, the Capitals, per Elite Prospects, are currently slated to be, on average, the heaviest team in the NHL next season. The average Caps player weighs 205 pounds (93.79 kilograms), which is 0.68 pounds (0.31 kg) more than the second-ranked Dallas Stars (93.48kg) and over 10 pounds heavier than the 32nd-ranked Colorado Avalanche (88.46kg).

There are also only three teams with an average height taller than the Capitals’ 6-foot-2 (187.96 cm): the Stars (6’2″ / 188.52 cm), Florida Panthers (6’2″ / 188.58 cm), and New York Rangers (6’2″ / 188.82 cm).

2026-27 NHL rosters average weight and height

Aliaksei Protas is the heaviest player on the team at 251 pounds, followed by Ovechkin (238), Desharnais (227), Ilya Protas (225), Wilson (225), and Pierre-Luc Dubois (220). The lightest player on the team is their 20-year-old young star defender, Cole Hutson, at 175 pounds. No other player comes in at under 180 pounds.

The Capitals have long prioritized size and physicality in their lineup, especially after successfully utilizing players like Ovechkin, Wilson, TJ Oshie, Brooks Orpik, etc. en route to winning the 2018 Stanley Cup. Brian MacLellan, the team’s former general manager and current president of hockey operations, stated in 2021 his belief that “size and skill is how you win, especially in the playoffs.”

Chris Patrick, a former hockey player who is 6-foot-5 himself, has been under MacLellan since joining the organization in 2008 and seems to share his boss’s opinion, as evidenced by the blockbuster moves he has completed over the past month. Patrick’s work will give Capitals head coach Spencer Carbery an intriguing amount of options to deploy and the ability to spread size and physicality more evenly throughout his lineup.

“You hear a bunch of the guys reference the physicality of the group,” Carbery said earlier this month. “It gets everybody like, ‘I’m playing with Willy, I got Boone Jenner, this is nice. It’s not just me looking around, and I’m the only sort of physical presence in the room.’ So to have multiple guys that really take pride in playing with a competitive edge and being hard and physical on the opposition, you know, in the East, there’s going to be some physical games. And when we’ve got a group that now all of a sudden feels a little bit taller with all these guys throughout your lineup, it’s a big positive.”

Overall, the Capitals now have nine players who stand at least 6-foot-4 and fourteen who weigh more than 200 pounds.

2026-27 Washington Capitals height and weight

Note: Dylan McIlrath is not included on the 23-man NHL roster for this exercise. He is 6-foot-5 and 250 pounds.

Another interesting demographic feature of the Capitals’ roster this season is its average age of 28.46 years, which ranks as the 15th-oldest roster in the NHL. Ovechkin, soon to be 41 years old, obviously skews that mark higher, but it also shows how well the Capitals have retooled from being one of the oldest teams in the league just a couple of seasons ago.

The Capitals are now the third-youngest team in the Metropolitan Division, with only the Rangers (26.91) and Philadelphia Flyers (26.58) having fresher-faced rosters.