A Day In The Life: Chris Patrick

During his grandfather’s funeral in 1998, Chris Patrick received an offer he couldn’t refuse. He just didn’t know it yet.

George McPhee, the Washington Capitals general manager at the time, told Patrick he would get him “back into hockey” once Patrick was done with Wall Street.

Patrick had played forward for two years at Princeton University and his dad, Dick Patrick, served as Capitals team president. Chris Patrick’s grandfather, Muzz, won the 1940 Stanley Cup with the New York Rangers and later became the team’s general manager. But the younger Patrick did not want any handouts.

Ten years later, after working for an investment bank and a private equity firm, Patrick recalled McPhee’s offer. He could no longer resist the urge to be around ice hockey.

He joined Washington and began ascending the career ladder from the bottom, focusing on player development and scouting. Patrick worked as a pro scout, then director of player personnel. In that role, Patrick helped the hockey operations team, which still included his dad, as they secured the Stanley Cup in 2018. He even brought the cup to Severna Park.

Patrick earned a promotion to assistant general manager and eventually became the franchise’s senior vice president and general manager.

Now, the Millersville resident is in his third year in that role.

“When I was on the outside, I felt like a GM sat around all day kind of playing fantasy hockey, but really that’s a part of it,” Patrick said. “There’s so much more that goes into the general manager job: managing an organization, managing a staff, managing people, and it takes a lot of time. If you’re not good at that, it will end up costing you because those are the things that make an organization strong.”

After leading the Metropolitan Division with 51 wins in Patrick’s first year as general manager and winning their first playoff series since 2018, the Capitals finished just outside the playoff picture last season. They entered a pivotal 2026 offseason with around $20 million in cap space.

Patrick viewed the free agent market as “thin.” His staff identifies players to acquire roughly a year before they pursue them, and they knew they wanted a top-six forward. They got two.

The Capitals traded for St. Louis Blues forward Jordan Kyrou to add speed and scoring, completed a sign-and-trade for Buffalo Sabres forward and three-time 30-goal scorer Alex Tuch, signed Blue Jackets captain Boone Jenner for versatility at center and wing, and added Vincent Desharnais to reinforce the blue line with size and toughness.

“You know, add a guy who can give us first over the boards, penalty-kill guy in Boone Jenner and a solid leader, a guy who was a captain on his team prior to coming to us,” Patrick said. “And then some size in the back end in Vinnie, you know, that he's a 6-7 guy, about 230 or 240 (pounds), so he's a big body back there, you know, clear the front of the net and be hard in the corners and be a defending-type guy for some of the more offensive defenders that we have, so yeah, we were happy with what we were able to get done.”

The Capitals also signed head coach Spencer “Carbs” Carbery to a multi-year extension.

Those acquisitions and moves set the stage for what Patrick called the biggest move of all: resigning free agent Alex Ovechkin, who surpassed Wayne Gretzky as the NHL’s all-time leading goal scorer last year. Even at 40 years old, Ovechkin scored 32 goals to lead the Capitals.

Ovechkin is excited by what Patrick pulled off, adding talent to bolster a core that includes Tom Wilson, Jakob Chychrun, Dylan Strome, Pierre Luc-Dubois and Logan Thompson.

“What management did, signing new players, trading for new guys, you can see how for Carbs it’s going to be lots of work, lots of thinking what the line combination is going to be,” Ovechkin told Monumental Sports Network. “We have lots of depth in our lineup. I’m very excited for our team, for our fans as well, because on paper, you can see our team is one of the best teams. Now we have to work for the playoffs first and a Stanley Cup.”

Signing players is not always easy. Behind the scenes, agents and teams engage in difficult negotiations. Many players have no-trade protection, so Patrick said fans should feel proud that Tuch chose to play for Washington because of the coaching staff, teammates and the city.

“I think sometimes people think it’s like, ‘Oh, this team just decided to overpay this guy by a lot of money,’ and that’s not really how it works,” Patrick said. “Every now and then, a team will get a deal that ends up after a few years looking like a really friendly deal to the team, and that’s just sometimes how it works out, but I think every general manager, every team, every agent and every player, they approach that stuff very professionally with a lot of data and a lot of viewpoints and it’s about trying to find a common ground, and sometimes that common ground looks expensive to people or looks cheap to people, but it’s just the way it ended up. Players have different motivations for what they want to do on a contract as well and so that’s why you get a lot of different-looking contracts.”

Roster construction is only one aspect of a general manager’s job. Another is having tough discussions with staff members and players. Patrick approaches those in a calm manner. It’s not his style to yell.

“It's definitely a two-way conversation, which I think kind of today's athletes, that's what they want,” he said. “They want to feel heard, and they want to hear, you know, what we're thinking.”

Patrick learned under the tutelage of former Capitals General Manager Brian “Mac” MacLellan, who now serves as president of hockey operations. During an interview with Monumental Sports Network in 2024, MacLellan praised Patrick’s skills as an evaluator.

“He’s seen the progression of players, so he has a good feel of, you know, this guy’s going to turn into this, this player’s going to turn into that,” MacLellan said. “He has a real good feel for the analytics part. You know, we built up our process analytics wise. He’s a smart guy. He’s a bright guy. And he gets along with people. So, I think the whole skill set is there for him to be successful.”

As he prepares for the upcoming season, Patrick is spending time with his wife, Kelley, and four daughters. They got to see the Stanley Cup up close when he brought it to Severn School and Severna Park Taphouse in 2018. He also brought it to Piney Orchard Ice Arena in Gambrills.

“So much stuff was happening down in D.C., right?” Patrick said. “And the players are down in Arlington, so … I wanted to make sure up here, I gave as many people a chance to see it as possible.”

Severna Park reminds Patrick of Virginia, around Oakton and Vienna where he grew up.

“Our practice rink is in Arlington, Virginia, and that’s where our offices are, so it’s a grind of a commute,” he said. “But for me, it’s worth it because we like being here. We have relationships here. Even when I get back from the Arlington, D.C. area, it feels like you’re away from it here a little more, so we’ve really enjoyed living here.”

The Capitals open training camp in mid-September and will face the defending champion Carolina Hurricanes on October 2.

Patrick is glad he accepted McPhee’s suggestion all those years ago and got back into hockey, but he is looking toward the future. General managers do not often have time to dwell on the past.

When reflecting on his tenure as general manager one day, he wants to be able to say that he won at least one Stanley Cup and that his contributions went beyond wins and losses.

“I hope they look back and say, ‘Yeah, that was an organization, that was a general manager who did things the right way and took care of the players, took care of the employees. They were a high-class, high-quality organization,’” Patrick said.