The Washington Capitals took a chance on Pierre-Luc Dubois, and he has proven them right with his performance

When the Washington Capitals traded for Pierre-Luc Dubois less than two weeks before his no-trade clause was about to take effect last summer, they hoped to make the most of a player who was coming off a tough season and joining his fourth NHL team at the age of 26.

Things had not been working for Dubois with the Los Angeles Kings, who had acquired him in a trade from Winnipeg in June 2023 and signed him to an eight-year, $68 million contract.

The Kings were looking for a goalie, and Capitals general manager Brian MacLellan saw an opportunity to bring in a skilled center in exchange for Darcy Kuemper. Coach Spencer Carbery gave Dubois a significant role right from the start of training camp.

Since then, Dubois has rewarded that trust. His 43 assists are three more than his total points from his single season with the Kings, and he is on track for his most productive season since entering the NHL in 2017.

“The credit goes to the coaching staff and to the players here — the whole organization, really,” Dubois told The Associated Press on Monday. “Since my first phone call after I got traded, I felt the confidence that they had in me.

I felt how much they appreciated my game and who I am as a person, and the players, since training camp, the same thing. You put all those things together and it just makes my life easier just to be myself and play hockey and not do anything different, not be anybody different: just show up every day and just be Pierre-Luc Dubois.”

With 61 points through 70 games, Dubois heads back to Winnipeg on Tuesday night just three points shy of a career-high. He has been one of the reasons the Capitals are leading the NHL and were the first team to secure a playoff spot this season.

Dylan Strome, the team’s leading scorer, said that Dubois, along with 29-goal scorer Aliaksei Protas, has been one of their best players.

“Even when he wasn’t scoring a ton of goals at the beginning of the season, I feel like he still was playing really well,” Strome said. “He was kind of the piece we were missing to be a really successful team. I think we had some good stretches last year of great defense, and we were kind of missing another line of good offense and he’s brought that completely.”

Dubois is tied with MVP contender Leon Draisaitl for seventh in the league with 35 even-strength assists

He has also taken on a defensive role against opponents’ top players, which wasn’t expected when Washington acquired him from the Kings.

Defenseman Matt Roy, who played with Dubois in LA and signed with the Capitals as a free agent in July, is happy to see the turnaround but noted that Dubois never let the lack of points affect his attitude last season.

“Off the ice, to be honest, not much has changed,” Roy said. “He’s always been a great teammate. But on the ice, you can just see the confidence in him and the confidence of the team and the coaches that they have in him. I think it’s coming full circle, and it’s nice to see him having such a good year.”

Carbery is a strong contender for Coach of the Year, partly because of how he helped Dubois — who was the third overall pick in the 2016 draft by the Columbus Blue Jackets — regain his confidence and live up to his potential and contract.

“Knowing the type of player that he was and is and what I had seen on film and having coached against him, I knew there was a ton of positives inside of his game: his skillset, his intelligence, his size — all of those things,” Carbery said. “Who he is as a player, it’s important that he and all of our players have the confidence in (the fact that) they have a certain skillset and I need to, as a head coach, appreciate that and let them thrive in the environment.”

Dubois believes that anyone in a workplace, whether a teacher or a hotel or restaurant manager, can relate to feeling better about their job when they feel comfortable and valued. This has allowed him to perform well for the Capitals.

“I want to be coached as a player, I want to be pushed in the gym, I want to be challenged on the ice in games and everything,” Dubois said. “When you have a coaching staff that does that and communicates it’s black or it’s white, no gray area, and when they’re happy, they’re happy and when they’re not happy, you hear about it — you put all that together and it’s just an easy environment to do your job and you want to do your job for the guy to your left and the guy to the right. I think that helps a lot.”