Trevor van Riemsdyk celebrated his Caps deal with his dad — and a toast

He wasn’t about to rest on his laurels, either; in the hours after the deal was announced, van Riemsdyk anchored the top defensive pairing and recorded two assists in a 5-1 win over the New York Islanders.

“It was nice to have a good game after that to also celebrate,” said van Riemsdyk, who just two seasons ago toiled as the Capitals’ seventh defensemen and endured stretches as a healthy scratch. His new deal, which will give him a hefty raise at $3 million per year, doesn’t just bring newfound stability to his life — his wife is 38 weeks pregnant and van Riemsdyk was dreading a possible move had he been dealt at the trade deadline. It also sets up the 31-year-old as an entrenched piece of the team’s future on the blue line. He joins John Carlson, Nick Jensen and Rasmus Sandin as the four defensemen on contract next season; the Capitals also have two restricted free agents who could be back in Martin Fehervary and Alexander Alexeyev, which would further solidify a defensive corps that had a murky outlook just a few weeks ago.

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Carlson, who is still recovering from a head injury suffered in December, was the only Capitals defenseman who entered this season on a long-term contract. That left the front office scrambling to shore up the future of the blue line before the deadline. Washington traded away veterans Dmitry Orlov and Erik Gustafsson and acquired the 23-year-old Sandin from the Toronto Maple Leafs; it also re-signed Jensen to a three-year deal days before the deadline. But van Riemsdyk was forced to sweat out the deadline as a possible trade piece as General Manager Brian MacLellan fielded last minute calls. He opted against moving van Riemsdyk, which opened the door for more negotiations on a long-term contract.

“The deadline comes and goes, and you never know how that will go with where we were at and how things were looking … it takes a little bit of time,” van Riemsdyk said. “I’m in an extremely fortunate situation. I’ve gotten in with the Caps, and they’ve treated me really well since I’ve gotten here. I’m extremely grateful.”

His three-year contract is the longest he’s signed in his nine-year career, and a reward for his resilience over the past three seasons. A right-handed defenseman who won a Stanley Cup during his rookie season with the Chicago Blackhawks in 2015, van Riemsdyk came to Washington on a one-year deal in 2020. He played just 20 games that season, biding his time as part of the team’s taxi squad and watching many games from the press box as a healthy scratch. But he did enough to earn another two-year deal, and he responded by offering versatility to the Capitals lineup and chipping in a career-high 17 points last season.

With the Capitals’ back end decimated by injury this season, he’s proven to be a reliable top-pair defenseman and a mainstay on the penalty kill — he has a team-high 148 blocked shots — while also enjoying the most productive offensive output of his career. He’s tallied 21 points, including five in his last seven games.

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“Just watching him over the three years, the first year we had seven NHL defensemen here, and he found himself in and out of the lineup. He was just an unbelievable professional the way he went about his business,” Washington Coach Peter Laviolette said. “He’s been a real strength for us on the back end … a good two-way defenseman. He can break pucks out. He’s got a good first pass. He jumps into the offense. He’s pushed it a little bit the last two years … he’s looking to create.”

Laviolette called van Riemsdyk “a low maintenance hockey player” who has established himself as a respected teammate in the dressing room, and he’s backed it up in recent weeks even as his contract situation was up in the air. When Jensen and Fehervary both recently missed three games due to injury, van Riemsdyk not only took on a heavier load (he’s averaged 25:22 minutes of ice time in his last three games) but also focused on helping their young replacements learn the system and adjust off the ice. That includes Sandin, who has skated on the top pair alongside van Riemsdyk and recorded eight points in his first four games with Washington.

“We’ve started to know each other really well both on the ice and off the ice,” Sandin said. “He’s been helping me a lot since first game, first practice.”

As he took the ice for practice at Madison Square Garden on Monday morning ahead of the team’s game against the New York Rangers the following night, van Riemsdyk took his place among the top four defensemen. He’s optimistic about what the group has left in the tank for the final 15 games and how the Capitals will coalesce in the future, he said, but he only reached this point by leaning on his loved ones. He and his brother, James van Riemsdyk of the Philadelphia Flyers, were both rumored to be on the trade block before the deadline, and they talked with each other as much as they could for support. And of course, Trevor’s contract extension could not have come at a better time, with his father traveling with the team as part of the annual mentors trip.

“To sign a deal like that, it just kind of makes you reminisce, especially with your dad there, about all the hard work he’s put in,” he said. “I wouldn’t be here without him.”