LAS VEGAS — There's still a hint of anguish in George McPhee's voice when he talks about his complicated tenure with the Capitals, even though four years have passed since their messy breakup, even though he's now the architect of the most successful first-year NHL team in history.
As McPhee and the Golden Knights ready to meet his old franchise in the Stanley Cup Final, those memories are a primary storyline.
It's a reminder that he once held a personal stake in the futures of the players sitting on the opposite bench. Thirteen current Capitals were acquired by McPhee during his 17 years in Washington. He hand-picked them, molding the roster into a perennial power before his untimely firing in 2014. Upon orchestrating an expansion draft that has become a case study for tactful, opportunistic management, McPhee might be the first GM in professional sports to have influenced two competing championship finalists so heavily.
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"It's funny how life goes. Two years ago, I was walking around Ann Arbor kicking stones and couldn't get a job," he quipped with reporters during Sunday's media day. "I'm certainly proud of the Washington team and the players. We made good selections. And they turned out to be real good players. I can certainly take pride in that."
George McPhee acquired 13 of the @Capitals ' 25 players who have appeared in the 2018 #StanleyCup Playoffs - 12 via the #NHLDraft and one via free agency (Jay Beagle). #NHLStats : https://t.co/ICunq8AOgB pic.twitter.com/Jv7UcQDf6A
— NHL Public Relations (@PR_NHL) May 27, 2018
McPhee lamented becoming a "persona non grata," as he put it, among his former Capitals colleagues and players upon his departure. That part was tough. Watching Alex Ovechkin, whom he drafted first overall in 2004, and Nicklas Backstrom, drafted fourth overall two years later, and the rest of his former pride and joy finally get over the playoff hump together after so much failure brought satisfaction, if not a certain degree of validation.
That's not to take credit away from Brian MacLellan, who was hired by McPhee as a scout for Washington in 2001. He rose up the ranks to director of player personnel and then to assistant general manager, serving as McPhee's right-hand man for seven seasons until ultimately replacing his childhood friend. Their relationship, which spans more than four decades to their days together playing for the Guelph Holody Platers, turned icy after MacLellan's succession, but has thawed in recent months.
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“It’s awkward,” MacLellan said, recalling the time he was offered to replace McPhee as Capitals general manager full time. “George is mad. He’s angry. He’s got his feelings about it. Then I’m supposed to sit at his old desk in his old office and not down in the war room. It was hard. You know a guy a long time, back to when we were kids. But then I had to try to do the job.”
If McPhee built the foundation for this year's Capitals, MacLellan fine-tuned it, even if some of his recent signings have induced head-scratching. Those aside, in the last 12 months, MacLellan extended Evgeny Kuznetsov, who leads the playoff field in scoring as a worthy and productive playoff runningmate for Ovechkin (something McPhee never found), and astutely tweaked the roster with midseason additions such as Michal Kempny, Devante Smith-Pelly and Brett Connolly.
“I knew it from the inside,” MacLellan said. “I had a history with these players. I knew what we needed.”
Each general manager's body of work is to be celebrated; this is one of the tantalizing subplots to a Stanley Cup Final that's chock full of them. But with McPhee's fingerprints on nearly 75 percent of the players in this series, it's especially fun to look back on how each team came together using their expected rosters.
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How the Capitals were built
MacLellan drafted: Jakub Vrana (13th overall, 2014)
MacLellan signed: Brooks Orpik (2014); Matt Niskanen (2014); Madison Bowey (2014); Connolly (2016); Devante Smith-Pelly (2017); Nathan Walker (2017); Alex Chiasson (2017)
MacLellan traded for: T.J. Oshie (2015), Lars Eller (2016); Kempny (2018)
McPhee drafted: Ovechkin (first overall, 2004); Backstrom (fourth overall, 2006); John Carlson (27th overall, 2008); Braden Holtby (93rd overall, 2008); Dmitry Orlov (55th overall, 2009); Kuznetsov (26th overall, 2010); Phillip Grubauer (112th overall, 2010); Travis Boyd (177th overall, 2011); Tom Wilson (16th overall, 2012); Chandler Stephenson (77th overall, 2012); Christian Djoos (195th overall, 2012); Andre Burakovsky (23rd overall, 2013)
McPhee signed: Jay Beagle (2010)
How the Golden Knights were built
Ryan Carpenter (waivers from Sharks)
Cody Eakin (expansion draft from Stars)
William Karlsson (plus a 2017 first-round pick, 2019 second-round pick and David Clarkson's contract from Blue Jackets)
Oscar Lindberg (expansion draft from Rangers)
Jonathan Marchessault (expansion draft from Panthers)
Tomas Nosek (expansion draft from Red Wings)
Erik Haula (expansion draft from Wild)
James Neal (expansion draft from Predators)
David Perron (expansion draft from Blues)
Tomas Tatar (trade from Red Wings)
Pierre-Edouard Bellemare (expansion draft from Flyers)
Ryan Reaves (trade from Penguins)
Reilly Smith (plus a 2017 fourth-round pick from Panthers)
Alex Tuch (trade from Wild)
Deryk Engelland (expansion draft from Flames)
Brayden McNabb (expansion draft from Kings)
Jon Merrill (expansion draft from Devils)
Colin Miller (expansion draft from Bruins)
Luca Sbisa (expansion draft from Canucks)
Nate Schmidt (expansion draft from Capitals)
Shea Theodore (expansion draft from Ducks)
Marc-Andre Fleury (expansion draft from Penguins)
Malcolm Subban (trade from Bruins)
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