The Washington Capitals’ 2021 draft decision keeps looking worse in hindsight, because the pick they moved wound up in Dallas and became Wyatt Johnston.
Washington sent Jacob Vrana, Richard Panik and its first-round pick at No. 23 overall in 2021 to Detroit for Anthony Mantha in a deal that was supposed to reshape the roster. Instead, the trade never really hit for any of the teams involved, and the biggest winner turned out to be the Stars.
Detroit flipped that No. 23 pick to Dallas for the No. 15 selection in 2021, plus picks No. 48 and No. 138.
The Red Wings used the No. 15 pick on goalie Sebastian Cossa, who played one game for Detroit in the last five years before being traded to Utah this summer.
Dallas took Johnston with the No. 23 pick, and he has become a legitimate star. He started his NHL career in 2022-23 at age 20 and has piled up 134 goals and 129 assists for 263 points in 328 games.
He has also been available every night, playing all 82 games in each of his four seasons. In the playoffs, he has added 22 goals and 16 assists for 38 points across 62 games, and Dallas has reached the postseason in each of the last four years, getting to the conference finals three times with Johnston in the lineup.
For Washington, the return never came close to matching the price. Panik was out of the league a year later.
Vrana’s path got messy after he was sent to St. Louis, where off-ice issues stalled his career.
He later made a comeback with Washington in 2024-25, then finished the season in Nashville after the Predators claimed him off waivers. Since 2022-23, Vrana has appeared in 85 games and recorded 22 goals and 14 assists for 36 points.
Mantha, meanwhile, was hurt and inconsistent with the Capitals before they dealt him to Vegas in 2024. Since 2022-23, he has played 235 games, scoring 71 goals on 399 shots and adding 71 assists for 142 points.
Last season he posted career highs for the Pens, finishing with 33 goals and 64 points in 81 games. In the playoffs during that stretch, he played nine games and had one assist.
It’s the kind of draft miss that lingers. If Washington had kept Johnston, the path might have looked very different.
Instead, the Capitals missed the chance to land a player who has become a force in Dallas, and the ripple effects would have touched everything from their playoff outcomes to the later ability to hire Spencer Carberry and draft Ryan Leonard at No. 8 in 2023. Detroit can play the same game of regret, too: if Yzerman had held onto the pick and paired Johnston with Dylan Larkin, the Red Wings’ playoff drought might have ended years ago and Stevie Y would still be the GM in the Motor City.
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