The Capitals have retained pending RFA forward Henrik Rybinski on a two-way deal for 2025-26, the team announced Thursday. He’ll make the league minimum $775K salary if he’s in the NHL and a $130K salary in the minors.
It’s a nice birthday present for Rybinski, who turns 24 today. He’s yet to make his NHL debut but has spent the last three seasons developing in AHL Hershey after signing his entry-level contract in March 2022. That deal was due to expire this summer, making him a restricted free agent, but he’ll get some offseason business early out of the way with an extension.
Rybinski signs a deal that carries a lower NHL salary and cap hit than his $813,750 qualifying offer would have provided, but does land a higher AHL salary in the process. That’s the more important number for him since he’s not anticipated to spend much of any time on the NHL roster in 2025-26. He is coming off a nice year in Hershey, though, posting a career-high 10-25–35 scoring line with a +11 rating in 60 games.
The two-time Calder Cup champion with the Bears will now get another season to show the Caps what he can do. He was initially a fifth-round pick by the Panthers back in 2019, but they opted not to sign him to an entry-level deal, and his signing rights expired two years later. Washington ended up picking him up in free agency after he scored 65 points in 47 games for the WHL’s Seattle Thunderbirds in 2021-22.
Since Rybinski will turn 25 by next July 1 and has accrued three seasons of professional experience, he’ll almost certainly be a Group VI unrestricted free agent next summer, so this was Washington’s last summer with control over Rybinski’s rights. The only way they can avoid making him UFA-eligible next summer is by playing him in 80 NHL games next season, a highly unlikely scenario.