Inside The Tight-Knit Capitals' Locker Room, From Endless Pranks To Lifelong Bonds: ‘Be Who You Are & You’re Loved For It’

The Capitals room goes down as one of the tightest in the NHL. Here's a closer look at the antics that ensue.

The Washington Capitals locker room is a chaotic place. (Screencap/Capitals)

ARLINGTON, V.A. — If Pierre-Luc Dubois had to compare the Washington Capitals’ locker room to a movie, he’d pick Dumb & Dumber.

He means that in the most loving way possible, because between the characters, antics and craziness in the room, Washington’s players are some of the closest in the league.

“There’s a lot of funny, weird… just like, goofballs in there. Together, it all meshes well,” Dubois explained with a laugh. “One bounces off the other, and I’ve said it to my friends and family, it feels like a 13-year-old again, where you’re going to school with your team. Just a bunch of idiots.”

Of course, every team will say how close and tight-knit the group is. It’s just a natural part of being in the NHL; you form lifelong bonds with the guys you go to war with day after day.

But the Capitals’ room is something different.

There’s a veteran core, led by captain Alex Ovechkin, the NHL’s greatest goal scorer, who also loves to kick back with a couple of beers, John Carlson and Nic Dowd. They’re vocal and set the standard, but also keep the group on its toes.

All the while, Tom Wilson, the captain in waiting, along with Dylan Strome, are instrumental pieces sof the future core.

Then, there are the newcomers in Dubois, Jakob Chychrun, Logan Thompson and Brandon Duhaime, who have kept things interesting to say the least.

“Honestly, I came into this season, the first week, and I was like, ‘I don’t even know how I’m going to get through this season. These guys are all over me,’” Wilson noted. “It’s so tiring with Duhaime and Thommer and all these guys and the constant pranks. But that kinda slowly became the thing that was so fun about this group. It’s why you were excited to come to the rink everyday and see everybody and have a good time and win hockey games. We wanted to keep playing. It flew by because we were having so much fun.”

Duhaime perhaps stands out the most, as he has injected quite a bit of life into the Capitals’ room. A constant prankster, the 28-year-old comes to the rink every day with a smile and antics at the ready, as he looks to boost the mood.

From freezing teammates’ sandals in blocks of ice to putting water cups under players’ helmets to taping players’ equipment together, Duhaime always has a trick up his sleeve to keep the Capitals at the ready.

“He’s a character… everything he would do, he would prank himself to kind of trick people,” Logan Thompson, who’s also behind a handful of antics in the room, said, adding, “Every time there’s a prank, we all suspect it’s Dewey, but he ended up getting pranked, too, so he’s always like, ‘It’s not me, I swear.’”

“He would prank somebody, everybody knew it was him, but then he’d be the first guy to say, ‘Hey, did you see that guy got pranked?’” Dubois agreed.

But when the puck drops, though, he’s ready to go to work, citing the team’s need to have a “mature third period” and push hard to win. It’s earned him the respect of the team, and has made the pranks easier to put up with.

"He's been an unsung sort of addition... he was a huge addition to our team, our culture, a lot of different areas, our penalty kill, just our overall personality of our team," coach Spencer Carbery said. "He just is so positive, brings so much juice on a daily basis... which goes a long, long way. He doesn't have a bad day and he's cranking it up every day."

Duhaime may or may not also be responsible for putting an egg inside a roll of white hockey tape in Wilson’s stall, inscribing it with “TOM” and a smiley face in Sharpie to frame Thompson. The culprit still remains at large, though it’s almost certainly Duhaime, as Wilson’s a constant target of his.

“He’s an easy target,” Duhaime justified.

However, beyond the pranks made available to the public, that’s only the “tip of the iceberg” when it comes to the chaos inside the room.

“Obviously, I think we had a very special team, like you guys saw, and you guys only saw 10 or 15 percent,” Dylan Strome, who goes by “Zini” in the room thanks to Ovechkin shortening the nickname “Stromezini,” quipped. “This team is a lot of fun to be a part of.”