The St. Louis Blues traded Jordan Kyrou to the Washington Capitals on June 23, 2026, sending one of their top scorers out in a deal that brought Connor McMichael, Milton Gästrin and Washington’s 2026 first-round pick back the other way. For Kyrou, the move ends months of speculation over his future in St. Louis.
The trade matters because Kyrou is not a rental. He is signed through the 2030-31 season at an $8.125 million salary, which means Washington is taking on a long-term scorer rather than a short-term fix. The Capitals also gave up the 16th overall pick in next year’s draft, underlining how much they paid to land him.
Kyrou’s value has always started with offense. He scored 36 goals and 70 points in 82 games in 2024-25, but last season his production slipped to 18 goals and 46 points in 72 games. Even with that dip, he has 149 goals in 389 games since the start of the 2021-22 season, a run that helps explain why St. Louis could command a substantial return.
That return is built around players who bring their own uncertainty. McMichael, who will become a restricted free agent on July 1, finished last season with 14 goals and 46 points in 78 games after putting up 26 goals and 57 points in 82 games the year before. Gästrin, selected 37th overall in last year’s draft, made his professional debut with the AHL’s Hershey Bears during the 2026 Calder Cup playoffs, so the Blues are getting both immediate help and a longer developmental piece.
The fit in Washington is the open question. The Capitals are moving through the Alex Ovechkin era and have chosen Kyrou as a player who can carry more of the attack now, even after a down year by his own standards. St. Louis, meanwhile, has turned a contract concern and a fading scoring line into a first-round pick and two roster pieces, which is why the deal feels less like a clean swap than a bet on whether Kyrou’s next stop restores the pace that made him one of the league’s most dangerous finishers. For readers tracking what that price looked like, a fuller breakdown of the possible cost had already been laid out in Mavrik Bourque et le prix possible d’un échange de Jordan Kyrou.
