2023-24 NHL team preview: Washington Capitals
LAST SEASON
After a fourth straight first round elimination, the Capitals went into the 2022 offseason with the mindset of a retool, especially with Nicklas Backstrom, Tom Wilson and Carl Hagelin out for the first several months of the season. Washington completely revamped their goaltending by moving on from Vitek Vanecek, Ilya Samsonov and Pheonix Copley and brought in Darcy Kuemper and Charlie Lindgren as replacements. The Caps also went a bit of a younger route with their forwards by acquiring Connor Brown, Dylan Strome and Sonny Milano.
Unfortunately, a lot of the Capitals’ plans were thwarted right out of the gate. Not only did they have a slow start with a 7-10-3 record through their first 20 games, they had to deal with even more injuries. Brown played just four games before his season was over, T.J. Oshie missed some time a month into a season, John Carlsson missed three months in the second half of the season, and even Alex Ovechkin missed nine games. The Caps briefly kept their playoff hopes alive with 10 wins in 11 games in December, but .500 play from that point on mixed in with two six-game losing streaks made them miss the playoffs for the first time since 2014. It wasn’t all bad though, as Ovechkin got 42 goals closer to Wayne Gretzky’s all-time goals record, hit the 800-goal milestone, and even locked himself in as the No. 2 goal scorer in NHL history.
With the season gone, the Capitals continued on the path of a retool at the trade deadline. They offloaded Dmitry Orlov, Garnet Hathaway, Erik Gustafsson, Lars Eller and Marcus Johansson, and brought in several picks, prospects, and even a young player with potential in Rasmus Sandin, who excelled in a bigger role on the Caps. It also meant that Peter Laviolette’s time in Washington had come to an end, with Spencer Carbery taking over heac coaching duties for the 2023-24 season after two years of running one of the league’s best power plays with the Toronto Maple Leafs.
KEY ADDITIONS & DEPARTURES
Additions
Joel Edmundson, D
Max Pacioretty, LW
Matthew Phillips, C
Departures
Connor Brown, RW (Edm)
Matt Irwin, D (Van)
Conor Sheary, LW (TB)
Craig Smith, RW (Dal)
OFFENSE
The normally dynamic Capitals offense led by Ovechkin was not even close to what most fans expected in 2022-23, as they sat in 20th in goals per game with 3.09, 17th in 5v5 goals for per 60 minutes with 2.6, and 18th in 5v5 expected goals for per 60 with 2.67. Even on the power play, they only ranked 16th at 21.2% and 21st in expected goals for per 60 with 7.69. Some of that was due to their injuries, as players like Ovechkin, Carlson, Oshie, and Wilson all produced normally when they were in the lineup, but disappointing seasons from the Caps’ top two centermen in Backstrom and Evgeny Kuznetsov also didn’t help. Strome was a pleasant surprise and got rewarded handsomely for it with a big contract extension, but when your team’s second-highest scorer only has 65 points, it’s probably not a good offense in today’s NHL.
The Capitals didn’t lose too many pieces from that offense with Brown and Smith not providing much for them during their time and Conor Sheary being solid but not essential, so Washington’s offense can only get better with a much healthier lineup to start the season. The big wild card will be the additions of Max Pacioretty and Matthew Phillips. If Pacioretty, once healthy, can return to form after missing most of last season, he’ll be a lethal addition to their offense, and Phillips has the potential to add more if he can establish an NHL game after back-to-back seasons lighting up the AHL. A full season with Sandin may also make a difference, as he was almost producing at a point-per-game in his time with the Caps. All that said, it’s still easy to see how the offense could get worse with an aging core.
DEFENSE
The Capitals’ defense was in a similar state of mediocrity as their offense last season, ranking 18th in goals against per game with 3.18, 21st in 5v5 goals against per 60 with 2.74, and tied for 19th in 5v5 expected goals against per 60, which was also 2.74. They did see slight improvement with their penalty kill, ranking 11th at an 81.9% success rate and 17th in shorthanded expected goals against with 8.09. The injuries also played a major part here, thrusting players in bigger roles than they were likely capable of, but the roster itself was also inconsistent defensively. Most of their big-name players in Ovechkin, Oshie, Wilson, Kuznetsov and Carlson were all big drags in their own end, so when a large chunk of your team’s ice-time leaders are struggling to defend, it’s going to cause issues with the overall roster.
Unfortunately, that’s looking to be the same this season as well. The Caps experienced additions in Pacioretty and Edmundson aren’t really known for their defensive prowess in recent seasons, and Phillips remains a bit of an unknown, so it’s possible that the defense could get even worse for Washington. Not only that, but all of the players they moved on from at the trade deadline and free agency had positive defensive impacts outside of Sheary and Smith, so this roster could be even worse than that just on not having a lot of solid defensive options. Washington’s blueline is all right with the likes of Nick Jensen, Martin Fehervary and Trevor van Riemsdyk, but up front it’s made up of a lot more offensive-oriented players. That will bode well if the Capitals are solely focused on getting Ovi to the all-time goals record, but if they want to be a playoff team, they better hope that they either improve defensively or see their offense improve drastically enough to compensate for it. Edmundson will miss the first month of the season, give or take, after fracturing his hand during a team scrimmage in September.
GOALTENDING
The Capitals changed up their goaltending tandem for 2022-23, bringing in the recent Stanley Cup-winning Darcy Kuemper as the starter and a solid analytical signing in Charlie Lindgren as the backup. It was a big bet in hopes that Washington could solidify the crease, which has struggled to find consistency since Braden Holtby left in 2020. It didn’t quite work out, with Kuemper only maintaining a .909 save percentage through 57 games and Lindgren falling to an .899 save percentage in 31 games. At least with Kuemper, it was more of an effect of the team’s play in front of him as he had 13.21 5v5 goals saved above expected, but not so much for Lindgren, who had -3.7. To make matters worse, all of Vanecek, Samsonov, and Copley found success in their new homes, even if the teams in front of them helped their cases a bit. On the bright side, the goaltending was the one area of the Caps roster that didn’t have injury issues, as Kuemper and Lindgren were the only two goalies to play for them.
The Capitals are going with the same tandem this season, and since they haven’t brought in any other experienced netminders, I’d imagine Kuemper and Lindgren’s jobs aren’t at stake in the early-going. That shouldn’t be too much of a concern despite last season, because their success has a lot more to do with the team in front of them than their own play. A bounce-back season from Lindgren could certainly help the team out, but there isn’t a lot more that you can ask from Kuemper without playing a team game in front of him. Considering the lack of defensive improvement in the Caps offseason additions, though, I wouldn’t expect that the two goalies are getting any more help than they did last season.
COACHING
Carbery is in his first season as the Capitals head coach, and it’s also his first season as an NHL head coach, so we don’t exactly have an idea as to what he’ll bring to the table. His only NHL work thus far was running the Maple Leafs’ power play from 2021 to 2023, and if he’s going to bring that success to the Capitals, it should be good news for their offense. The Leafs had the second best power play success rate at 26.6% and second best expected goals for per 60 on the power play with 9.64, so a similar kind of offense at that level for Washington could be where they see improvement as a team. He also spent three seasons as the head coach of the Caps AHL affiliate, the Hershey Bears, from 2018 to 2021, but didn’t get a ton of opportunities to prove his success, as COVID-19 cancelled the playoffs in two of the three seasons he was head coach. All things considered, he’s a solid option if Washington is looking to improve their offense, especially if they want to give Ovechkin every opportunity possible to break the record.
ROOKIES
For the longest time, the Capitals were under the umbrella of teams that had mediocre prospect pools due to their consistent success, and while their pool still isn’t great, it got some much needed improvement this summer thanks to finally drafting high. Ryan Leonard and Andrew Cristall both make for intriguing prospects that could help their team down the road, but it won’t be this year as they were already cut from the roster this training camp.
Beyond that, there isn’t a ton to look at in terms of rookies that could make a big impact this season. Hendrix Lapierre could possibly have enough pro experience to crack the roster at some point, but other than that, Washington’s prospect pool mostly features either decent prospects that are too young to make the roster or prospects that are older but don’t show much NHL potential.
BURNING QUESTIONS
1. When will Alex Ovechkin break the all-time goal record? For several seasons, this question was a matter of if, not when, but with 50 and 42 goals in the past two seasons, Ovechkin now sits at 822 going into the 2023-24 season. He now sits 72 goals back of Wayne Gretzky’s all-time goals record, and assuming Ovi plays out the remaining three years of his contract, he only needs 24 goals a year in those three seasons to tie the record. Even with aging curves, that’s an easy mark to hit for him each year considering he’s never scored fewer than 32 in a full season. As long as he stays healthy, he’ll get there considering the Capitals have been feeding him empty calorie goal opportunities on the power play and with the other team’s goalie pulled. So when does he hit it? Does he score 70+ this year to do it this year? Does it happen next season? And when it does, does he shoot for 1,000 goals? Ovechkin’s always been a reason to watch the Caps, but people will keep track of every goal until he finally breaks a record many thought was impossible to break.
2. Was Rasmus Sandin’s final stretch with Washington legit? Sandin was one of the few interesting storylines for the Capitals after the trade deadline with their playoff hopes out of reach. He took a big step forward in a top-four role with top power play minutes in place of John Carlson with three goals and 12 assists for 15 points in 19 games, proving his previous team in the Toronto Maple Leafs that he was worthy of a larger role. But it was also only 19 games, and in an elevated role that he probably won’t get on a healthy team. Is Sandin turning into a defenseman the Caps can build around in the future, or was that just a flash in the pan?
3. What will the Capitals get in Max Pacioretty? Pacioretty was one of the bargain bin deals of the summer, with the Capitals managing to snag him for only $2 million as the winger looks to prove to the hockey world that he still has game after back-to-back injuries to his Achilles tendon in 2022 and 2023. There’s not really a worst-case scenario for Washington with this signing, because the only situation where that $2 million is dead weight is if he’s injured or underperforming, and with it being only a one-year deal, they can move on from it at the end of the year. The upside is certainly there, though, as he could be an insanely cheap depth option for the finishing ability that he provides and be well worth the value. And if the Caps aren’t in the playoff conversation come the trade deadline, you can fetch quite the return for him with that contract. The only question is health, so will we see a return to form from Pacioretty once he’s fit to join the lineup, or will his body be a step behind at 34 with the injuries he’s dealt with?
PREDICTION
With an aging core that’s struggled to stay healthy in recent seasons and not much in the pipelines to catch them when they fall, it’s hard to see the Capitals taking significant strides from last year and becoming a playoff team. Perhaps the addition of Pacioretty to Washington’s offense will give them some more depth and help them out, but they have several teams to pass if they want to get into the postseason, and I don’t think the Caps improved enough to do that.
You could make a case for just about any team in the Atlantic Division outside of Montreal and any team in the Metropolitan outside of Philadelphia and maybe Columbus putting up a fight for a playoff spot, so Washington needs to be at least better than four of the remaining pool of teams, and it’s hard to see them doing that with the current state of their roster. There’s certainly potential, but they look to be more in the lowest tier of playoff bubble teams with Detroit and Columbus. You can never completely doubt a team led by Ovechkin, but the Caps seem more focused on getting their captain to that all-time goals record than making the playoffs and winning Stanley Cups.
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