Washington Capitals: Top 10 Wings In Franchise History

Mandatory Credit: Tommy Gilligan-USA TODAY Sports

The Washington Capitals have been in existence for 40 seasons. Since the 1974-1975 season, there have been some great and entertaining players who have worn a Washington Capitals sweater.

To honor them, we’ve decided to make a top 10 list for every position. After taking a look at the centers, we’ll take a look at the wings to finish of our series of the best players in Washington Capitals history by position.

To be eligible for selection, players have to meet our qualifications. Here are the criteria that helped decide which Washington Capitals wings were eligible and where they will fit on this list.

• At least 200 games played with the Washington Capitals
• Only games with the Washington Capitals count as far as stats. We’ll use goals, assists, points, and +/- to determine each player’s worth.
• Post-career honors and awards (such as a Hockey Hall of Fame induction or retired jersey number) count
• To help put stats in context, we set up a point system. More on this later.

Using those qualifications and criteria, 40 Washington Capitals wings qualified for the list. We’ll cut the list down to just 10. To make this list, we had to look not just the stats compiled by each player.

Things such as time with the Washington Capitals and memories of that player will come into play. In some cases, two or more players are very similar as far as stats are concerned. That’s when things like sentimental value and favoritism come into play.

The new point system works like this. If a Washington Capitals player ranks 40th among qualified wings, he gets one point. If he ranks first, he gets 40. We measured the wings using games played, goals, assists, points, and plus/minus.

Our top ten are the players who got the highest amount of points judging by the rank among qualified forwards. We also assigned points for any Washington Capitals career record held. 

It’s always fun to try to guess which players will make the list and where they will be placed on the list. We all have our personal favorites. This is our personal top ten.

Next: The Wings Who Qualified