Capitals: Lars Eller is the most improved player of 2020
Several players on the Washington Capitals improved this season.
When comparing stats, however, it was difficult considering the regular season turned out to end much shorter than we all hoped or anticipated. However, I think the one player on the Washington Capitals who were most improved was Lars Eller.
Looking at his numbers last season were pretty solid. Eller finished with 13 goals and 23 assists for 36 points. This season he has been a steady mainstay on a revolving door of players on the right side of the third line. Now with Ilya Kovalchuk next to him and Richard Panik on the fourth line, expect the numbers to go up.
This season Eller finished with 16 goals and 23 assists for 39 points. If the season had kept going all the way to 82 games, there’s no doubt Eller would’ve been able to tie the career-high in goals he set in the 2017-18 season when he finished with 18 and added some clutch tallies in the postseason.
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Eller averaged a career-high in average ice time with 17:01 per game. He also won a career-best 51.9 percent face-off draws when counting his numbers with the Caps.
Eller hasn’t shied away from helping out the D.C. community as well during the novel coronavirus pandemic. He and his wife Julie understand the importance of helping out frontline workers and first responders but he also was wondering about the community that often gets overlooked: the homeless.
Eller told The Washington Post’s Samantha Pell (subscription required):
"“It is a very vulnerable part of our community, and it is a group that doesn’t have access to safe haven like individual homes and the same safety net and access to health care and all this other type of protection that others have. We thought we can help here, for a very vulnerable group.”"
Eller reached out to a company he invests with called Healthe, which develops and deploys ultraviolet light products that promote health and wellness.
The company loved the idea and donated a product called the “Healthe Cleanse Portal” to Central Union Mission, a nonprofit that runs a homeless shelter near Union Station.
The portal is designed to deactivate viruses and pathogens on surfaces lowering the risk of disease transmission.
Eller has shown to not only be an important component of the bottom six, but an impact in the community as well. It shows the type of person he is aside from being one of the most clutch players in Caps playoff history.
More. Capitals Report Card: Grading their impact so far in 2020. light
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