Washington Capitals: Four Players To Watch For During The Restart
Can you feel it? Can you feel the excitement?
The Energy, the intensity, can you feel hockey in the air once again? It’s been four and a half months but NHL and Washington Capitals hockey is right around the corner. Days away for some and just hours away for others.
The first games will be played on the 28th of July, the Capitals will see their first action against the Carolina Hurricanes on the 29th. Washington will play in four games before they find out who they play in their first playoff series of this format.
The Caps will play Carolina, Tampa Bay on the 3rd of August, Philadelphia on the 6th and finish up with Boston on the 9th. By playing those games they’ll know their seeding in the tournament and know who they’ll play in the playoffs.
Before we get to the playoffs, those first games need to be played. It’s a mystery right now on what those games will look like. How fresh and good will the players look? How will they play with no fans in the stands? There is a lot of questions honestly.
We’re going to answer one question here today though. Who should we look out for in these first four games of the restart? We’re going to pick one player to watch for vs each teams the Caps will play. With the rules being established, we’re starting with the Carolina Hurricanes.
Alex Ovechkin
I guess it shouldn’t be shocking to see this guys name pop up in a “players to watch for” list. Ovechkin finished the season with 48 goals scored in 69 games played. Had the season been finished properly he was easily on his way to another fifty goal season which would have been his ninth time he would have hit that mark. Only two men in the history of the NHL have done that, Mike Bossy and Wayne Gretzky. I have to be honest, I never watched them play live, but I hear they were pretty good.
This season against the Hurricanes Ovechkin led the team in goals scored (3) and points scored (4, tied with Carlson for the lead). His advanced stats don’t look too great, but when you put up points and goals like Ovechkin it seems to hardly matter. This season vs Carolina Ovechkin had just a 39.3 Corsi percentage.
He might not need to have great advanced numbers, when Ovechkin plays the Hurricanes, he scores and contributes. In 81 career games played against the Canes he has 95 points and 43 goals. He scores over a point per game vs Carolina in his career and basically scores every other game.
It will be fun to see and watch our favorite players on the ice again. Ovechkin is obviously one of our favorites. Be sure to watch for him in the first game back. After that first game, we move on to Tampa Bay.
Dmitry Orlov
I’ll bet you didn’t see this one coming. Of all the big names on the Capitals, Ovechkin, Backstrom, Kuznetsov, Oshie, Carlson, etc. Orlov gets mentioned vs one of the leagues top teams in the NHL. When the season got halted Orlov had 4 goals and 27 points. Pretty good numbers for him. His career high is 6 goals and 33 points which he put up in 2016-17. If the season didn’t get stopped, he could have set a career high for points.
Of his 4 goals and 27 points, 2 of those goals and 5 of those points came against the Lightning. His 5 points were tied with Oshie who had 1 goal and 5 points. Orlov averaged 21:50 of ice time and was a +5.
He also had the best Corsi percentage among defensemen on the team against Tampa. His 58.6% was sixth on the team. Michal Kempny was the next ranked D man at 11 with a 54.4 Corsi percentage.
Orlov has had success against the Bolts in his career. In 23 games against them he has 2 goals and 12 points. Those 12 points are the highest total he has against one team in his career. He’s scored 11 points vs three teams, the Rangers, Islanders and Hurricanes.
He might not be the first name you think of, but watch out for Orlov vs the Lightning, he’s proven to be pretty good against them. Up next, the Flyers.
Nic Dowd
This one was a little tougher. Looking at the stats, there was not a whole lot to like when the Capitals met up with the Flyers. Dowd was one of five players to have two points vs the Flyers, in his case, he had two assists and no goals. Backstrom, Kuznetsov, Oshie and Vrana all had two points and they also had a goal.
The thing that gave Dowd an advantage was his +/-. Sure, it was only a +1, but he was one of just three Capitals players who had a positive number. He put up points and he was able to be a plus player, more than the other players could say.
He also had a very good Corsi percentage having his number at 57.4%. That was fourth on the team.
He doesn’t have the greatest numbers against the Flyers in his career. He has just 3 points in 8 career games vs them, but two of the three has come this past season. Maybe that means he’s due for a goal? Looking at the Capitals stats vs the Flyers, Dowd is as good a pick as anyone. Last but not least, we finish with the Bruins from Boston.
T.J. Oshie
Oshie joins Ovechkin as a key scorer who makes our list. This season Oshie scored 26 goals and 49 points in 69 games played. Pretty average for him. You can usually bank on high twenty goals and mid fifty for points from him. Thirty goals was not out of the picture for him this season, it would have been the second time in his career that he hit that mark.
Versus the Bruins this year Oshie scored 3 goals and 3 points. That was behind only John Carlson’s four points. Five players had two points.
His Corsi was a solid 55.8% against Boston this season. The whole team was good in possession against the Bruins. Just two players had a Corsi% under 50%, that was Kuznetsov and Kempny. Oshie’s 55.8% ranked 13th, showing how good the team was vs Boston this season.
Related Story. News from Thursday's practice. light
In his career vs the Bruins Oshie has been fairly average. He has just 7 goals and 12 points vs them in his career which is 22 games. However, scoring three of those 7 goals this season, maybe Oshie has found the secret to scoring against the big bad Bruins? Capitals fans can surely hope so. The road to the Stanley Cup might just go through Boston. In which case the Capitals will need Oshie to continue his success against them.