It’s Washington Capitals report card time. Nick Jensen, you’re up.
Nick Jensen had an up and down season in his first full year with the Washington Capitals. The Caps traded for him back in February of 2019 at the trade deadline in a deal with the Detroit Red Wings in exchange for Madison Bowey.
He’ll be the first player we’ll grade in our report card series where we’ll take a look at each Capitals player from last season, both current and departed, and grade how they did and even touch on what they can do to improve this upcoming season.
Jensen is still searching for his first goal in a Caps sweater. He finished with eight assists, a +1, 13 penalty minutes, 61 shots, and an average ice time of 17:49. He also had 71 blocked shots, 59 hits, 26 takeaways while giving the puck away 48 times.
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Jensen had some decent advanced stats. His Corsi For percentage was 50.82 percent, his Fenwick For percentage came out to 50.51 percent, and his Scoring Chances For finished at 52.23 percent.
Jensen began the year on the second pair with Dmitry Orlov but after struggling, moved to the third pair where he since improved. Still, he received criticism from fans, some of it a little unfair.
For the second straight year, Jensen was quiet in the playoffs. Although he played in all eight games he had a -1 while averaging 16:51 of ice time.
Jensen had good advanced stats in the postseason with a Corsi For percentage of 54.64 percent, a Fenwick For percentage of 53.54 percent, but a bad High Danger Chances For at 38.71 percent.
There were rumors going on that a trade was going to go down and if there was it would be a defenseman would be dealt. Jensen was among those we even talked about here. But we’re this far into the offseason and it’s doubtful a trade will happen but that’s not saying something won’t happen.
What Jensen will have to do this offseason to have a better year next year is do the exact training he did prior to the bubble. His play improved right before the pause and during the restart. He’ll have to continue that momentum for the Caps to have a strong blue line.
Jensen will likely be on the third pair competing with Trevor van Riemsdyk for the spot. It’ll be a battle to watch come training camp.
Final Grade C: Jensen struggled but improved as the season progressed perhaps from moving to the third pair. An average grade is still pretty good. After all, they say C’s get degrees.