Washington Capitals: Carl Hagelin 2020 Report Card

Grading Carl Hagelin’s first full Washington Capitals season.

Washington Capitals third line left winger Carl Hagelin had a solid full season with the Caps. He used to be a playoff villain but now that he’s on the right side we’ve enjoyed seeing him show out for the boys in red. The Caps traded for him back in Feb. of 2019.

After the acquisition, Hagelin scored three goals and added eight assists for 11 points in 20 games played. He impressed the coaches and front office to the point where they re-upped him to a four year extension.

In the first year of his four year contract, Hagelin scored eight goals and 17 assists for 25 points while being a mainstay on the third line. The third line struggled with the departures of Andre Burakovsky and Brett Connolly but Lars Eller and Hagelin did their best to hold it down.

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The right wing position on the third line mostly went to a struggling Richard Panik before the team acquired Ilya Kovalchuk at this year’s trade deadline. Panik went up to the fourth line where he since thrived. The Kovalchuk experiment with the Caps simply didn’t work, except for his bond with the Russian mob.

Hagelin’s advanced stats were pretty good. Compiled from the lovely Natural Stat Trick, Hagelin had a Corsi For percentage of 53.96 percent, a Fenwick For percentage of 53.05 percent, but a low 46.70 percent High Danger Chances For percentage.

Like the majority of the team inside the bubble, Hagelin struggled in the playoffs with one assist in eight games. His advanced stats were pretty bad too, a 45.53 percent Corsi For percentage, a 40.91 percent Fenwick For percentage and a 35 percent High Danger Chances For. Ouch.

It was weird when the Caps acquired Hagelin, who was once a rival with the New York Rangers and Pittsburgh Penguins and it will be weird this season seeing Henrik Lundqvist in a Caps sweater. Still, like what Lundqvist did when Hagelin was a rookie, Hagelin plans to get his former Rangers teammate acclimated to his new city.

Grade B-: Hagelin had decent regular season numbers but not so good numbers in the playoffs where he is usually effective. But then again I have to cut him some slack because losing is a team effort and that was a team disaster against the New York Islanders. Still a B- is pretty good and we’ve got at least another three more years of Hagelin, barring the expansion draft.