Washington Capitals: Upcoming milestones

There are a lot of milestones to keep an eye on when following the Washington Capitals in 2019-20.

Fans love to celebrate accomplishments and milestones in sports. Whether that’s winning an early regular season game or winning the championship. For whatever reason it makes us feel good. Almost as if we’ve accomplished something ourselves.

It’s a lot of fun to watch someone we care about do something special. While we might not know these athletes personally it’s still something to watch a player debut, then have success, either as a team or individually.

While awards and championships take most of the focus there’s one thing that tends to go unnoticed until that accomplishment is staring us in the face, a milestone. In hockey, hitting a certain amount of goals or points doesn’t really get talked about unless you’re talking about a player who is in the really special territory. Like an Alex Ovechkin or a Joe Thornton who are high on all time lists and will continue to climb these lists.

On every team there will be a few players who are within striking distance of some kind of milestone. Whether that’s a very good or great young player ready to hit one hundred career goals or points, or a veteran who will hit the one thousand games played mark.

The Capitals are no different. There are milestones creeping up on us and we’re going to show you these numbers so you know going into the season who has something to look forward to.

Goals

Alex Ovechkin can hit 700 career goals

The current number is 658, that puts him just forty-two goals away from a huge number. You should notice I put “can”. There’s no guarantee he will. Ovechkin could have a down season by his standards or maybe a big injury will finally hit the Russian machine.

However, based on how he’s performed in his career and recently, forty-two goals is very doable and towards the end of next season we could be celebrating yet another milestone for the captain.

John Carlson can hit 100 career goals

Sounds lame when comparing it to the man above doesn’t it? The now veteran defenseman will no doubt be taking on more responsibility this coming season being the de facto leader of the D corps. I think he’ll do just fine and continue to rack up the points and goals.

Going into the season Carlson has 90 career goals. In his eight full NHL seasons he’s gone over ten goals four times. That pretty much makes this fifty-fifty Carlson gets to one hundred this season but I’d bet you a lot he gets there and we’re celebrating a pretty good milestone for a defensemen mid to late next season.

Carl Hagelin will hit 100 career goals

He will get 100 career goals. Notice the difference there. Sure again, we never know with injuries but the way Hagelin played with the Capitals last season he will likely get there. He sits on 93 goals right now and he’s never been a huge goal scorer but seven goals should be very doable for him.

Assists

Nicklas Backstrom can hit 700 career assists

Pretty fitting Backstrom and Ovechkin tend to hit these milestones somewhat close together. Ovechkin will be going for 700 goals while his partner in crime will be going for 700 helpers.

Could be a bit of a challenge for Backstrom however. Right now he’s at 642 assists. Meaning he’ll need fifty-eight assists to crack the seven hundred mark. Maybe unlikely but needs to be mentioned at the same time.

In his eleven full NHL season he has fifty-eight assists or more five times. He’s also had nine seasons of at least fifty assists and hasn’t had less than fifty assists since the lockout season in 2012. Even that season he had forty assists in forty-eight games played.

Likely? Maybe not. Possible? Absolutely.

Points

Alex Ovechkin can hit 1,300 career points

I’ll be honest, this one is a bit of a stretch. The reason I put this on here is because Ovechkin had 89 points last season. That’s how many points he’ll need next season to hit 1,300.

Ovechkin really hasn’t been a huge points getter since 2010 when he had 109 points. Last season was his highest point total since then.

Nicklas Backstrom will hit 900 career points

The biggest milestone for Backstrom will be coming in the next season or two (that being the 1,000 point mark) and hopefully it will be here in D.C. But 900 is nothing to sniffle at.

Backstrom has 873 career points. Baring a major injury, 900 should be achieved sometime mid next season.

Jakub Vrana will hit 100 career points

Not the biggest but not necessarily the least important. Vrana is a promising young player and hitting the 100 points mark is a good achievement and hopefully a sign of things to come.

He’s just twenty points away having 80 career points going into the season. If he takes another step in his game it shouldn’t take very long at all to hit this milestone.

Honorable mention

Evgeny Kuznetsov can hit 400 career points. It’s not 100 points for a young player but not 500 for an established vet. but it’s still a nice round number and should be mentioned here. He needs sixty-three points to get to 400.