Washington Capitals: 2019 predictions for Michal Kempny

Washington Capitals defenseman Michal Kempny hopes to be a full go by opening night.

The Washington Capitals defense suffered a big blow late in the regular season with Michal Kempny’s March injury and they weren’t the same again. Now Kempny is hard at work looking to get back on the ice and bolster a defense that got better over the offseason.

Kempny’s season ended with a hit from Cedric Paquette of the Tampa Bay Lightning back in March that injured his left hamstring. It caused the defense to scramble and shuffle pairings. John Carlson was Kempny’s main partner and now he had to form chemistry with a different partner the rest of the way.

Kempny has trained off the ice at his home in the Czech Republic as well as during the Caps informal skates at MedStar Capitals Iceplex. Recently he’s worn a green non-contact jersey, indicating there’s still a ways to go in the timetable for his recovery.

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As recently as Monday, Kempny partook in the drills but didn’t participate in the scrimmage. Kempny won’t be skating with the team when training camp begins but the goal is to get him 100% for the season opener in St. Louis.

Capitals head coach Todd Reirden told Samantha Pell of The Washington Post (subscription required) last week:

“Obviously our goal is to make sure that he’s coming back when he’s 100 percent. And we won’t put him in until he is because it’s too long of a year and it’s too difficult of an injury to force him into playing prior to when he’s healthy.”

It’ll be a welcome sign when Kempny is back in the lineup. Last season he scored a career-high six goals and added 19 assists for 25 points. Additionally, Kempny had 60 penalty minutes, 135 blocked shots and 84 hits.

But Kempny’s impact was shown mostly from the advanced stats. Kempny had the second-most Corsi-For percentage at even strength among defensemen at 50.73% behind only John Carlson.

When Kempny was on the ice, the Capitals High Danger Chances at even strength was 47.06%. Kempny and Carlson’s Corsi-For percentage together was 52.18% while Carlson’s CF dropped without Kempny to 48.92% in the regular season and 41.33% in the playoffs (via Natural Stat Trick).

I can see Kempny having another eight goal season, maybe even hitting the double digit mark with 10. I also think he can have at least 20 or more assists if he can go the full season healthy.