No true competitor likes to stay idle or even digress in their ability to contribute to their team. We are covering three players for the Washington Capitals who will be better in 2019.
First things first, there are some players who have consistently produced at a particular level for most of their careers, be it a high level or merely good enough to make an NHL roster. These players tend to find it difficult bringing their game into a new level of play, thus they have reached their peak.
For the Washington Capitals players such as Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, TJ Oshie, John Carlson, Braden Holtby, and Michal Kempny would qualify. These players will find it difficult to better the production they have had so far in their careers.
Next, what does better exactly mean? Does it refer to any player who improves on the previous season or someone who has had a history and might be suffering from lesser output over the last season or so. We will look at better to mean improved from last season in particular, this could be someone who has yet to reach their true potential or someone who has in the past and might have digressed slightly.
Last, what will attribute to these players in being better in 2019? I feel this can be broken down into three categories:
- Players moving to the Capitals giving them a change in scenery (qualified players: Radko Gudas, Garnet Hathaway, Richard Panik, Brendan Leipsic).
- Players who were short on time with the team during last season, either by trade or injury (qualified players: Nick Jensen, Carl Hagelin, Christian Djoos).
- Players who could make an improvement from last season but would be a bold prediction since these could be established players who would need to break their glass ceiling (Nicklas Backstrom, Nic Dowd, Lars Eller, Dmitry Orlov, Jakub Vrana, Evgeny Kuznetsov, Tom Wilson).
So with these categories in mind here is one player picked from each category who will be better in 2019. This isn’t to say that others won’t be better, all players should improve in some way, but these are just the best case scenario for each category.