Washington Capitals: Players who will improve in 2019-2020

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.

More Time Needed Players

This category takes into account the players the Capitals had on their roster for stretches of last year, but may not have had a full season with the team.

The main culprits for these types of circumstances are players added via trades and those who suffered form a lengthy injury. For the Capitals this includes Christian Djoos who dealt with an injury, which lingered throughout the season. Additions the Capitals made around the trade deadline included Carl Hagelin and Nick Jensen.

For Djoos, no one can forget his ability to be a reliable contributor during the Capitals playoff run which lead to the Stanley Cup and his name being engraved in history. This impact created some excitement for the new season last year where the team would have him for the full season, but he needed surgery for compartment syndrome in his left leg.

The injury and recovery limited Djoos to 45 games with one goal and nine assists for 10 points, it also sapped him of his mobility which is a critical asset to his game.

While Djoos will most likely play better than he did last year, the sample size is a little too small with him only playing two seasons. So what can really be expected of him, a season like his rookie year or could he continue to struggle while coming back from his injury.

Nick Jensen showed enough promise on the Detroit Red Wings that the Capitals made the trade to acquire the defenseman and immediately signed him to a contract extension for four years and $10 million, while not even taking the ice for the Capitals.

Since he had good production as a top 4 defenseman for the Red Wings it wouldn’t be hard to imagine Jensen being a good addition to the bottom 4 pairings in Washington. Unfortunately, Jensen struggled to find his footing in the playing style of the Capitals. The team is hoping that with a full off season of training and extended time with the rest of the roster, Jensen can be relied on as a top four option again.

By having him in this role it allowed the Capitals to find some cap relief by trading away the contract of Niskanen to a cheaper option for the bottom pairing in Gudas. Again I believe Jensen will be better than last season with the Capitals, but he has been a constant sub 20 point defenseman over three seasons in the NHL.

If he manages to work well in the second pairing role he will most likely have his first full season in Washington with greater than 20 points and be a key piece to the puzzle throughout the season. But I think the greatest improvement will come from the next candidate.

Carl Hagelin was once thought of as a thorn in the side of the Capitals during the playoffs while a member of the Penguins. Since the Capitals were in need of an improved penalty kill midseason, they took advantage and added a player to help out.

Hagelin was able to immediately become the best penalty killer on the team using his incredible speed as the missing piece. This was a pleasant surprise for a player who already had been traded earlier in the season from the Penguins to the Kings.

Another surprise was the amount of offensive he was able to generate given his struggles with his previous two teams, he scored a season high of 3 goals and 8 assists with the Capitals.

That accounted for approximately 60% of his total offensive output for the season, thus he was a better fit with the Capitals.

Given his variance in offensive production while with all his teams from 2018-19, and the impact he was able to have on the PK right away for the Capitals, there is no reason to think that with a full season and more balanced line mates he wouldn’t be able to find his old self. Early in his career with the Rangers he was a consistent 30 point producer, and even found that touch again in 2017-18 with the Penguins.

I believe with a full season with a Stanley Cup contender like the Capitals, we will see Hagelin find the old touch and be a key piece to their playoff run. His improvement will be the most impactful among the players in need of more time with the team.

Bold Improvement Players

These players have reached a good level already or established a constant level of play.  The qualified players from this group which have the best chance to improve upon their previous production are Backstrom, Dowd, Eller, Orlov, Vrana, Kuznetsov, and Wilson.

Even though he was mentioned as a player who would find it difficult to improve on his current play, Nicklas Backstrom is in a contract year which is the motivation any player needs to step it up another level.

While I would like to see this happen it is hard to believe he will improve on such a consistent production, over the last six seasons he has scored between 70-86 points with an average of 20 goals and 56 assists. The only time he has scored well above this range was in the high octane offense days of 2009-10 where he topped 101 points. The odds he reaches that production at this age is highly unlikely, we can at least count on him for his normal averages.

Nic Dowd was going to have a tall task in replacing a fan favorite Jay Beagle as an everyday fourth line center with good faceoff numbers and a slight offensive punch. He was successful in his first season with the Capitals as he scored 8 goals and 14 assists for 22 points, and a FOW% of 51.9 good for the best among the top four centerman on the roster.

With the help of new line mates in Garnet Hathaway and Brendan Leipsic, he is most likely looking at improving on these numbers but with the initiative of improving the team defense he might suffer from some fallout on the offensive side of the puck. However, it would be considered a success to at least match last years production.

The same argument can be made for Lars Eller, with the addition of a new line mate and added time given to another. With the addition of Richard Panik and retaining of Carl Hagelin, his production has a chance to improve from last seasons numbers. But again this line will be given additional defensive responsibilities which might counteract their offensive production.

On a personal note, Eller has produced an average point production of 30 points over the last 8 seasons with his highest numbers over the last two seasons. The chances he is able to provide more offense with a new running mate, and dealing with the loss of sniper Brett Connolly, he will need time to adjust.

A few seasons ago Orlov was given a contract extension in reward for taking the next step in proving himself a top four defenseman. He had two seasons of constant production with an average of 31 points and 7 goals with 24 assists.

In the first few seasons of this contract he has carried over those averages which is expected. However, his possession numbers have decreased over the same time. In the time preceding the contract he averaged a 52% CF versus the last two seasons with an average of 49%CF.

There is some argument that his production was affected by the presence of a declining Matt Niskanen. With a new running mate in Nick Jensen, he will most likely see his numbers improve, but for them to improve to better than his numbers before the new contract would be hard to imagine.  I believe he will find his way back to his normal play, and might experience some improvement but not enough to be a standout this season.

Jakub Vrana made large strides last season to become another viable offensive threat. He went from 27 points in 73 games to 47 points in 82 games. The natural expectation is that he will make the next jump up in his game and reach at least 60 points in a full 82 games, and break the 30 goal plateau for the first time in his short career.

I believe there is a good chance this happens but with heightened expectations and lack of secondary scoring to help apply additional pressure on opponents it might be too daulting. Also with Vrana no longer being a surprise threat he will experience increased defensive focus.  I expect we will at least see him eclipse 50 points but 60 might be a stretch.

The major wild card of the off season has been Evgeny Kuznetsov, can he put the drama behind him and prove his value to the Capitals on the ice. Kuznetsov was a key contributor to the Capitals winning the Stanley Cup, but followed that up with a less than stellar season, his point total was down from 83 points in 79 games to 72 points in 76 games.

The area of greatest concern was his drop from 44.2% FOW% to 38.7%. This will need to get better, but he will also be looking to prove himself to the team after a rough off season.  I think he will improve in some areas but not all, and to be better he will need to improve across multiple areas of his game.

Finally the player I feel will make a bold improvement, Tom Wilson. Wilson managed to crack the 40 point mark in spite of playing in only 63 games, largely due to a suspension to start the season. When coming back from the suspension, it showed that he had found a way to back off while not losing his edge we have grown to love.

Wilson finally found the scoring touch we had been hearing about since being drafted. Having another year of chemistry built between Ovechkin, Backstrom, and Kuznetsov can only increase his productivity. Also with the addition of other heavy hitters in Garnet Hathaway and Radko Gudas, Wilson will be freed up to use his speed and size to create scoring chances.  Instead of him spending so much time in the penalty box, he will be celebrating goals with his linemates.

I predict he will improve to a near 60 point producer while scoring between 25-30 goals, and he will spend between 115-130 PIM but will still manage to apply over 200 hits. Those hits will be more strategically placed and timed than in the past, I think he has put the questionable hits behind him.