Washington Capitals: Top 5 observations so far in 2019
The offense
The Capitals offense, to the surprise of no one except themselves, has been off the charts awesome to watch throughout the first quarter of the season. As a team, the Capitals have scored 87 total goals. That’s the most in the NHL and 11 goals ahead of the second-place Florida Panthers.
Other teams in the Metropolitan Division haven’t been socring as much with the Carolina Hurricanes (seventh) and the Pittsburgh Penguins (10th) the only two teams in the top 10 in that category.
The Capitals already have four players that cracked the double digit mark in goals. Alex Ovechkin leads the pack with 15 while Evgeny Kuznetsov, Jakub Vrana and T.J. Oshie each scoring 10. Tom Wilson and John Carlson have nine and eight goals, respectively. They’ll reach that double digit club in no time.
Having these guys produce is an encouraging sign especially after the departures of Brett Connolly and Andre Burakovsky. Connolly had a career season and Burakovsky has done well with the Colorado Avalanche.
It’s good to have forwards that are reliable and the Caps are equipped with more talent than just Ovechkin. But there’s two players that need to step up, Nicklas Backstrom (who’s had a down season) and Carl Hagelin when he comes back from long term IR.