Capitals: Top 3 ways to fix the team for 2020

The Washington Capitals are 41-20-8. On the surface, that’s pretty good. Since the turn of the new year, however, they’ve been inconsistent.

90 points is good for any team and some teams would love to be where the Washington Capitals stand right now. With 13 games left in the season, there’s no telling if the Caps would’ve been able to maintain their lead in the Metropolitan Division or if the Philadelphia Flyers would catch them.

And the Flyers were hot. They beat the Capitals on their own home ice twice before the season hit a pause. Just one point separates the two teams in the standings.

The Caps last win was a huge one over the Pittsburgh Penguins in what many experts thought was their most complete game of the season. With all that momentum you’d think they’d carry it into Buffalo. That wasn’t the case however as the Caps came up short in a shootout despite coming back from a 2-0 deficit.

The Caps have been inconsistent since the calendar flipped to 2020. They’re 15-14-3 dating back to Dec. 23rd and have only won back-to-back games once since the end of January.

Let’s take a look at the top 3 ways we can fix the Caps.

#1 Staying out of the box

The Washington Capitals need to stop taking penalties if they want to win more games. The Caps rank fifth in the league with 699 penalty minutes including an average of 10:07 penalty minutes per game.

The Caps have drawn 277 penalties while taking 298. Tom Wilson leads the team with 93 penalty minutes. I know what you’re thinking, oh shocker there’s Tom Wilson leading in penalty minutes. But if you actually look closer you’ll see that his 93 penalty minutes are a career-low. He’s playing a much more disciplined game. Now it’s up to the rest of the team to follow suit.

Garnet Hathaway is second on the team with 79 penalty minutes. Lars Eller has 48 while Jonas Siegenthaler has 43. Evgeny Kuznetsov and Radko Gudas each have 40 penalty minutes. Dmitry Orlov and Richard Panik each have 36 penalty minutes.

Alex Ovechkin has 30 penalty minutes while Nic Dowd has 28. John Carlson has 26 while Michal Kempny has 22. Brenden Dillon already has 21 through 10 games played. Jakub Vrana has 18 penalty minutes while Carl Hagelin has 16, Nicklas Backstrom has 14, while Brendan Leipsic and Nick Jensen have 13. Ilya Kovalchuk has four while Travis Boyd has two.

The Caps need to play a more disciplined game and stay out of the box if they want to improve their play.

#2 Stronger leadership

From team captain Alex Ovechkin all the way down to the healthy scratches, everyone needs to understand their role. From the head coach, to the video coach, every role has to be held accountable.

No matter who the Washington Capitals go up against, whether it be the Pittsburgh Penguins or the Buffalo Sabres, the team has to keep motivated at all costs.

This isn’t a shot at Alex Ovechkin whatsoever. He’s done a great job as team captain. Nicklas Backstrom is a great alternate captain as is John Carlson who has been counted on to help lead the defense. But perhaps the coaching leadership needs to either be taken up a notch or go in a different direction.

The pause in the NHL season makes you wonder if this saves coach Todd Reirden’s job for at least another season.

Of course, winning changes everything so when the season does come back or if we shift into next season it’ll be a very important stretch in Reirden’s coaching career. This is his chance to prove himself and that he’s got what it takes to lead this team.

Play disciplined, step up in leadership, those are two ways to fix the Capitals. Now there’s just one more.