Looking forward to the 2021 Washington Capitals season.
The Washington Capitals will begin their journey to the hopeful destination of the Stanley Cup on Jan. 3 with the beginning of training camp. Players have already started to trickle into town.
The season is set to finally begin on Jan. 14, one day after the season begins league wide. It’ll all start in Buffalo against the Sabres in a two game set before a tough challenge with the Pittsburgh Penguins awaits in their barn.
The biggest storyline entering camp will be which goalie gets to backup Ilya Samsonov. The Caps made news yesterday when they signed Craig Anderson to a PTO. He will compete with Vitek Vanecek and Pheonix Copley for the backup spot.
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The Caps also made moves to shore up their defense which had a hole at the beginning of the offseason with Michal Kempny‘s injury that will sideline him for the whole season.
John Carlson will be coming in hungry to prove he deserves the Norris Trophy. Next to him will be Brendan Dillon who the team was so high on in the offseason they decided to re-sign him. That wasn’t all they did this offseason.
Also returning is Dmitry Orlov and next to him will be newcomer Justin Schultz. He comes from the Pittsburgh Penguins. The Caps also re-signed Jonas Siegenthaler. Next to him will be Nick Jensen who will look to bounce back from a down year.
An extra defenseman who will likely rotate with Jensen is Trevor van Riemsdyk who comes from the Carolina Hurricanes. That move was a steal for a bargain of a price.
Offensively we got a cast of mostly returners plus a couple young new faces. Behind the bench is Peter Laviolette, who was the perfect coach to guide this veteran Capitals team in what will be a wild season.
The East Division teams will play each other eight times for a total of 56 games. From there, the top four teams will qualify for the Stanley Cup playoffs. The playoffs will feature intradivsional play in the first two rounds with the first seed vs. the fourth and the second seed vs. the third.
The four teams that advance to the semifinal round will be reseeded by their regular season points total. There will not be any preseason games but training camp is set to begin on Jan. 3. The season starts on the 14th in Buffalo.