Washington Capitals: Top 3 reasons to now get excited for 2021

#2 New faces

One thing to get excited about besides Zdeno Chara is the plethora of new faces that will join the team this season. From the forwards to the defense to the goalies, these new faces will look to make an impact on the team right away.

The biggest new face of all is the new bench boss Peter Laviolette, who will help look to change the culture inside the locker room. He is the right man for the job.

Other new faces include Conor Sheary on forwards as well as Trevor van Riemsdyk, Paul LaDue and Justin Schultz on defense. You can see those guys posing in front of the green screen below from Sunday’s media day.

These new faces will be battling for positions. Here’s how the lines looked on the first day of camp via Pell:

I wouldn’t read too much into how the lines looked on the first day of camp. I imagine John Carlson and Dmitry Orlov were paired together as the longest tenured defensemen. Brenden Dillon, who was re-signed, was on the second pair with newcomer Schultz.

The Chara signing does create pressure for Jonas Siegenthaler and Nick Jensen as well as Martin Fehervary and Trevor van Riemsdyk. Sheary played on the third line with Lars Eller and Richard Panik.