Who Is Off To A Good Start For The Washington Capitals

We are now six games into our shortened fifty-six game season. Believe it or not we are already about 10% of the way through the regular season. That perhaps goes to show how important every game could and will be. Teams obviously want get off to a good start. The Washington Capitals are no different.

Six games into the season the Capitals have not lost in regulation. They sit at 3-0-3 and that’s good for 9 points. They currently sit atop of the east division, somewhere I think a lot of Caps and hockey fans assume they will stay. The team has gotten off to a good start, so which players have gotten off to a hot start?

That’s what we’ll talk about here today. There have been several Capitals, and for that matter, key Capitals that have gotten off to a good start. Lets go ahead and take a look at who makes our list.

Nicklas Backstrom

I have been a big critic of Nicklas Backstrom‘s for the past two seasons or so. Far too often have I watched this Capitals team the last two years and I never notice number nineteen. Early on this season not only am I noticing Backstrom a lot more but he has gotten off to a good start in the scoring department.

Backstrom leads the team in points with 7, four of those are goals, two of those goals are 5v5. The Capitals need Backstrom to score a little more. He’s a player who should be at or over a point per game in my opinion. He has not done that since the 2016-17 season. He’s off to a good start this season.

His advanced stats don’t look too pretty. His Corsi% is 45.61%. While on the ice at 5v5 the team has 30 scoring chances for and 40 against, obviously being on the wrong side of that stat. The Capitals also have 10 high danger attempts for and 18 against with Backstrom on the ice.

But, he and the team are getting goals. While on the ice the Capitals have scored 6 goals and allowed 4 goals. That’s the point of the game, how many do you score vs how many do you allow.

Backstrom also has the second most individual scoring chances and high danger attempts, behind Evgeny Kuznetsov on both. He has 9 scoring chances and 4 high danger attempts. Kuznetsov has 10 and 7 on those stats.

Right now, Backstrom is scoring, he is noticeable, and in my opinion, he’s been one of the better Capitals to start this season.