Washington Capitals: Predicting the Top Five Goal Scorers for 2021-2022
The Washington Capitals will remain one of the most potent offenses in the NHL during the upcoming 2021-2022 season. Alex Ovechkin, the eight-time Rocket Richard winner, will once again led the team in goals, just like he has every year since he has been in the league.
The question is, who will be numbers 2 through 5?
If you look back to a season ago, Ovechkin led the team with 24 goals, followed closely by TJ Oshie with 22, Nicklas Backstrom with 15, Anthony Mantha with 15 (however, he only scored 4 with the Caps after being a trade deadline acquisition), Conor Sheary with 14, and both Tom Wilson and Daniel Sprong adding 13 each to round out the top five. Turning back the clock to 2019-2020, when the NHL played almost a full-slate of games, the results change slightly. Ovechkin led the team with 48 goals, good for a tie with David Pastranak for the league-lead, followed by Oshie (26), Jakub Vrana (25), Wilson (21), and Evgeny Kuznetsov (19) to round out the top five.
This season, expect to see familiar faces up and down the list. Partly because this is largely the same core of players that have taken the ice at the Capital One Arena and partly because this is a consistent group of guys. An honorable mention to both Nicklas Backstrom and Evgeny Kuznetsov who were both left off this list but will still amass at least 20 goals in 2021-2022.
#5 Daniel Sprong
At number five, Daniel Sprong will make good on more ice-time and more power-play time in the upcoming year. The 24-year-old Dutch sniper will set a career high in goals, scoring between 22-26 goals in the upcoming year. Expect to see his team-high 17.6 shooting percentage from a year ago come down to earth a little bit over the course of a full 82 games, but there’s no denying that Sprong can shoot it. A breakout year is all but certain for Sprong in 2021-2022, who has never scored more than 14 goals in a single campaign.
Sprong will surely see his ice-time increase from a meager 11 minutes and 40 seconds on average last season and more than deserves to get a real solid look on the team’s top power-play unit. With limited time in the top six, Sprong won’t eclipse 30 goals but he will be a threat to score every time he has the puck on his stick.
#4 Tom Wilson
Tom Wilson, known for his physical play, will continue to put up impressive offensive numbers. To the dismay of the New York Rangers’ organization, Wilson will come close to hitting 30 goals for the first time in his career, falling just short of that, scoring somewhere between 26 and 29 goals in the 2021-2022 season.
Wilson has been very consistent since a breakout 2017-2018 campaign; that season his shooting percentage was 11.4 and since then the lowest it has been was 13.6 in 2019-2020. A career-high of 22 goals and a 16.9 shooting percentage came in 2018-19 when he played in 63 games.
Wilson gets limited time on the top power-play unit as he plays the bumper position just like TJ Oshie does but will see plenty of top six ice-time. Wilson must do a better job of staying out of the box this season, and if he is able to do that he will make a big impact on the scoresheet.
#3 Anthony Mantha
Anthony Mantha, dubbed Anthony Manthany by some, will have a career-year for the good guys in red. After being expected to carry the load on a very bad Detroit Red Wings team, Mantha will fly under the radar in DC. Being a part of a talented team and not being expected to be “the guy” will allow Mantha to thrive.
Mantha and Tom Wilson will battle it out for the number three spot for goals scored but the edge here goes to Mantha, simply due to the fact that he will be able to stay out of the box and will be utilized in more offensive-friendly situations than Wilson. Put Mantha down for 27-30 goals in the 2021-2022 season.
While the data is limited, Mantha was deployed in the offensive zone 76.6 percent of the time in his 14 games with the Caps under Peter Laviolette. Wilson, on the other hand, saw 60.4 percent of his zone starts in the offensive zone, which is far above a career average of only 48.2 percent for the power forward.
With that said, different coaches will often deploy players differently, so don’t expect Wilson to be deployed in the defensive-zone more than half of the time. But without a doubt, expect Mantha to be deployed more heavily in the offensive-zone than Wilson in the upcoming year. That will lead to more goals for the 6-foot-5 winger.
#2 T.J. Oshie
TJ Oshie has scored 30 or more goals once in his career, back in 2016-2017 with the Capitals. He’ll do it again in 2021-22. After a more normal off-season to rest, Osh will anchor the bumper position on the power-play and score 31-34 goals in the upcoming season.
In a shortened season a year ago, Oshie’s 20.8 shooting percentage was the second-highest of his career. Not many players set career-highs at age 34 but Oshie might just be an exception. With a more manageable schedule, Laviolette and the coaching staff will be able to manage the team’s age better than what was possible last season.
In addition to the schedule, Oshie is another player who saw a significant increase in offensive-zone starts last season in Laviolette’s system. A career-average of 54 was blown away a year ago. Oshie saw 70.4 of his zone starts in the offensive zone. Deployment like that puts him in positions to score and it’s no secret that TJ Oshie has elite finishing capabilities. Barring injury, 30 goals for Oshebabe should be the expectation.
#1 Alex Ovechkin
It should come as no surprise that the greatest goal scorer of all-time will once again lead his team in goals. Alex Ovechkin will not set any career-highs but he is a lock to score 40 goals in 2021-2022.
The Great Eight needs to average just 33 goals a year over the next five seasons to catch Wayne Gretzky‘s all-time record of 894 career goals. Ovechkin will score 45-48 goals this season, but if the Russian Machine scores 55 or even 60, nobody should be surprised. He’s that good.
Alex Ovechkin, who at this point in his career appears to be seemingly-ageless, is a threat to score at all times. Ovi will continue to see the most power-play time on the team and see one of the more offensive heavy deployments on the team.
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A season ago, Ovi saw a career-high 77.9 percent of his zone starts in the offensive zone. When you put a player like Ovechkin, who is widely accepted as having the most dangerous slapshot in the NHL, in the offensive-zone as much as Laviolette did a season ago, he is bound to score a lot of goals.