Washington Capitals: Upcoming Player Milestones To Watch For
With training camp starting and the preseason just around the corner it is officially time to be excited about the upcoming National Hockey League and Washington Capitals season. It’s the time of year where you get to see your new teams and new players. It’s the time of year that brings hope to fans of nearly every team. Hope to see improvements from the year before. Hope your team can take the next step. And hope to see your team lift the Stanley Cup in about nine months.
Usually when you get excited about training camp it’s centered around a couple of things. Fans get excited to see the new acquisitions. In the Capitals case, that really isn’t the case this season. The other is to see how the next crop of prospects do in camp and in preseason. Capitals fans having a little more to watch there with the likes of Connor McMichael and Hendrix Lapierre possibly being the most exciting to watch going forward.
While the new and young guys are the most fun to watch you can also get excited by seeing the “old” guys come back to town and playing on your favorite team once again. For the most part, it is those veterans that we will be looking at today.
In honor of training camp getting underway and the season being just around the corner now it’s time to do something I always love to do before seasons start. It’s time to take a look at who can hit some career milestones.
It’s always fun to watch a player hit a milestone. A first goal, a 500th game, a 1,000th point. Sometimes these things can sneak up on us however. We won’t know it until the TV broadcast mentions that it happened or that it can happen on pre-game. With this, we hope to show you and make you aware that it’s possible that a milestone can be achieved this season and that milestone won’t sneak up on you.
Nicklas Backstrom
Nicklas Backstrom is on the verge of a couple of milestones and one bigger than the other. Backstrom is currently sitting on 980 career points. I’m only going to say this next line once, because it applies to everybody, every season. Barring anything bad happening, Backstrom should hit one of the biggest milestones you can hit as an NHL player.
The NHL has been around for over 100 years, there has only been 91 players who have scored 1,000 points or more. Backstrom will soon join that list of players.
On top of his total point milestone, Backstrom will also hit another point century mark. When Backstrom scores his 4th power play point of the season that will mean that he has scored 400 power play points in his career.
You expect Backstrom to score over 20 power play points a year. Depending on how this season goes he could crack to top fifty in career power play points. He will need to get to 423 to get into the top fifty and pass Dino Ciccarelli.
Lars Eller
Lars Eller won’t get too much attention for this milestone, unlike the player we just mentioned and his upcoming 1,000th point. But at a certain point another 100 games deserves to be noticed. That’s what Eller will hit this season.
In just the second game of this upcoming season Eller will be playing in his 800th career game. Again, it’s not something you will hear about much, if at all. I’m sure during the game you’ll see a graphic on your televisions mentioning it. But it is a milestone and a lot of guys around the world probably wish they could get to that mark.
Carl Hagelin
Like another Swede on this list Carl Hagelin has an opportunity to hit a couple of milestones. If Hagelin can stay healthy, half way through this season he will play in his 700th NHL game. He is currently at 660 and obviously needing 40 games to hit 700.
While it’s not 1,000 points Hagelin has the chance to hit another mark in points. If he scores 18 points this season he will hit 300 career points. Hagelin has never scored as few points as that so you would have to think it’s a matter of time before he hits that mark.
Evgeny Kuznetsov
It will be an interesting season for Evgeny Kuznetsov. How will he perform with a lot of eyes on him after rumors of the Capitals considered moving him in the offseason.
While not the biggest milestone to watch for, Kuznetsov will hit one fairly early this season. With just eleven assists needed to hit 300 career assists you have to think he will get to that pretty early in the season.
Anthony Mantha
When looking at milestones I tend to only point out the “bigger” ones. Anything over 500 games and some more special smaller numbers like Kuznetsov’s 300 assists. Anthony Mantha will hit a nice round number this season though, and while not very big, it’s still impressive and kind of shows you’ve made it as an NHL player.
Mantha needs just one goal to hit 100 career goals. It’s obviously not Ovechkin and his chasing 894, but for a younger guy 100 is still very impressive and should be pointed out.
T.J. Oshie
T.J. Oshie will soon be one of those guys we will be counting down to 1,000 NHL games played. However that will not be this season. This year he will have to settle for 900 games played. If he can play in the vast majority of this season he can set himself up for a possible 1,000th NHL game in the 2022-23 season.
Oshie is sitting on 856 games needing 44 games to hit 900.
Alex Ovechkin
Every time I talk about this guy it seems like I’m talking about him breaking records. I won’t really do that today, but Alex Ovechkin does still have some milestones to look out for.
Going into this season Ovechkin has played in 1,197 games. Very early in the season we’ll be talking about 1,200 games for him.
Ovechkin is also sitting pretty with 590 career assists. I’m going to go ahead and go out on a limb and say he will get more than ten assists this season to get over 600 for the career.
As we speak he has 499 career power play points. How cool would it be if Ovechkin were to register his first power play point of the season with a goal, and that were to get him to 500 career power play points?
The last possible milestone for “The Great Eight” will be the hardest for him to achieve this season. Ovechkin will need 80 points to get to 1,400 for his career. Ovechkin is not a big point producer over the last decade. Since 2010 Ovechkin has scored over a point per game only five times. He’s scored over 80 points four times since then as well. He has a chance at 1,400 this season, but it’s definitely not a sure thing.
Tom Wilson
Where have the years gone? It sill feels like Tom Wilson is a very young player and that he hasn’t been on the team that long. He’s still only 27, so he is still pretty young. But playing in 600 career games doesn’t make somebody sound young. Wilson will need to play in 31 games to hit that milestone this season.
Wilson is also at 91 career goals. Early in his career, goals were not his things. He scored just 21 goals in his first four seasons combined. In the last few seasons though you can almost bank on twenty from the bruising forward. It’s a matter of time before he hits 100 career goals.
Dmitry Orlov
This season Dmitry Orlov will hit another one hundred games played. This time around he will be playing in his 600th career game. Right now, Orlov is at 567 games played. He will hit the new mark around the halfway point of the season.
Justin Schultz
Justin Schultz will hit a couple of milestones this season. He needs just twelve points to get 200 for his career. A pretty impressive number for a defenseman. That should be a pretty easy number for him to get. When he plays in a full season he should just about triple that number.
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Schultz will also need just a few points to get to 100 career power play points. He’s at 97 points right now. Looking at his career, even in seasons where he has missed a bunch of games, he is good for somewhere between 6-20 power play points. He will hit the century mark at some point this season.