Washington Capitals: Top Three Players Of The Early Season
The Washington Capitals are now ten games into the 2021-22 NHL season. While they are not the best team in the league in the early going, it has still been a pretty nice start if you’re asking me. An eighth of the way through the season the Capitals have a record of 5-1-4. A pretty good last ten record.
If the Caps were to do that eight more times, at game eighty their record would be 40-8-32. With two more games to play the team would have 112 points. I’m going to go on a limb and say that record is incredibly unlikely. Thirty-two overtime losses would demolish an NHL record of 18 held by several teams, but, it kind of is a goal isn’t it? If you’re going to lose you might as well get something out of it.
Perhaps we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves. This is not a prediction time here, it’s a reflection time. We’re going to take a look at a few Capitals players who have jumped out of the gates strong. We’re going to look at three players who have grabbed this team by the collar and said you guys are coming with me. Or us, in this situation.
I can’t say there has been any Cap who has gotten off to a bad start. At the same time, I don’t think this was too difficult to pick three players who you could possibly call a team MVP this early. So, in my opinion, and my opinion always being right, all the time no questions asked, wink wink, nudge nudge. Here’s who I think the three best Capitals players have been ten games into the season.
Evgeny Kuznetsov
I mean, lets not bury the lead right? If we were all asked to vote on an MVP for the Capitals at this point of the season it has to be Evgeny Kuznetsov doesn’t it? Is it even really close?
Ten games into the season Kuznetsov has 13 points, five of those being goals. After one of his worst seasons he’s now on pace for his very best. Numbers aside, number ninety-two has looked absolutely terrific nearly every night. To make a point, he’s on pace for 106 points which would best his high mark to this point by 23 points. His career high came back in 2017-18 when he scored 83 points.
When talking about Kuznetsov I really could care less about his advanced stats or any number trying to decipher how he’s playing. Just watch the games and you can tell how good he’s been easily. But, since we’re here, lets take a look at his numbers anyways.
CF% – 54.35%
SCF% – 55.91%
HDCF% – 62.50%
xGF% – 60.23%
A couple of interesting numbers to point out. With Kuznetsov on the ice at 5v5 the Capitals have scored 9 goals and have only allowed 3 goals. Kuznetsov, who is not really known for shooting the puck already has 16 shots on goals. That’s tied for second on the team. I’m sure you can all guess who number one is.
Kuzy also has 20 individual scoring chances, that’s third best on the Caps. And maybe even better than all of that, he leads the team in individual high danger attempts with 12. Second place being Connor McMichael who has 11.
Maybe other people wouldn’t seem it’s as obvious as I do. Kuznetsov has consistently been the best Capital. He’s the MVP of the early season, and I don’t think it’s that close honestly.
Alex Ovechkin
There was some that thought maybe going forward you would start to see the decline of Alexander Ovechkin. We’ve seen his best, it’s all downhill from here. Well, here we are, ten games into the season and Ovechkin has 10 goals and 18 points.
Look at the scoring leads for the NHL right now. As I write this, Leon Draisaitl leads with 20 points. Connor McDavid is right behind him with 19. Guess who’s third right now? The 36-year-old Ovechkin.
Playing on a line with Kuznetsov, his stats will be similar, but we’ll take a look at them anyways.
CF% – 54.98%
SCF% – 55.10%
HDCF% – 63.46%
xGF% – 60.06%
Maybe in the most unsurprising development ever, Ovechkin leads the team in shots while 5v5 with 21. The next highest being 16, that number being shared by Kuznetsov, Connor McMichael and Garnet Hathaway of all guys.
Ovechkin also has a pretty sizeable lead in individual scoring chances. Ten games in and he has 28 scoring chances. The next highest, again, weird to say, but Garnet Hathaway with 21 individual scoring chances.
If you talk about Kuznetsov, you probably have to talk about Ovechkin too, and vice versa. These guys have been leading the charge basically since puck drop in game number one. Ten goals in ten games. Nearly two points per game, at age thirty-six. Impressive!
Vitek Vanecek
Like I said earlier, I’m not sure there have been any Capitals who have gotten off to bad starts. I’m also not sure there have been many guys who have gotten off to blazing starts. At least except for the previous two guys we’ve talked about. When talking about Vitek Vanecek, the reason I would put him on this list is because the job of number one goalie was up for grabs coming into this season. I’m not sure it is anymore.
When you look at his stats, it’s not anything that will blow you away. He’s played in 7 of the 10 games so far, he has a 2.49 goals against average and a .902 save percentage. The goals against average is average, and the save percentage is borderline.
When you look at his 5v5 stats, his numbers are excellent. His GAA drops to 1.26 and his save percentage jumps up to .946%.
When you’re choosing a starting goalie for the Washington Capitals right now, who do you feel safer with guarding the cage? It has to be Vanecek. Before training camp, the Capitals goaltending situation was 1A, 1B, with Samsonov the likely 1A. Ten games into the season I think we’ve returned to the traditional starter and backup.
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As it stands right now, Vanecek is the starter, Samsonov is the backup. With Vanecek winning the starters job, at least in my opinion, I think he should be named one of the top three Capitals to start the season.