Washington Capitals: Top Three Storylines Of The Early Season

Injuries Are A Problem Early

This is something I had concerns with before the season started. The Washington Capitals are an older team, and there are some older players on this team who have injury “issues” if you want to call them that.

Nicklas Backstrom came into this season with a hip injury that he sustained last season. We’re ten games into the season, he has yet to play and he has yet to practice with the team, meaning he is still a little while away from returning or making his season debut.

A hip injury is also something that scares me as something that can linger for a long, long time. There are a couple of injuries I would put in that category. Hamstring (not so much in hockey, but a nasty injury that can linger in other sports), back, groin and hip. You should probably put head or concussions in that as well.

We’ll see how Backstrom comes back, and I hope this isn’t something that continues to hamper him this season or even the rest of his career. But if it did, I wouldn’t be that shocked either.

T.J. Oshie has also joined him on the injured list. Unlike Backstrom, we don’t exactly know what his injury is. However, a few games ago he blocked a shot and it hit his foot or ankle. He’s also wearing a boot so it’s obviously one of those two.

Oshie is one of those guys who will get an injury or two throughout an 82 game season. The way he plays, the all out kind of style, get in battles on the boards, be a hard physical player, get to the hard to get to areas on the ice, dive to block shots. That kind of game will give you knocks and you’re more likely to get hurt than say a Kuznetsov who is a more perimeter player.

Now Anthony Mantha has joined the injured list with a shoulder injury. He has apparently already had surgery or will soon go under the knife and will be out indefinitely.

Nic Dowd also missed a couple of games earlier this season due to an injury. He has since returned.

I don’t like calling any one person injury prone, let alone an entire team. But this is something that concerned me coming into the season. This is a long season. This is a season that is going to have an all-star break and an Olympic break. The schedule will be a little more compressed thanks to that. Key players will want to go to their national teams. Like Ovechkin, Backstrom, Oshie and Carlson. All of those guys are older now.

Anybody can get injured at any time, but the older you get the harder it is to get rid of the minor things. The more miles you put on your body, the more wear and tear will start to show it’s ugly head.

The Capitals have gotten some good minutes from their younger guys so there is a plus there. Hopefully this is just one of those things that a team will possibly go through during a season. For some reason injuries tend to come in bunches. It’s better to get injuries bunched up in October and November than March and April.

As of right now, injuries are a story. Hopefully, this is one of those stories that goes away for the Capitals as the season goes on.