We are just about ready to welcome in a new year. While it’s always great to look forward and have hope for a new year we should all probably take a few moments to reflect on what happened in the previous 365 days. That is exactly what we are going to do here today for the Washington Capitals.
Today we’re going to look at three guys who were probably (at least in my opinion) the most important players on the Capitals in the year 2021.
There were a lot of Capitals who played well this year. Some played better than others, some were able to play very good hockey for the entire year, others for stretches of time. If your favorite player didn’t end up on this list that doesn’t mean that he had a bad year. There were several guys that could end up on this list.
Here is my list of the three most important Capitals of 2021.
Alex Ovechkin
If you’re making a list of most important Capitals how often does Alex Ovechkin not make the list over the last decade and a half? There have been small stretches here and there where he maybe wasn’t at his best. For the most part though, if you have a list like this you have to include “The Great Eight” in it nearly every time.
Ovechkin is having somewhat of a late career renaissance. His goal scoring has remained elite, but in 2021, at the ages of 35 and 36-years-old his point totals have gone up.
In 2021 Ovechkin has played in 77 games and he has scored 90 points. To compare a little bit here, in 2019 he played in 83 games and he scored 84 points. Not an incredible leap in points, but he did have six fewer points in six more games played. 2020 was a bit odd (for a lot of reasons) with the team playing far fewer games than normal in a calendar year. Ovechkin only played in 27 games in 2020. He scored an insane 24 goals in those games, but still only put up 28 total points.
We are not going to talk too much about Ovechkin here today. It’s redundant. He’s great. He is the Washington Capitals. What more can be said about this guy when trying to describe how important he is to this team and this franchise.
Every year since his draft year he has been the most important player on this Capitals team. It’s not different in 2021.