Most Important Capitals Players of 2021

Evgeny Kuznetsov

This choice could be called a little weird, but hear me out. When talking about Evgeny Kuznetsov and calling him one of the most important Capitals players of 2021 you could probably split the year in half, but oh man what an important half did he choose to be great.

We don’t have to talk too much about what was being said about Kuznetsov, by myself and plenty of others before the 2021-22 season started. However, if he played the way he was playing to get those things written about him to start this season the Capitals team could have been in some serious, serious trouble.

This team early on this season has been incredibly banged up by both injuries and COVID issues. On a lot of nights it seemed as if the Capitals were missing half of their lineup. Backstrom had been out, Oshie was out, Mantha had gotten hurt, Eller had COVID problems, Wilson joined in on the missing time fun later, Dowd and Hathaway also missed time. Quite frankly it was almost impressive to watch how many guys missed time.

If I would have told you Washington was going to have that much trouble keeping guys in the lineup before this season started would you think the Capitals were going to have a lot of success? Probably not.

You can give a lot of credit to the guy we already talked about in Alex Ovechkin, but right after that we have to talk about number ninety-two Evgeny Kuznetsov.

If Kuznetsov comes into this season playing the way he had for the past couple of years this team had the possibility of being sunk, early. Luckily, he did not start the season that way. Instead, at least early on, you could have easily called him the team MVP, carrying this team and making sure they got off to a good start even with all the injuries.

For the year Kuznetsov has played in 70 games. He has scored just 60 points, but 31 of those points has come in the 2021-22 season where he has played in 29 games. He has already scored more points this season that he did in all of last season in 12 fewer games.

Again, maybe you can’t call him the most important player in all of 2021. Yet the impact that he has had on this team at the end of the year and start of this season can’t be over emphasized. Without Ovechkin, and without Kuznetsov this Capitals team could be buried already. I don’t know how you can’t call this guy one of the most important players of the year based on that fact alone.