Most Important Capitals Players of 2021

Vitek Vanecek

Rewind to the 2020 offseason. The Capitals had just gotten pretty embarrassed in the bubble by the Islanders. They then decide to let Braden Holtby, their long time, Vezina and Stanley Cup winning goaltender walk in free agency. Ilya Samsonov became the number one goalie and they signed Henrik Lundqvist to back him up.

Lundqvist ended up having heart problems, which basically ended his NHL career in a heartbreaking way. Samsonov on the other hand had injury and COVID concerns for a lot of the season.

So to sum up to start the 2021 COVID season. No Holtby, No Lundqvist, and now no Samsonov. The Capitals now had to rely on a goaltender that really wasn’t in the teams plans, at last for the near future. That is usually a pretty scary situation.

Vitek Vanecek soon put those fears to rest. He started by helping his team to a 2-1 win vs the Buffalo Sabres stopping 30 of 31 shots. It wasn’t a one hit wonder situation either. He went on to win the the NHL’s rookie of the month for the first month of the season.

Vanecek would go on to play in 37 of 56 games that season. He posted a 21-10-0 record having a 2.69 goals against average and a .908 save percentage.

He also started the 2021-22 season good as well. Early on this season he was the no doubt number one guy, playing well with Samsonov being so-so to start the season. He has most recently ended up on the COVID list but expect him to get plenty of starts when he returns.

A lot like Evgeny Kuznetsov, in terms of the teams success early in the season you could give one guy a ton of credit. If it’s Kuznetsov this season, it was Vanecek last season.

You let your franchise goalie go that offseason, you have a promising young goalie out and the hall of famer you signed to backup the young guy isn’t there either. Goaltending is one heck of an important position. If Washington didn’t get good play from Vanecek in the 2021 season who knows how that season would have ended up.