Capitals are at a crossroads for getting past the first round

The date was June 7, 2018. The Washington Capitals had finally done it. They had won the Stanley Cup.

Since then, it’s been nothing but first round exits. 2019 we were all hungover from the Cup. OK. Makes sense. 2020, I don’t even know what the hell happened. It was when normal life turned weird but the formula didn’t work and it resulted in a new coaching change.

New coaching change, same result the next year, though that year was abnormal as well. This season we’re about to close in on an 82 game regular season that is somewhat normal. The Caps started out hot but now they’re at a crossroads, a fork in the road as we speak.

It’s hard to get a read on this team because they’ve been unpredictable. But right now they’re 26-14-9 in the first Wild Card spot in the Eastern Conference. They got 61 points which is six points ahead of the second place Boston Bruins. They’re three points behind the New York Rangers, five points behind the Pittsburgh Penguins, and six points behind the first place Carolina Hurricanes.

Meanwhile the goaltending situation is very spicy. General Manager Brian MacLellan hasn’t been afraid to take big swings and there were strong rumors about Marc-Andre Fleury or another goaltender to trade for.

It’s even spicier seeing what’s in the room. Ilya Samsonov has played OK lately. Pheonix Copley has been meh. Vitek Vanecek, who should be the number one starter going forward, is dealing with an upper body injury and was only on the ice before practice on Saturday.

The Caps apparently swung for the fences on Fleury but he wouldn’t want to come. That’s not really too much of a surprise. But the hottest question around D.C. is what’s going to happen at goal in the start of the playoffs.

Do they run it back with two young goaltenders again or do they swing for the fences on another veteran netminder?

Obviously another glaring issue for the Caps that must be fixed come playoff time is their power play. The Caps are 29th in the entire NHL on the man advantage. The only worse teams are the Philadelphia Flyers, Montreal Canadiens, and Arizona Coyotes. The Caps have a 15.3 percent success rate.

Perhaps they should fire Blaine Forsythe? Perhaps Forsythe should tweak the units some more? Either way it’s been a problem all year and it’s gotta be fixed.

So the goaltending and the offense when it’s not on even strength are two things that will make or break the Caps this spring. We’ll see if these guys have what it takes to get past those first round demons.