How Lucky Do The Capitals Need To Get To Win The Stanley Cup This Season?
By CJ Witt
Goaltending
This goes back to what we said at the very beginning. Management has done all they can here. Goaltending has been a question for the Washington Capitals going all the way back to Braden Holtby’s last season in D.C. Ilya Samsonov and Vitek Vanecek are both gone, and in comes reigning Stanley Cup champion Darcy Kuemper.
On paper this issue has been fixed. But as the old saying goes, games are not played on paper. How many times has a no brainer move turned into a move that didn’t end up working? More times than most fans and management teams care to remember. For whatever reason sometimes things just don’t work out.
I think we are all confident this won’t be an issue for the Capitals. With essentially three hundred games played in his career Kuemper has a GAA of 2.48 and a save percentage of .918. He has proven he is a pretty good NHL goalie.
His numbers are iffy in the playoffs however. In 34 career playoff games he has a 2.78 GAA and a .908 save percentage. Not terrible, but then you can go back to Ilya Samsonov and his stats. His GAA is 2.98 and .907%.
Washington also has to look at their backup position. If Kuemper were to struggle or get hurt and miss some times how does Charlie Lindgren or somebody else play?
The Capitals look like a good team, but Kuemper won’t have a team as stacked as the Colorado Avalanche were last season playing in front of him.
I don’t think this is going to be a big issue any longer, but the Capitals goaltending still needs to prove some things.