Why is Sonny Milano such an exciting addition for the Capitals?

Why the Capitals need him now:

Unfortunately, as we have found out from the past few days and weeks, the Capitals will be out without forwards Tom Wilson, Connor Brown, Nicklas Backstrom, Carl Hagelin, and TJ Oshie for a considerable amount of time.

Alongside all these forwards, the leading point getting defenseman for the Capitals in every season but 1 since 2014-2015, John Carlson also was placed on the IR. Though we are hoping for a speedy return from Carlson, that is more points missing from a lineup that already is missing such a copious amount of point getting forwards.

To take a quick deeper look at the guys missing for the Capitals, lets take a look at a few numbers. Last year, throughout the season, the Capitals scored 270 total goals over 82 games, averaging out at out about 3.3 goals per game which had them ranked 10th in the league.

This year, even though it is early in the season, the Caps have averaged only approximately 2.9 goals per game, giving them the 22nd ranking in the NHL. We are seeing problems offensively that this Ovechkin led team rarely ever incurred.

Looking again back at last season, we see of the guys on the IR, that the Capitals are missing a large portion of their point getters from the season prior. If we look at each guy, we had Oshie averaging .568 points per game (ppg), Carlson .910 ppg, Backstrom .659 ppg, and Wilsons .666 ppg,  which combines for 2.803 ppg missing from last years lineup due to injury.

Last year, The Capitals had a total of 706 points and the missing players made up 193 of those points. That’s approximately 27.3% of all of their points missing, making players like Connor McMichael, Alexsei Protas, and newly added Sonny Milano, become an even more important part of this Capitals team and ability to not get pushed around in a hectic Metro Division, and stick around while they wait for these huge pieces to return. If we take away 27.3% of last years goals per game, we then go from the 10th ranked team to the 32nd ranked team, again showing the importance of getting points out of 3rd-4th liners and AHL call ups during this time.