A look at the regular season of the Capitals

The 2022-23 season for the Washington Capitals was a colossal failure. From injuries to bad lineup decisions it all added up to the team missing the playoffs for the first time since the end of the Adam Oates era. As a result this marked the end of the Peter Laviolette era.

The biggest positive of course was Alex Ovechkin. Despite being 37 it didn’t stop him from having another 40 goal season as the great eight finished with 42 goals. It was the most 40 goal seasons in NHL history, passing Wayne Gretzky with 13.

He also became the third player in NHL history to reach the 800 goal benchmark and moved past Gordie Howe into second place on the NHL’s all time goals list.

With 822 career goals now, Ovechkin enters next season 73 goals shy of surpassing Wayne Gretzky’s mark of 894 goals for the most in league history.

In the end though the Caps finished 35-37-19 with 80 points, their lowest since 2006. That is third to last in the Metropolitan Division and even 11 points behind the Pittsburgh Penguins who took a completely different direction than the Capitals did at the deadline and still missed the big dance.

Darcy Kuemper wasn’t terrible in fact he was OK. He obviously would’ve won more games if the team in front of him was better. It wasn’t and that’s why it looks like Ilya Samsonov and Vitek Vanecek are better with their respective clubs in the playoffs.

Kuemper finished 22-26-7 with a 2.87 goals against average and a .908 save percentage. Charlie Lindgren was a hell of a pickup too by Brian MacLellan. He’s a good backup and went 13-11-3 with a 3.05 goals against average and a .899 save percentage.

Another Cap that impressed me was Dylan Strome who finished with 23 goals and 42 assists for 65 points, his 23 goals being a career high. But in the end there’s going to be a lot of changes coming this summer so buckle up.