3 reasons to get excited for the Capitals in 2023
There are changes coming to the Washington Capitals and change can be exciting. So what are the three reasons to get excited about the Capitals for next season?
There’s several but for the purpose of this post and your time we’ll narrow it all down to three.
#3 The Chase Continues
If you’ve read any of my past top 5 or top 3 posts, you know I always like to put Alex Ovechkin stuff at number one. Not this time. I’m getting this simple and obvious one out of the way.
Obviously since 2005 Alex Ovechkin has always been a reason to get excited about the Capitals but this upcoming season we’ll get a read on how much closer the great eight can get to Wayne Gretzky’s goal scoring record.
He probably won’t break it unless he gets 73 goals this season. That’s how much he needs. But even a 40 goal season would put him just 33 away the season after next year.
Ovechkin finished with 42 goals this past season bringing his career total up to 822. He was the only player above the age of 27 to score 42 goals this past season. He’s still got it in him. And he’ll need two more seasons of it to catch Wayne.
#2 Young blood coming
The Caps will likely have most of the core intact but they need youth. Even the 2018 Stanley Cup winning team had a youth movement helping them along the way.
Tom Wilson acknowledged such on breakdown day:
“Even when we won, we had a bunch of veteran guys with a ton of experience and we had guys like [Jakub] Vrana and [Chandler] Stephenson and a bunch of young guys juiced that were first-year guys. So, you got to find a balance of what works and when the team hits their stride, it can be really good.”
MacLellan already found gems in Dylan Strome and Rasmus Sandin and now his goal is to find a guy that can compliment the top six. But the Caps will also have to make sure their veterans remain healthy.
Wilson added:
“There’s going to be probably a second wave of what we need younger guys to come in and start pulling their weight and adding and complementing the core that’s getting a little bit older. I’ll be probably a little bit of a hybrid of that in the middle and you try and, as a group, come together.”
Even though the Caps missed the playoffs they are still a hot hockey destination.
#1 A new leader behind the bench
The morning after the Caps lost their season finale to the New Jersey Devils Peter Laviolette and Brian MacLellan had a meeting and agreed to part ways. Now the Caps General Manager is casting open a wide net when looking for the next head coach.
But he’s looking for a rarity. He wants a guy who can manager stars AND develop young players. GMBM explained why:
“Our group is changing. We’re trying to get younger; we brought in some younger players. It’s going to be different in that you want a coach that can work with young guys, and we’re going to have a veteran group at the top that kind of needs a veteran coach. It’s going to be a challenge to find the right guy for that. … I don’t know that we can find it, but we’ll do the best we can.”
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Some names that come to mind are Jeff Halpern and Spencer Carbery. Carbery coached the Hershey Bears before landing an assistant coaching gig with the Toronto Maple Leafs. Halpern is an assistant on the Tampa Bay Lightning. There may be more names that emerge after the first round.