Beck Malenstyn will finally get a real taste of the NHL

Next up on our Washington Capitals player predictions we will take a look at Beck Malenstyn. He’s got 24 games of NHL experience but it’s been a bit spread out over the course of three seasons.

He first appeared in three games in 2019 20. He then appeared for 12 games in 2021 22 and had a goal. Last season he appeared in nine games and had a goal and an assist for two points. That season was cut short due to an injury.

Malenstyn rehabbed and trained the rest of the season with the Hershey Bears. He played in 40 regular season games in the AHL after the injury and had six goals and four assists for 10 points.

In the Calder Cup playoffs he had four goals and four assists for eight points. It helped the Bears to their 12th championship in franchise history.

Now Malenstyn earned a spot on the opening night roster and at today’s practice in Maryland he skated on the fourth line with Nic Dowd and Anthony Mantha. Matthew Phillips was the extra forward.

Predicting Malenstyn is tricky because you don’t know what you’re going to get out of him. But I could see him recording eight goals and nine assists for 17 points. It’s a good number and if he gets more games in this season that number could always improve.

Malenstyn was selected in the fifth round of the 2016 NHL Draft. He has a scrappy and gritty style to his game. While he isn’t known to score much, he is a pain to play against for other teams. He goes hard on pucks and isn’t afraid to crash the net.

That gritty style could fill a void that was left by the departure of Garnet Hathaway last season.

We have a few more players left to predict. Those guys are Dylan Strome, Nic Dowd, Matthew Phillips, Lucas Johansen, and Alex Alexeyev.