Should This Current Capitals Team Be Expected To Make The Playoffs?
By CJ Witt
Team Health
This has to be the biggest question mark. It was one of the things that killed the team last season, what is to say it won’t happen again this year? I’ve been saying it for years and every year it keeps on getting more and more true. This is an older team. All of the stars on this team are getting up there in age. Once that happens, injuries get harder and harder to fight off.
Alex Ovechkin is older, what would happen to this team if he gets an injury that forces him out for weeks, if not months? Nicklas Backstrom is still coming off a major injury. He can be done talking about it all he wants, but it is still a question whether he wants it to be or not. T.J. Oshie is always seemingly dealing with something. Can the Caps survive another long term injury to John Carlson if it happened? How is the goaltending if Darcy Kuemper goes down? One of the biggest additions this team made in Max Pacioretty is out to start the year, and he is one of those guys who is seemingly always injured as well.
Injuries are always going to be a questions for every single team. Who can stay healthiest the most and longest? But for this team, with aging stars and key players, and after how last season went, it has to be the biggest concern.
Ovechkin staying at the top of his game
If this team does not get help from the bottom of the lineup Ovechkin simply cannot take a step back. The most important player on your team is 38-years-old. The decline is coming people. Is that decline going to start this season? I have no idea. You’d be a fool to bet against “The Gr8” and I will not be betting against him. But he will not remain dominant until he’s fifty.
Ovechkin had fifty goals two seasons ago. Last season he had 42 in just four fewer games played. What if he plays in about the same amount of games this season, meaning the mid seventies, and gets you about 37 goals. That is still a good amount of goals. Every team would take that. But you would now start to see that decline. And every goal that he leaves, someone else on the team will need to pick up. Can they?
If Ovechkin were to hit some wall, and again you cannot expect that, would this team be able to overcome that? Right now the Capitals need Ovechkin to stay Ovechkin. If he takes a step back that could be trouble. And relying on a 38-year-old is a bit of risky business no matter who it is.