Should This Current Capitals Team Be Expected To Make The Playoffs?

It is a brand new season. All across the league you have teams and fanbases entering the new year with a new hope. Hope that they will not be as bad as last season, or hope that their team makes a longer run in the spring. Of course that hope does not disappear in D.C. with Washington Capitals fans.

We all know what happened last season in Washington. The team underperformed majorly, for multiple reasons, and found themselves watching playoff hockey instead of playing it. But this new season brings hope that the Capitals will return to the dance after the 82 game season. There is hope that this team will once again return towards the top of the league and be the contender that a lot of hockey fans know them as.

But is that hope legit, or is it just wishful thinking? Should the Capitals, the way the team is currently built be expected to get back into the playoffs?

I think the answer has to be no. This is where the die hard fans and other people with homer mentality either laugh or their head comes way to close to exploding. But why should this team be considered better? There has not been that much change. The change that has happened isn’t anything that will bring definite results. Those changes are things that we hope will improve the team.

This obviously isn’t to say that in about six months that this Caps team will not make the playoffs either. Even though fans will remember people like me saying this and try to shove it back in our faces when/if the best outcomes does happen. Simply what I’m saying is, the Capitals missed the playoffs last year by twelve points, they have teams that are better above them and didn’t make enough changes that will definitely, no doubt in anyone’s mind make them better. A lot of the questions that the team had last season are still around.

Lets just go down a list of why this team shouldn’t be expected to make the playoffs.

The New Coaching Staff

This is obviously the biggest move. Peter Laviolette, while he had a couple of good regular seasons, clearly was not the right guy for the job any longer. Spencer Carbery comes in with his staff and there is the biggest change for this team this offseason. We have no idea how this is going to work. There is hope, but that’s it.

Whether people want to admit it or not there is just as good a chance that Carbery is the best coach in franchise history as him becoming the worst coach in team history. We don’t know. All things sound good right now, but we are still in the honeymoon process. How do things look when things get ugly?

If, and I do need to stress IF the Capitals get off to a bad start, how does the team and the coaches react?

This is the biggest unknown of the season. How much will this new staff be able to get out of the team? Will it be a huge upgrade? We can all have hope that this change will bring a lot more success, but if anyone says it definitely will, they are just hoping like you are.

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.

Prospects and young players

I mean, this is the definition of hope. We have no idea what young players and prospects will look like in the NHL. They can have success everywhere and for some reason it does not click in the NHL. There is a lot of hope, and a lot of positive talk coming out around Connor McMichael. There is a ton of hope Ivan Miroshnichenko is the next big numbers producer for the Capitals. Can Aliaksei Protas turn into a very good NHL player? Can Hendrix Lapierre find his way in? What about Vincent Iorio? What is Lucas Johansen going to be?

And we just talked about defense and goaltending. Prospects always come with their questions there. If the goaltending isn’t great and the D looks as questionable as it does on paper how much do the young guys help or hurt the Capitals?

Hey, at the end of the day, Capitals fans, you can be thankful you’re not the Pittsburgh Penguins. While they are old like the Caps are, they do not have a lot of promising young guys coming. The Caps have done a very good job at refilling the cupboard. Now the question becomes what do those promising young players look like when the lights are on brightest?

Who do the Capitals jump in the standings?

If the Capitals do show some improvements, how far up can they go? I do think this Capitals team will be better. I just don’t really know what that means. It took 92 points to make the playoffs in the east last season. It will likely take something like that again, if not slightly more. So the Caps will have to make up about 10-15ish points. Where are they getting them, and more importantly, who are they jumping over to get a playoff spot?

Lets just look at the division. The Carolina Hurricanes are the favorites to win the Stanley Cup. They’ll be a top three team in the division. I expect the New Jersey Devils to take a step back. But I still expect them to be very good. Instead of 112 points like last season, maybe it is only about 102-105. I think they’re a top three team. I’m not sure why you’d expect the New York Rangers to be much worse, unless you’re a Laviolette hater. He’s a coach that has had success almost everywhere he’s been except Washington. Maybe look at yourself there. It’s still a good team, you’d expect them to be top three as well.

The Capitals were 13 points behind the Islanders last season and 11 behind the Penguins. Can Washington jump either of those teams? I think it’s possible, but I’m not betting on that right now.

You also have to think about the Atlantic division. If we assume the top three in the metro is taken up who do you have to worry about in the other east division. Well, they have Boston, Toronto and Tampa Bay. They also have the reigning east champions in Florida. Teams like Buffalo, Ottawa and Detroit are coming. Maybe Montreal takes a bigger than expected leap?

This could be the Capitals biggest problem. Even if they do improve, are they better than some of the teams they have to catch? Hell, even if they do improve and get into the playoffs are they a legit contender? Or are they what they have been since they won the Cup? Get into the playoffs and get promptly ejected in the first round by a true contender.

I really and truly do believe this Capitals team will be better. I just don’t know what that really means. They can be a little better, but if the teams around you are still better it doesn’t really matter. Bottom line the Caps need to improve by probably around 15 points this season and that is no small task. They will potentially need to improve by about 20 points to get into a division playoff spot. I just don’t know why you would expect that when you consider the questions this team has and how good teams around them still are.

Should we expect this team to make the playoffs? No. They can surely improve. And sure, they can make the playoffs. No one here is saying they will 100% miss. But there are still a ton of questions this team needs to answer, some we didn’t even talk about today. We didn’t talk about Kuznetsov, much. We didn’t talk about a guy like Mantha. We didn’t really talk about the offense and if it will be better this season. There are still a lot of questions that need a positive outcome.

With all of these questions and with the amount of good teams around them I don’t know why we should expect this Capitals team to make the playoffs. But we can still hope. Quite frankly, sometimes hope is all you have to do. It’s just about time to drop the puck. We’ll see how this season goes.