This Season Has Had Plenty Of Interesting Things For The Capitals Already
We aren't even halfway through the 2023-24 Washington Capitals season. We don't know how it'll end but it certainly hasn't been boring.
This was a Washington Capitals season that had plenty of questions coming into it. Among those questions were health, could the older players stay at the top of their games, what was the goaltending going to look like, etc. Here we are in the early new year part of the season and some of those questions have indeed been answered, some need even more time.
While it kind of has been an up and down season for the Capitals, more up than down luckily, I think one thing is for certain about this campaign so far. It has had a bunch of interesting things happen and we're not even quite halfway through the season yet.
It feels like the Washington Capitals have already had a full seasons worth of stuff happen to them already. Some seasons can have more interest and intrigue in them, others will feel a bit more normal. The Caps are definitely the former in this case.
I thought it would be fun and interesting to take a look at all the things that have already happened to this Capitals team this season. So lets go ahead and do that.
The Rise of Connor McMichael
We should start with something positive, and not only is this positive this could arguably be the best thing that has happened to the Capitals all season.
The Capitals badly needed young guys to come in and cement themselves this season. We'll talk a little bit more why that was the case a little bit later, but Connor McMichael planting his flag on this roster, telling his team and everyone else that he is a definite NHLer has to be the best thing that has happened for the Caps so far.
While his stats aren't incredibly impressive they are still in line with what I wanted. Currently McMichael has 7 goals with 7 assists. That would put him on pace for just under what I wanted from him to start the season. I wanted him at 16-20 goals and 40-50 points. He is on pace for about 16 goals and lower 30's in points. But not everything is numbers.
Just watch the kid on the ice every game. At this very second I think you could say that McMichael is the best center on the Capitals. Dylan Strome would probably get that nod on most nights, but even he had struggled the last several games while Connor hasn't. With the play of Strome and McMichael, the highest paid center on the team, Evgeny Kuznetsov isn't even close to being the best on the team. Most nights you probably couldn't even call him the teams third best center. Another argument for another time.
The way McMichael has played has been terrific. AND, he has helped raise the level of his teammates and linemates. Which leads us to...
Anthony Mantha's Resurgence
In the positive category, if it's not Connor McMichael that is the best thing on the Capitals this season that means it probably has to be the fact that Anthony Mantha has had a good season.
I'm not going to spend too much time on Mantha's struggles as a Capital before this season. We all know it, it has been talked about enough, we don't need to keep bringing it up. With that being said Mantha did only score a total of 24 goals with the Capitals in the previous three seasons or so. He didn't score a lot of goals for many reasons, again, that's been talked about a lot.
Here we are, 36 games into the 2023/24 season and Mantha is towards the top of the team in both goals and points. His 18 points is tied for fifth on the team, behind Ovechkin, Strome, Carlson and Wilson, tied with Protas. His 11 goals are tied for second on the team behind only Strome and his 13, tied with Tom Wilson and his 11.
With those numbers Mantha is on pace for a potential career year. He is currently on pace for about 26-27 goals, that would best his career high of 25 that he scored in 2018-19. He is also on pace for 46 points which would be just short of the 48 he tallied in both 2017-18 and 2018-19.
Again, we'll talk about it in just a minute but the Capitals have badly needed other guys to step up. So far Connor McMichael has and Mantha has turned into the goal scorer that the Caps wanted when they got him nearly three years ago. It has been awesome watching the success that Mantha has had.
Nicklas Backstrom
With the good comes the bad. Even in the best of seasons there are going to be some things that you look at and go "ugh", and this has to be at the top of most Capitals fans list.
It's never fun to watch a beloved player decline. It's hard to watch a player you loved "hang on" longer than they should have. It sucks to watch a talented player not live up to their potential. All of that is no fun. Watching a guys, or girls, career potentially come to an end thanks to injury might be at the top of the not fun things to watch or experience list.
Much like Mantha, we all know the history here so it doesn't make sense for me to waste your time here talking about it. To sum it up easily, Backstrom had a bad injury. He had surgery to try to help that injury. That surgery does not seem to help guys in their later thirties play hockey very good, or for very long. It looks like Backstrom's name might be added to that list.
Give him credit, he gave it a go. That go only lasted 8 games and during those games he was only able to register one assist. On top of that he didn't particularly look very good on the ice at the same time.
After those 8 games he decided to step away from the team and we haven't seen him since. It is not clear if we will ever see him on the ice again for the Capitals. Most assume we won't.
There have been a couple of bad things for the Capitals this season. I don't know how you could say anything is worse than this one.
The Ovechkin Decline?
I think there still needs to be a question mark here. We can all look at the stats and go, "yes, obviously he isn't scoring goals at the pace we're used to" and we can all see physically he isn't quite the same as years past. Mostly the skating isn't as good and it looks like the hands could be starting to go with all the bobbled pucks I've seen this season.
At the same time it's still Alex Ovechkin. Would anyone be shocked if he ripped 7 goals in an 8 game span? Or better? In just five games would you be surprised if he had 5 goals?
We're 36 games into the season. It's January 8th when I'm writing this. Ovechkin has just 8 goals on the season. That puts him on pace to score about 18 goals this season. One of the stranger things has been his inability to score while 5v5. He has just 2 total goals while at full and even strength and one of those came at the very end of a power play before the other team could fully get back to 5v5.
I personally will not say that Ovechkin is in a full decline just yet. We have surely seen the physical things giving us clues it is coming and coming fast. But its still Ovechkin. If he goes on a tear in the near future you should not be surprised. Fifty goals is obviously out of the question. Forty goals is as well. But somehow thirty goals still feels possible for "the Gr8".
Until he ends the season at just over or under twenty goals, I can't buy into his decline yet.
Lindgren Has Been Fantastic, Kuemper Has Not
I don't think it is even up for debate anymore. If the Capitals top two goaltenders are healthy, that being Darcy Kuemper and Charlie Lindgren, Lindgren is the teams starter. Throw away contracts, throw out the names, toss everything. The Capitals need the guy playing the best to be playing on more nights. They are not a great team, they cannot afford to wait out a middling goalie.
That's what Kuemper has been this season. Average. Probably slightly below average. The stats would tell you he has been not good. I don't fully agree with that, but stats don't lie at the same time. He currently has a 3.15 GAA coupled with a .893 save percentage. Not good.
Lindgren on the other hand has been terrific. Outstanding even. Where would the Capitals be without him? He has been one of the best goalies in the entire NHL.
Unfortunately right now he is currently injured. Lets hope he comes back very soon. But while he was healthy he was playing incredibly well and put up very good numbers. His GAA was 2.27 and he had a .928 save percentage.
Goaltending has been interesting to say the least for the Capitals for years now. Holtby was great, then he wasn't, the team moved on. Samsonov was good, then he wasn't, the team moved on, same can be said for Vanecek mostly. The Capitals can get good goaltending, but they have not gotten consistent goalie play for a bunch of years now.
We'll see if Lindgren can return and play at the level he did before he got injured. We'll also see if Kuemper can raise his game. But one thing is for sure, goaltending remains interesting for the Capitals.
Max Pacioretty
This is going to be the most recent and the last thing we talk about today. Max Pacioretty made his return and Capitals debut the other night vs the New Jersey Devils. It did not look incredibly impressive, he himself even saying so.
I've heard a lot of people talk excitedly about Pacioretty on the team. It's easy to understand why. It's a big name in the NHL, he has had plenty of success in his NHL career. It's easy to get excited when a guy like that joins your team.
I'm still skeptical and incredibly curious how he performs this season. It feels like no one wants to discuss that Pacioretty is 35 years old coming off of two bad Achilles injuries. Similar to how so many people didn't want to talk about Backstrom and him coming off a big hip surgery.
I think it's fine to think positively. But you keep hearing people say "Pacioretty should give this offensive a boost". Are you sure? Yes, 28 year old, healthy Pacioretty should give this offense a boost, but I'm not sure either of those are completely true.
That's why this should be potentially the most interesting thing to watch for the remainder of the season. How much does Pacioretty have left? What does he bring? Does he bring enough? Does he hurt more than he helps? Does he block the young guys from playing, who have been playing pretty well.
Just like Backstrom, you hope injury doesn't do this player in. At the same time, it wouldn't be very surprising if he didn't have much left to give.
There is still plenty to talk about honestly. I just talked about six things that stood out to me. I didn't mention the special teams this season. How the power play has been mostly awful. How the Capitals are among the top teams in their divison despite being a fairly average looking team. Protas deserves some recognition. Oshie still can't stay healthy. There is still a lot of interesting things that have happened this season and I probably forgot an obvious one.
I guess the good thing about not being able to talk about everything? We still have more than half the season to go. We'll see how these things and more play out over the next three plus months.