There was a short time when the Washington Capitals were considered favorites in the eastern conference. The years when the Caps were high flying, high scoring and the most fun team to watch. Those years were somewhere between 2008-2011. The teams led by head coach Bruce Boudreau, Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, Mike Green and Alex Semin back then called the “young guns” were sure to win a Stanley Cup in then near future.
Without going into to much detail, it never happened for those teams. To the point that we now find Boudreau has been fired, Alex Semin and Mike Green have both been let go via free agency and a ton of other changes made to those “favorite” teams.
The Capitals then went on a little bit of an odd stretch. More of a secondary power out east behind teams like Boston, Pittsburgh and New York Rangers. That same stretch saw captain Ovechkin go through a down time, regular fifty goal scorer had trouble scoring more than thirty and questions started being asked if he was “washed up”.
We can now fast forward to the present day where we again find the Capitals as favorites out east. General Manager Brian MacLellan in his second year is starting to make his mark on the team, and coach Barry Trotz also in his second year has the team playing the way he wants them to. Alex Ovechkin has regained his fifty goal scoring ways and is ready to lead his team farther than before.
Last season after an average start at best for the first two months the Capitals started to find their way in December and continued to climb from there. Finding themselves battling for the wild card for much of the season the consistent winning ended up putting them in second place in the metro division and playing the New York Islanders in the first round of the playoffs.
After missing the playoffs the year before there was still questions about this team, mainly being can this team figure out how to win in the postseason. After a rough start the 2015 playoffs could have gone south fast. Losing game one on home ice in a bad game I’m sure a lot of people had the Islanders winning the series, after just one game people were counting out the Capitals. Being down by two goals in game two didn’t help people think much differently but the Caps fought back to win that game and tie the series.
To sum up the rest of that series it was fast, physical, and entertaining. The Capitals ended up winning the series 4-3 after being down 0-1 and 1-2 in the series giving a reason for some people to believe this Washington team was more resilient and could go far.
The Capitals even went in to Madison Square Garden to play the New York Rangers and stole game one, steal in the truest sense as Joel Ward waited as long as you possibly can to get the winning goal. After losing game two and evening up the series Washington went on to win games three and four to secure a 3-1 series lead. I’m not to ashamed to say I had the Capitals in the conference finals at that point.
You can never count out the Rangers, being down 3-1 in the second round for the second straight year they found a way to win that series crushing the Capitals hopes of finally getting past the second round.
Even after putting up another postseason failure the Capitals have put themselves in a good situation. The kind of situation where they shouldn’t be judged on what they do October-April that much, it comes down to what they do April-June. In a time where it’s so hard to pen teams into playoff spots before the season starts, Washington should be able to qualify without to much trouble.
The off-season moves the Capitals have made signal that playoffs are on the mind nine months in advance. Trading for T.J. Oshie was the headline move this team made. I’ll be the first to admit, Oshie is a little overrated after his Sochi heroics, but he is better, younger and gives the Capitals more options than Troy Brouwer who they traded for Oshie.
Even more obvious that the Caps were focusing on the playoffs this off-season is the signing of free agent Justin Williams. For those who haven’t paid much attention, Williams is not stranger to being a playoff hero. Having the nickname Mr. Game 7 having the most points in NHL history in those game sevens with fourteen and tied with the most goals in those game at seven. Williams brings the winning attitude and knowing what it takes to go far, winning three Stanley Cups in 2006, 2012 and 2014. The Capitals have struggled in high pressure situations and game sevens especially and having Mr. Game 7 won’t hurt.
It’s not all positive news for Washington though. Free agents had to be let go and some key names for this team left. No name bigger than Mike Green. Being one of the best offensive defenseman in the NHL from 2007-2011 you kept seeing Green falling in the depth chart and eventually landing on the third pairing. It was obvious he didn’t have much time left on the Capitals. More of a sad time because he was a liked player by teammates and fans rather than losing a great player, the Capitals were better without him.
Other key loses include Joel Ward known for scoring some huge playoff goals in both Nashville and Washington and being a key depth player. Eric Fehr also left via free agency to rival Pittsburgh losing a pretty good goal scorer being able to get nearly fifteen goals every season.
Those losses will hurt as will the trade the Brouwer, but the Capitals certainly hope, Oshie and Williams can fill their shoes as well as letting younger players get the opportunity, guys like Evgeny Kuznetsov, Andre Burakovsky, Tom Wilson, Micheal Latta and hopefully Stanislav Galiev and maybe other prospects like Jakub Vrana.
The Capitals are loaded up front, they shouldn’t have very many offensive worries. Defense could be a issue, the D corps don’t look that deep and Washington will have to focus on some young guys coming in to fill out the bottom pairing, but the top four looks as good as any team in the NHL with Carlson, Alzner, Orpik and Niskanen and we’ve seen teams (Chicago) win the Stanley Cup with four, even three great defensemen.
Not much needs to be said about the goaltending. Braden Holtby is the number one guy and he had a great year last year and hopefully is only going to get better. You can most likely call on Holtby sixty plus times this season and he’ll do his part on getting the team wins.I don’t think it’s out of the question to watch out for Vezina consideration for Braden Holtby.
After taking a couple of seasons off from being favorites the Capitals have returned and are on a mission to bring the Stanley Cup to Washington D.C.
