The Washington Capitals were among the NHL’s most surprising playoff teams ever last season. They had a -37 goal differential, helped by Alex Ovechkin’s 31 goals. He and Dylan Strome were the only two players on the team who had more than 20 goals last season, but Darcy Kuemper and Charlie Lindgren were able to do enough to sneak into the postseason.
The Capitals need to lean on Lindgren, as Kuemper went to the Los Angeles Kings in exchange for Pierre-Luc Dubois to assist the scorers. It may not matter if the Capitals’ regression candidates take a step back in 2024-25.
Dubois wasn’t the only addition to the Capitals lineup for 2024-25. They also added some good pieces in Matt Roy, Andrew Mangiapane, and Jakob Chychrun. The Capitals believe these players can help them return to the postseason, but there must be some concerns. Washington has some aging players, and two pickups in Chychrun and Dubois have had some concerning pasts.
Chychrun had a healthy 2023-24 season but could get bitten with the injury bug if his past is any indication. Then you have Dubois, who hasn’t found a good fit in his NHL career. Dubois wore out his welcome with the Columbus Blue Jackets and Winnipeg Jets, then did it in record time after one season with the Los Angeles Kings.
Can Alex Ovechkin maintain form long enough to break the record?
I won’t win the popular vote amongst Capitals fans with my No. 1 choice for a regression candidate. Ovechkin is the most popular player in franchise history, sitting second on the all-time goal-scoring list. He is 41 goals behind Wayne Gretzky for the record, and there’s a good chance he’ll stick around long enough to clinch the record. Ovechkin wants to return to Russia to finish his professional hockey career, so he hopes to score the necessary amount to break it in the next two seasons before his contract expires.
The Capitals are paying Ovechkin for his contributions to the team, but his $9.5 million cap hit is an issue. If the Capitals want to be a Stanley Cup contender, Ovechkin taking up that much room in the cap could be an unavoidable barrier. Spencer Carbery believes he will score 42 goals this season to break the record, but that feels like a massive reach at best. Ovechkin barely reached 42 goals two seasons ago and had just 31 last season.
The signs show that Ovechkin can’t contribute like he did in his prime, which isn’t unexpected. The first hint at Ovechkin being a possible regression candidate for the Capitals came in last year’s postseason. Ovechkin inexcusably had zero points in the four-game sweep, which was a massive reason the team was nowhere near good enough to give the New York Rangers a challenge.
Ovechkin’s large frame is beginning to catch up to him as a 38-year-old, and the NHL is getting faster every season. He looked like a slow old man in the playoffs last year, and it will likely get even worse. It may be a difficult pill to swallow for Capitals fans, but if anyone will prove this wrong it’s Ovechkin.
John Carlson has a regression excuse for Capitals
John Carlson was one of the top two-way defensemen in the league for many years. He suffered one of the most gruesome injuries you can imagine in the 2022-23 season, which has slowed his career. He played just 40 games that season after taking a 90-mile-per-hour slapshot to the side of his head. Carlson severed his temporal artery and fractured his skull in the incident, but returned to play all 82 games in 2023-24.
Carlson had just ten goals and 42 assists last year, a massive drop off from his career-pace. The injury paired with his being 34 doesn’t give much hope he can improve on those numbers next season, which could be trouble for the Capitals. They brought in Chychrun to mitigate some of those concerns, but they’ll still pay Carlson $8 million annually.
Carlson and Ovechkin’s name have been synonymous in Capitals’ lore since they both made their debuts with the team. However, in 2024-25, it could be for all the wrong reasons if they both take a step back and combine for over 20% of the team’s cap.
Can Andrew Mangiapane carry over Flames’ success?
Mangiapane had a breakout year for the Calgary Flames in 2021-22, scoring 35 goals. It felt like it was the start of something special for Mangiapane, but he regressed to 17 and 14 goals the next two seasons. The unfortunate thing for the Flames was that they gave him a three-year, $17.4 million deal after the breakout.
They were fortunate that the Capitals took the $5.8 million cap hit for the final season, as Washington took a chance they could find his 2021-22 form. He will not get the same amount of help around him as he had in Calgary that 2021-22 season. He may not even find as much help in Washington this season as he had during last year’s difficult campaign.
It wouldn’t be the first time a player’s production bottomed out in a new city after spending his entire career with one franchise, and there’s a concern it could be another case of that happening with Mangiapane in Washington.
