Connor McMichael was one of the Washington Capitals’ top players through the first two months of the 2024-25 season. The 24-year-old forward had 24 points (14g, 10a) through his first 24 games and seemed poised to establish himself as a star in the league.
However, McMichael’s production has significantly slowed since the calendar flipped into December, recording just 17 points (5g, 12a) in his last 31 games. Capitals head coach Spencer Carbery spoke after the team’s practice on Thursday about how he’d like to see McMichael refind more of that early-season form.
“I’m hopeful that Mikey’s going to have a real good finishing stretch to the season,” Carbery said. “He started red hot, was playing at a really high level, sort of dipped through the middle portion of the year. I feel like he’s coming out of the break refreshed, feeling good physically, and then also has the competitive drive that he has as a player, which I love.”
While the Capitals aren’t getting the same flow of points from McMichael, the team has remained successful at five-on-five with him on the ice. During his minutes, Washington has seen 53.7 percent of the expected goals and 54.6 percent of the high-danger chances.
Perhaps the area where McMichael’s game has most faltered, impacting his production level, is his shooting percentage. Through November, with McMichael consistently getting to the netfront, he was shooting 19.7 percent. However, teams learned to focus on closing those areas off from the speedy winger, cutting his shooting percentage nearly in half to 10.4 percent from December onward.
Carbery hopes McMichael will find a way back into the middle of opposition defenses with the puck on his tape. The second-year bench boss has the former first-round pick set to skate with Pierre-Luc Dubois and Aliaksei Protas on Washington’s second line to start the final stretch run.
“He’s a gamer, and knowing where we’re at in the season, I’m looking for him to really kick it back into overdrive and try to replicate what he did at the start of the season in these final 27 games,” Carbery added. “It’s going to be hard because it’s going to tighten up, it’s going to get a lot more difficult to get to the inside, but I’ve seen some things from him that have given me hope that that’s coming.”
McMichael went into the break with five points (2g, 3a) in his last five games. Carbery was impressed with much of his effort in the Capitals’ final test before the 4 Nations Face-Off against Utah, but he also pointed out some of the inconsistencies that have crept into McMichael’s game in recent weeks.
“I thought he had some really good sequences, sets up the goal,” Carbery said. “He’s the reason we scored that goal with Stromer, which changes the game for us. Had another couple really good entries, poise, holding on to pucks, and then he had a few hiccups where he’d like some pucks back, where I just felt like he normally can make that play in his sleep, and he ends up missing a couple passes.”
McMichael finished with an assist on Dylan Strome’s goal that trimmed Utah’s lead to 4-3 before Tom Wilson forced the game to overtime and earned Washington a point in the standings. The Capitals were good overall during McMichael’s shifts in the game, seeing 58.3 percent of the expected goals.
Washington’s first post-break game will come against the Pittsburgh Penguins on Saturday afternoon. McMichael has played well against Pittsburgh this season, recording three assists in two games vs the Penguins.
