It's a big season ahead for Charlie Lindgren
Without Charlie Lindgren last season the Washington Capitals season could have been disastrous. He was the team MVP last season, there were no ifs, ands, or buts about it. That has been said countles times, and it ill always need to be said when referring to the 2023-24 Washington Capitals.
Last season in 50 games played, 48 of those games being games he started, Lindgren went 25-16-7 and posted a goals against average of 2.67 with a save percentage of .911%. That save percentage ranked in the top ten among goalies who played in 2,500 minutes or more, or around 45 games played. His goals against average, high danger save percentage and his goals saved above average all ranked tenth among these goalies.
Not bad for a guy who went into last season as a backup.
The situation this season will be different for Lindgren. There is expectation now. There is pressure to deliver. Not that there isn't pressure to deliver from any athlete no matter what. Or in Lindgren's case last season when he had to come in and right a ship or calm the waters in the crease. But I think we can all agree things are different when you are now "the guy".
Lindgren has never proven he can be the guy. Until he does it needs to be questioned if he can be the guy going forward for the somewhat long term.
This isn't really a big deal questioning this. There are not many teams who have their goaltending position completely figured out. There are very few teams who will go into their season, year in and year out saying, "That's our guy, no questions asked and no worries". Who would you put in this group?
Andrei Vasilevskiy with Tampa Bay. Igor Shesterkin with the Rangers. Connor Hellebuyck with the Jets. Juuse Saros in Nashville. Jeremy Swayman in Boston you put in this group. Maybe Sergei Bobrovsky, but even watching him and looking at his stats he is such an up and down guy from year to year. Maybe put young guys like Jake Oettinger and Thatcher Demko on the list, but they are still young with questions that need to be answered.
Out of 32 teams we just named what, five maybe six teams that don't really have to put much thought or worry into the goalie position? It's the quarterback position of hockey. You're going to have your handfuls of guys that you don't need to worry about. Mahomes, Allen, Jackson, whoever you want to say without me wasting too much more of your time. The rest of the NFL is just trying to get a guy to play well enough to get some success as a team and maybe make a run. It's the same in hockey.
Something that quarterbacks and goalies also have in common is guys will show you flashes and then fall off. We see this all of the time. I was watching football the other day, you know who I saw as a backup to Patrick Mahomes? Carson Wentz. A guy who almost won the NFL MVP in a season. Flash. Or hey, Washington sports fans, remember RGIII. As a 49ers fan myself, remember Colin Kaepernick?
Capitals fans should know all about goalies showing flashes and promise only to go on to be average at best. We just went through this with a couple of guys. Ilya Samsonov and Vitek Vanecek. Both guys showed us they could be guys for the future. Now Samsonov is on his third team in Las Vegas, and Vanecek is on his third team as well in San Jose.
Even the great Braden Holtby had an up and down career. He was mostly great with Barry Trotz as head coah and Mitch Korn as his goalie coach. But even then, his last season with those two he had a 2.99 GAA and a .907 save percentage. He was also benched going into the playoffs that year. When you look at his career stats he actually had more "bad" years than good.
All of this just to say, if you're going into this season saying you don't need to question the goaltending, as of right now, that's just wrong. The Capitals don't have one of the top guys as we know.
Yes Lindgren played very well for portions last season. But the end of his regular season and his playoffs did not go so well.
The playoffs were one thing. The Capitals were badly outmatched and he went 0-4 with a 3.58 GAA and a pretty ugly save percentage of .864%. But the last handful of regular season games were not great looking on paper either. In his last 14 regular season games his GAA was 2.87 and a save percentage of .902%. Fine. It's starting to get not very good though.
I think we can fairly say Darcy Kuemper did not have a very good stint in Washington. Thanks to this he got shipped out of town. His save percentage with the Capitals was .902%. That was with 90 games played. Lindgren so far has 81 games played with Washington, his save percentage with the team is .907%.
None of this is to say Lindgren cannot do it. Maybe he is on his way to becoming a top NHL goalie. Maybe he is on his way to being a next level goalie, meaning he isn't at the top, but he is a guy who can get it done. Maybe he will or could be a guy who helps a team win a cup by playing well but still not being a top guy. Think of guys like Antti Niemi on Chicago, or Matt Murray on the Pittsburgh teams. Guys that have done well on good teams.
Maybe we're even looking at the wrong guy. Is Logan Thompson someone who can become the guy? Lindgren and Thompson have played a similar amount of NHL games. Just over one hundred games for both. Thompson has a better career save percentage that Lindgren does. Different teams, different situations there is no doubt about that. Thompson coming from some good Vegas teams, Lindgren coming from bad Montreal teams and not great Capitals teams. But Thompson does have a career .912 save percentage to Lindgren's .909.
The Capitals have a pretty good team. On paper it looks like one of the better teams Washington has had for a while. At least in my humble opinion. I don't see a coach who maybe isn't the best like a certain few years. I don't see multiple aging stars who are fighting off both mother nature and father time at the same time. I don't see a player who has badly underperformed on the team for years. This could be a good team.
But what if the goaltending takes a step back this season? What if a guy who has not proven he can be the everyday starter does not play well. It would not even be close to being the first time goaltending has sunk a teams season and it will not be close to being the last.
Lindgren is not the backup anymore. He is the guy. When you're the guy, you have to perform. The Capitals guy for the last couple of years didn't perform. They missed the playoffs and got bailed out by their backup the next season or they would have missed again.
Healthy skepticism. Can Lindgren do it. Sure, absolutely. Will he? We'll have that answer in April. Or maybe June?
