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Week 1 Ups and Downs

Photo courtesy of the Washington Capitals

Each Monday throughout the season, we’ll take a look at the previous week (and in this case, the previous week plus a few days) to see who is on the upswing and who stumbled, and reflect back on a highlight and lowlight from the week.

Note: If a player is listed as “trending up”, that does not mean they have been perfect; if they are “trending down”, it doesn’t mean they had the worst week ever.

The 2023-24 season for the Washington Capitals is underway, and it’s going…great! Ish. Maybe more “ish” than “great”.

Let’s take a look at how things are going for your Capitals, four games into the season:

  • Record: 1-2-1
  • Goals For: 4
  • Goals Against: 15
  • PP%: 0.0000000
  • PK%: 73.7

Trending Up

  • Connor McMichael. His only mark on the scoresheet this week was a goal against the Flames, but McMichael generated some of the team’s better chances in their four games and hasn’t looked out of place yet.
  • Dylan Strome. Strome was the pivot on what was one of the team’s better lines through the first two games, centering the aforementioned McMichael and Matthew Phillips, and then picked up not just one but two goals Saturday night to lift the Caps to a much-needed point. He also led the team in xGF% at evens, and fired nine shots on net, tied for second on the team with Alex Ovechkin.
  • Matthew Phillips. A surprise addition to the opening-night roster, Phillips picked up his first career goal, and an assist, in his second game, is tied for the team lead in points (with a mighty three) and ended the week alongside none other than Ovechkin himself. Not a bad start for the kid.

Trending Down

  • Alex Alexeyev. Appeared in just one of the team’s first four games and got absolutely cratered in that game. The 23-year-old still has time to find his stride in the NHL – and the season is still young – but he has yet to impress on a blueline that desperately needs someone to do so.
  • Beck Malenstyn. Malenstyn is in the lineup, conceivably, as a sort of replacement for Garnet Hathaway – an energy guy playing on the energy line and working to shut down the other team’s attack. So far? That hasn’t really happened, and he’s got the lowest five-on-five xGF% among forwards on the team.
  • Nick Jensen. There’s no question that the Caps’ defense – both the actual defensemen and the team defense overall – have struggled out of the gate, so the full weight of that doesn’t rest solely on Jensen’s shoulders…but he needs to be better. He’s been on the ice for a ton of scoring chances and high-danger attempts, without balancing it out with much of his own.

Highlight of the Week

Matthew Phillips picks up his first career NHL goal against his former team:

Lowlight of the Week

Whatever this was.

Talking Points

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