Throughout the season, we’ll check in on the Washington Capitals to see which players, positions, and/or systems are hot and who is, well, not. Today we’ll be assessing the team based on their games from February 2-9.
[Editor’s Note: Friendly reminder that this is merely meant as a look at the last week in isolation, and is not a commentary on a player or system’s overall success this season – although you can certainly see trends emerge if you read these on a weekly basis.]
Opponents: Panthers (W 6-3); Flyers (W 4-3); Utah (SOL 5-4)
Hot Front
The Top Line. Any rumors of the top line’s demise have clearly been greatly exaggerated, because the trio of Alex Ovechkin, Dylan Strome, and Tom Wilson absolutely went off last week – and were a huge reason the team went 2-0-1 overall. Buoyed by a huge comeback game against Utah, they combined for 13 points, led by the captain’s 2-3-5 week.
Lars Eller. The Tiger was on fire, picking up goals in back-to-back games. Both of them were key goals, as well, scoring the go-ahead goal against the Panthers (his third goal vs. Florida this season) and the game-tying goal against Philadelphia. He also led the team in xGF% as well as basically all the other underlying stats at evens this week.
Offense. The Caps scored 14 goals in their three games this week, a nice return to form for one of the highest-scoring teams in the league, and just about everyone was chipping in. In fact, only four players failed to register at least one point this week, and every player that found the scoresheet ended up with at least two points with the exception of Rasmus Sandin.
Cold Snap
Defense. After having given up three or more goals once in their previous 10, the Caps have now ceded at least three goals in five straight (and at least four goals in three of those five). Thankfully their offense has been able to bail them out more often than not, and they’ve gotten at least a point out of all five, but you know that’s not the locked-down type of game Coach Carbery and staff want these guys playing down the stretch.
Ethen Frank. It was probably unrealistic to expect Frank to keep up his torrid start since joining the Caps, but he has unfortunately fallen off perhaps a bit more than expected. Frank was one of four players with no points and is currently mired in a seven-game point drought. He’s had his chances, though, and given that he now requires waivers to go back to Hershey, it’ll be interesting to see what happens with him down the stretch – particularly if the team decides to make some moves ahead of the deadline.