The Washington Capitals have now completed 41 games, or exactly one half of the 2023-24 season…boy, time really flies when you’re having fun, right? With that in mind, it’s time for the Rink Crew to tackle some big questions about those first 41 games, and look ahead to the next 41 (and beyond).
Q1: Favorite moment of the first half?
Kalilu: I’ll go with the entire team bullying Elvis Merzlikins after the former gifted them a win out of the goodness of his heart:
Luke: My favorite part of the first half is seeing all the young talent showing up for the Caps. We didn’t see much of it under the last regime when everyone was asking for it. This team desperately needed to get younger (and still does) so seeing the young talent the Caps drafted and signed make an impact is reassuring.
J.P.: I’ll go with the win against Buffalo the night before Thanksgiving. Tom Wilson scored with the goalie pulled to send the game to overtime where Dylan Strome won it late. A fun night was had by all… Caps fans.
Alex: Maybe it’s recency bias, but Max Pacioretty’s speech after he recorded his first point as a Capital is it for me. That was such a feel-good moment, and you just can’t help but root for him.
Rob: 4-0 beat down in their reunion with Lavi.
Becca: All of the answers above are perfect and easily in my top-five…but it is amazing how one moment can change an exciting but otherwise somewhat meaningless game into one of your faves, and that ending against Columbus that Kalilu mentioned was just *chef’s kiss*. Forget hanging that picture in the Louvre, I want that thing blown up to a full wall-sized mural for my apartment.
Q2: Who is your first-half Caps MVP?
Kalilu: In what’s becoming a very tight race for wild card spots in the East, Charlie Lindgren has kept the Caps in decent position with the amount of games he’s been able to steal. Per MoneyPuck, his expected GAA is 3.14. His actual GAA is 2.27, good enough for the second best difference in the league. Standout performances such as his 38 saves against the Kings and his 35-save shutout against Vegas, both games the Caps probably had no business winning, have helped keep this team much closer to a wild card spot than they are to punting on the season entirely.
Luke: Lindgren is the obvious answer but because Kalilu already covered that I’ll go with Dylan Strome or Anthony Mantha. With Ovechkin and Oshie just forgetting how to score goals the Caps desperately needed pucks in nets and both of those guys stepped up. Strome is on pace for a record high 30 goals (hit career high last season with 23) and Mantha is pace for almost 25 goals, which would match a career high, and he’s doing it with third line time and little power play time. They stepped up.
J.P.: Lindgren and Strome are two great choices, so I’ll just bolster the case for each. First, for Chuckie Lipduster, among goalies with five or more appearances, he’s tops in goals saved above expected (rate):
(via Money Puck; through Saturday)
He’s played 16 games he’s saved 14.5 goals above expected. In other words, he’s very nearly saved an extra goal per game. Is that sustainable? Probably not! But it’s been a primary reason the Caps have been able to tread water thus far.
Another primary reason? Dylan Strome. Put simply, swapping him in for the Caps’ Least Valuable Player thus far takes Alex Ovechkin and Tom Wilson and transforms them from wingers on arguably the circuit’s most woeful line to flankers on one of the best trios:
Turning nearly $15M in salary from “terrible” to “very good” is incredibly valuable, in both a figurative and a very literal sense.
So who’s my pick for first half MVP? With the team losing Backstrom early and Kuznetsov at some point post-2018, I was going to give a slight edge to Strome here as providing the team with a legit top-six pivot…but after Sunday’s Rangers game, I’m going Lindgren.
Alex: Charlie Lindgren, next question.
Rob: Lindgren.
Becca: The Outlaw, Charlie Lindgren.
Q3: Spencer Carbery and his staff now have 41 NHL games under their belt. Hand out a grade for the coaching crew.
Kalilu: A B sounds about right. The biggest strengths to me would be the integration of more young talent taking key roles in the lineup, and also winning over a locker room that completely tuned the previous head coach out at the end. For all of the team’s deficiencies, it hasn’t felt like they’ve completely quit on games entirely the way they did at many points last year.
Luke: I’d give them a B+. I think Carbery has a bright future and he’s making the most of what he’s been given. Could he be better? Sure, but there’s some good stuff there that he can build off of and it’s only his first NHL season so he’ll learn and adapt. The power play is a disaster again. Yes it could be personnel but the fact so little has changed even when it’s doing nothing is frustrating. The PK has been on and off, mostly on, but more consistency would be nice. Overall, I like what I’ve seen, it’s just a matter of getting better players on the roster to utilize the coaching staff.
J.P.: B. Special teams, as Luke noted, have been a debacle, and the team can’t score at fives, so it’s hard to go any higher. But some of those shortcomings should regress in the right direction (any day now!), and I love Carbery’s energy. What he’s done with a team that’s transitioning from old to young(er), with a roster he’s had very little hand in shaping, has been impressive and has me optimistic about the direction in which this team is headed down the road.
Alex: B+. I think Carbery is doing very well for a first-year head coach, especially with the energy he brings to the locker room. It’s clear that the players are responding well to him and, even more importantly, respect him. I think this bodes well for his future with the team and gives him a lot to build on. Like others have mentioned, special teams have been rough and scoring has been inconsistent, so anything in “A” range seems unrealistic.
Rob: B. I would like to say B+ because I think he’s a good coach and like a lot of what we see, but you can’t have anemic offense and get better than a B. You can point out the lack of scoring depth, bad puck luck, etc., but at the end of the day he hasn’t figured out a way to squeeze out enough offense from the squad.
Becca: B/B+. I think there is still some work to be done on consistency but I love his message, his energy, his connection with the team, and his hockey brain. Some (most, really) of the issues we’re seeing with this team seem to be linked back to the roster itself, and the work he’s done to keep them in the playoff mix and get some truly inspired wins out of them along the way is, as others have noted, such a good sign for the future.
Q4: Is this Caps’ team going to make it back to the postseason this year?
Kalilu: The popular answer is going to be “No.” There’s been so much working against the team this season, and the things that are going well aren’t all that sustainable. With how many other teams are beginning to heat up in the Metro division race and how congested the wild card race is, it’s pretty easy to see where the wheels could potentially fall off here and my expectations are leaning that way.
With 20 games left until the trade deadline however, I do wonder if there’ll be a different response if they find themselves on the fringes of playoff contention as they did last year. They were actually in possession of a wild card spot last season before a 6 game losing streak helped to make the choice to sell at the deadline a lot easier. This year’s group is trending upwards on the injury front with Oshie and Pacioretty suiting up, and they don’t have as many attractive trade assets as they did last year, so there’s not as much to gain in choosing that route again.
With that in mind, and with increased pressure to make the playoffs after last season, I wouldn’t be surprised if they decide to push for a playoff berth. It goes against conventional wisdom given how low the ceiling is, but I’m not sure how well-received another deadline sell-off would be in season 3 of Ovechkin’s extension, an extension he was promised the team would remain competitive throughout. In a vacuum, they really should approach the deadline as sellers, but is the franchise willing to openly punt on a second straight season?
In all, I just don’t think they have the horses to survive what’s going to be a brutal second half of the season scheduling-wise, but they’ll have to be dragged kicking and screaming to that conclusion rather than waving the white flag early this time.
Luke: The Caps have the second toughest schedule to end the season, they can’t seem to stay healthy, and just aren’t consistent enough for my liking. I think we’ll see a repeat of last season where they will be kind of in it but come trade deadline time MacLellan knows they won’t have enough to contend so he’ll, correctly, start selling off pieces. The future is bright though; with lots of cap space, young talent and, hopefully, good assets in the summer, MacLellan can build a much better roster for next season.
J.P.: Yeah, no. And, as Luke alluded to, the sooner that becomes clear to Mac, the easier it will be to bolster a bright future as sellers. I’m usually the “go win games now” guy, but this team isn’t one or two pieces away from making noise in the playoffs even if they do squeak in. With some patience and shrewd moves, they’ll be back sooner than anyone would think.
Alex: No, and that’s okay. The team is better than probably anyone expected them to be, but they’re still not playoff bound this year. The Eastern Conference is so competitive, and the Capitals just won’t be able to keep up in the second half of the season. And like J.P. said, even if they somehow manage to fight their way into the postseason in a wild card spot, it’s hard to imagine them getting very far. It will be interesting to see what GMBM does as the deadline approaches, though.
Rob: No, they would have to ride Lindgren too hard; he’s never shown he can be that guy and he’s already missed time injured. Some individuals might get better shooting luck but overall regression isn’t going to break in their favor.
Becca: Ugh, I so want to say yes because my heart can’t take another deadline day sell-off (and no, I still haven’t recovered from Lars Eller’s departure). There have been brief flashes of time this season where I’ve thought they could maybe make some noise if everything fell right…but I think that, despite staying in the mix for a postseason spot so far, the battle to get in is only going to get tougher and I haven’t seen enough out of this group to think they have another gear to keep up. We’ve been so spoiled over the years that the idea of missing the playoffs in back-to-back seasons is somewhat unfathomable – but that’s probably what is going to happen. As has been noted, this is probably a good thing for the team in the long run and could set them up to be back in the playoffs soon enough.