It’s not too often that you talk about a team being a Stanley Cup contender despite being bounced in the opening round the year before and had more off-season subtractions than additions, but that’s exactly where the Washington Capitals as we get to the start of the year.
If it weren’t for the magical run of Jaroslav Halak and the Montreal Canadiens, the course of history could have been much different and we might have been talking about the Caps as champs instead of a team looking for redemption. But alas, the Caps have something to prove to the hockey world despite an amazing 121 point regular season.
We all know what this team is going to do in the regular season: score a lot of goals, pick up a lot of wins and find themselves with a point total in the triple-digits again. But doing it in the regular season won’t matter a lick to anyone that follows the NHL. The Caps can only turn some heads and prove people wrong once the calendar gets to April 2011 and the playoffs begin.
Of course, everything revolves around Alex Ovechkin since he’s the biggest superstar/rock star the league has today. It helps when you can put up 109 points in 72 games like he did a year ago. But if for some reason he can’t get it done on a particular night, there are several others that can pick up the slack. Nick Backstrom had 101 points a year ago and Alexander Semin had 84 just to name a couple.
Defensively, everyone will look to Mike Green and his tremendous offensive numbers. It’s just unfathomable to be talking about a defenseman that registers over a point a game for a full season, but that’s exactly what Green was able to do by putting up 76 points in 75 games last season.
One of the few questions about this team is whether they have enough talent defensively to keep from being in shootouts night after night. If the defence is weak, the forwards will be able to bail them out a lot of the time, but with playoffs always in mind for this team, that could become a season-long storyline.
In goal, Semyon Varlamov has finally taken the starting job outright as the Caps passed on keeping Jose Theodore around for another season. But can he be consistent enough so that the goaltending can stay out of the media spotlight? In 26 games last season, he won 15 times with a 2.55 GAA and a .910 save percentage.
Two players to watch out for in camp are John Carlson and Tomas Fleischmann. Carlson will have his first full season with the club after a great final junior season in which he scored the tournament winner for the U.S at the World Juniors. Is he ready for prime-time on the Top 4 of this defence? Fleischmann had always been in the shadow of the Big 3 of Ovechkin, Semin and Backstrom. But he’s made steady progress in his first couple of years. Is he ready to breakout and make it a Big 4?