Forward, numbers expert leads team in scoring during postseason
© Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images
ARLINGTON, Va. — As the Washington Capitals’ resident “hockey nerd,” Dylan Strome is an avid reader of the NHL game notes and usually the go-to guy in their locker room for statistics, milestones and any other numbers you might want to know.
“Anything that’s happened in the last 10 years of hockey, he’s your guy,” locker room neighbor and sometimes linemate Tom Wilson said. “He’ll have it all for you.”
Here are some statistics Strome probably didn’t need to look up in the game notes. The 28-year-old center leads the Capitals with nine points (two goals, seven assists) in five games during the Stanley Cup Playoffs heading into Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Second Round against the Carolina Hurricanes at Capital One Arena on Tuesday (7 p.m. ET; ESPN, TVAS).
Strome also led Washington with an NHL career-high 82 points, while setting career-bests of 29 goals and 53 assists, in 82 regular-season games. Although often overshadowed playing on the top line with left wing Alex Ovechkin, the NHL record holder with 897 goals, and by some other big names such as Wilson, defenseman John Carlson and goalie Logan Thompson, Strome was one of the main reasons why the Capitals finished first in the Eastern Conference with 111 points (51-22-9) this season and defeated the Montreal Canadiens in five games of the first round.
“He’s been a huge part of why we’ve been able to get into the playoffs the last couple of seasons,” Wilson said. “We know we can depend on what he’s bringing to the table. He’s a heck of a player. He’s really creative offensively and you just know what you’re going to get from him. He’s a guy that really cares and wants to win.”
Strome has waited a long time for this opportunity to win with Washington, which he called, “by far the best team I’ve played on.” Before qualifying last season with the Capitals as the second wild card from the East, Strome played in the playoffs only once in his first eight NHL seasons. That was in 2020 with the Chicago Blackhawks, who defeated the Edmonton Oilers in four games in the best-of-5 Stanley Cup Qualifiers before losing to the Vegas Golden Knights in five games in the first round.
Those games were played inside the Edmonton bubble without fans because of the COVID-19 pandemic, so Strome didn’t get his first true NHL playoff experience, with fans in attendance, until the Capitals were swept by the New York Rangers in the first round last season. Reaching the second round for the first time this season is not something he’s taking for granted.
“It’s fun,” Strome said. “You kind of just go day by day and worry about the next game and what the task at hand is. My job is to help the team score goals and set up plays and be good on the power play and when you do that, things click, and things go your way. It’s about scoring at the right times in big moments.
“I just kind of follow ‘Ovi’ and ‘Willie’ and Johnny and when you’ve got those guys to lean on, it makes it pretty easy.”
Strome endured a long road to get to this point. After starring with Erie of the Ontario Hockey League, he was selected by the Arizona Coyotes with the No. 3 pick in the 2015 NHL Draft but struggled to earn a consistent role before being traded to the Blackhawks on Nov. 25, 2018. He showed promise during his four seasons with Chicago, totaling 154 points (60 goals, 94 assists) in 225 regular-season games, but became an unrestricted free agent in 2022 when they decided to rebuild and didn’t make him a qualifying offer as a restricted free agent.
“You can never really predict your career path,” said older brother Ryan Strome, a center with the Anaheim Ducks. “Unfortunately, you’re kind of at the mercy of other people’s decisions and you’ve just got to focus on yourself and worry about trying to get better every day. Through some of the ups and downs he’s faced, I think he’s always had a real deep belief in himself and a very humble but confident approach.”
Signing a one-year, $3.5 million contract with the Capitals on July 14, 2022, and a subsequent five-year, $25 million contract Feb. 3, 2023, was the turning point for Dylan. He has steadily improved while playing regularly on one of Washington’s top two lines.
He had 65 points (23 goals, 42 assists) in 81 games in 2022-23 and 67 (27 goals, 40 assists) in 82 games last season before taking another step this season and playing a key role in helping Ovechkin break the NHL goal record by assisting on 23 of his 44 goals. He also assisted on each of Ovechkin’s four goals in the first round.
“He just continues to push the envelope and get better and better and better and better,” Capitals coach Spencer Carbery said. “People probably think like, ‘When this is going to stop? He had another career year.’ He’s a hockey nerd, loves the game, always trying to get better, always trying to improve his game, always trying to look at ways that he can be one of the elite centermen in this league.”
Experiencing some success in the playoffs this season has only made Strome hungrier for more. Having watched Ryan reach the 2022 Eastern Conference Final with the Rangers, he’d love to go on a long postseason run of his own.
“It’s fun to win,” Strome said. “You can tell when you win or when you lose, it’s like 10 times amplified from the regular season. If you win a game like we won in Montreal (a 5-2 victory in Game 4), it’s a great feeling and you want to take that with you and you want to feel it again.”
Strome chats often with his brother, who can serve as a sounding board and share what he’s experienced in the playoffs and his general knowledge of the League.
“We talked about Montreal a little bit and we talked about Carolina because we both know them pretty well,” said Ryan Strome, who is three years older than Dylan, 28. “… He’s a big hockey nerd in a sense that he knows everything that’s going on. I think when you’re aware of your surroundings and your peers and everything like that, it makes you more equipped for these situations.”
There’s that term, “hockey nerd,” again. Strome takes some playful ribbing from his teammates about it but seems to embrace it. Following a 5-4 shootout win against the Hurricanes on April 10, Carlson called on Strome to recite all the NHL career-highs players had reached in that game, which he did off the top of his head.
Strome thinks his fascination with numbers began from following Ryan when he was in a race for the OHL scoring lead with Niagara in 2010-11.
“That’s when I really kind of remember following the stats for the most part, just checking every day,” he said.
Ryan Strome believes it goes back farther than that, to their childhood in Mississauga, Ontario, when, “it was nonstop hockey,” for the Strome brothers — Ryan, Dylan and youngest Matthew, a forward with Hershey, the Capitals’ American Hockey League affiliate — from watching the Toronto Maple Leafs and Don Cherry’s “Rock’Em Sock’Em” videos to playing NHL video games and mini sticks in the house.
“Ever since we were kids, it’s been hockey, hockey, hockey,” Ryan Strome said. “I think when you’re able to turn your lifelong passion into a job, it’s just natural that you soak it all in and you’re a student of the game. He takes that probably to another level.
“I guess he lost his math skills in high school, but he’s somehow continued them for the hockey stats. It’s pretty impressive.”
