NHL
NHL Preseason
By Dom Luszczyszyn, Sean Gentille and Shayna Goldman
Coming into last season, the Washington Capitals had taken major steps to improve a roster that, by plenty of measures, had fluked its way into the postseason and summarily gotten stomped in the first round.
All those bets paid off. Washington finished the 2024-25 regular season with more points than any other Eastern Conference team. Now, with the same lineup largely in place — and their captain’s historic chase completed — they’re trying to take another step forward. Is the ceiling high enough? Time to see.
Ask anyone in hockey — and we did when we conducted interviews for the Player Tiers — and they’ll wonder the same thing: how did the 2024-25 Washington Capitals pull off a 111-point season?
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The answer was a whole lot of depth. While that does a lot to raise Washington’s baseline to 94 points (up from 85 last year), the team’s ceiling as a legitimate Cup contender remains in question. The Capitals look likely to make the playoffs and maybe even win a round in a weak Metro, but going further remains a tough sell.
That is, unless the Capitals can repeat last year’s magic. Washington has roughly a 1-in-10 shot at another 110-point season and a second season at that level would go a long way in proving this team is a legit contender. Unlikely, but not impossible.
For now, we’re settling for playoff caliber.
Can Washington do it again?
Everything that happened for the Capitals in 2024-25 — winning the Metropolitan Division, banking 111 points, the record Alex Ovechkin set along the way — counts. It feels fair and necessary to state that, straight away.
It’s also fair and necessary to revisit the reasons it all happened and explore the likelihood of it happening a second time. Washington had several players throughout the lineup either turn in career-best seasons or regain their form after time in the wilderness, and not all of those performances are equally sustainable. The question isn’t whether the Capitals are good. The question is whether they can be that good for a second straight season.
We’ll start with Ovechkin, who scored 44 goals and broke the NHL’s all-time goal record a few months after breaking his leg. Indeed, plenty about his season was incredible. One bit that gets lost in the shuffle: he had the highest shooting percentage of his career (18.6) by more than three full percentage points. He was also 5.5 points above his career average. That finishing uptick is a huge part of the reason Washington outscored opponents by 15 with him on the ice at five-on-five — a 35-goal swing from 2023-24 — and posted 13 goals above expected.
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Is it a necessity for Ovechkin to post similar numbers this season? Not quite — but given the decline he’s seen in other parts of his game, and the overall importance that production helped Washington last season, it’d certainly help. If he plays, he’s going to score, but expecting a 40-year-old to find the net on roughly every fifth shot is a tough ask.
A big part of Washington’s success also stemmed from the two-way play they got from linemates Pierre-Luc Dubois and Tom Wilson. When those two were on the ice, Washington earned 55 percent of expected goals and outscored opponents 42-29. Neither Dubois nor Wilson had previously had an individual season quite so across-the-board good during their respective careers. Both, it’s worth noting, had something to prove: Dubois after a mess of a season in Los Angeles, Wilson in the wake of an ACL tear. Their work together — Selke-worthy, in some respects — was high-end enough in all facets to make up for the Capitals’ lack of a true alpha-dog performer at the top of their forward group. It’ll need to continue.
No Capital burst onto the scene more aggressively than Aliaksei Protas, who went from a 6-foot-6 depth forward of intrigue to a multi-faceted 30-goal scorer on the top six. He shot over 21 percent last season, which is almost certain not to carry over, but the skating, zone-entry work and overall five-on-five substance should be permanent features.
The biggest variable, though, is the play of starting goalie Logan Thompson. Acquired from Vegas in the offseason, Thompson was lights-out fantastic from November to January, putting up a .935 save percentage and saving an astounding 30 goals above expected. In that stretch, he went 19-2-3, staking the Capitals out to a divisional lead they never come close to relinquishing and earning a six-year contract worth $35.1 million.
Down the stretch, though, Thompson’s work was shaky. From Feb. 1 until April 2, when he exited the lineup with an upper-body injury, he looked less like a Vezina candidate and more like a backup; of the 57 goalies who played at least 200 minutes in that two-month span, Thompson’s .877 save percentage ranked 50th. He steadied the wheel in the playoffs, but in sum, it was a spotty season for a goalie without a reputation for consistency. The Capitals don’t need a top-three goaltender to be relevant, but they’re paying Thompson like he’s in the top 10. Performance to match is a reasonable expectation, and given the overall state of the Capitals’ roster, it’s an appropriate one, too.
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Can Ryan Leonard make an impact in his rookie year?
If Washington’s going to sustain last year’s level of play, the young guns like Leonard are going to have to keep making an impact.
Leonard’s a scrappy forward who brings a ton of energy to a lineup. But he isn’t just a bottom-six banger; he can battle through pressure, drive to the net, and be an effective scorer in the top nine.
His presence added a spark to the Caps’ lineup last spring, between nine regular-season games and eight playoff appearances. Leonard’s shifts were often eventful in the best and worst ways. And that contributes to his minus-2.6 Net Rating, which is just below league average for a team’s No. 7 forward. That value is derived from his first NHL stint. And while that alone isn’t enough to determine his value for this year, it’s worth noting The Model spits out a similar output when using NHLe from his last NCAA season, too.
With some NHL experience under his belt, Leonard should have a better understanding of how to keep up with this pace and within the Caps’ lineup. Even if that’s only in a third-line role, it’s a solid start that will deepen this team’s approach. As he develops, he can keep pushing higher in the lineup.
Washington’s biggest strength, without question, is a well-balanced back end that’s strengthened by some of the league’s best goaltending.
From top to bottom, there aren’t many teams that can match the Capitals’ defensive depth with a bottom four that’s genuinely unrivaled. The average team sits at a minus-13 Net Rating while the Capitals lead the league at minus-two. That’s what happens when a team essentially has six defensemen that are all top-four caliber, and it helps that there are several varied skill sets here.
John Carlson continues to be a do-it-all workhorse who can excel in tough minutes, move the puck well and drive a pair. While he struggled mightily in the playoffs, he’s coming off a career-best season in terms of play-driving ability. Jakob Chychrun is built in a similar mold and is the heir apparent to Carlson. For now, he’s a strong offensive No. 2, though he’ll need to pick things up in tough minutes if he ever wants to reliably take over as the team’s No. 1. Chychrun is a toolsy player, but was also the only Capitals defenseman who was outchanced last season.
Defensively, Matt Roy, Trevor van Riemsdyk and Martin Fehervary all excel at suppressing chances, complementing the team’s two star defenders well. Roy may have dipped from his final season with the Kings, but he still finished the year with a plus-2.2 Defensive Rating. Rasmus Sandin rounds things out after coming into his own last season in a top-four role. His plus-5.8 Net Rating was a career high; repeating would establish Sandin as a top-pair defender. That would go a long way toward the Capitals getting back to the top of the East, giving Washington one driver on each pair.
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All that depth allows Washington to assemble three strong pairs, aided further by all six defensemen being above-average puck-movers. There isn’t a single defenseman here who struggled to retrieve pucks and get them out last season. That makes life a lot easier for Washington’s forwards and more difficult for opponents. Washington’s successful exit percentage of 82.5 percent was second only to Carolina last year.
Furthering that strength is the tandem of Logan Thompson and Charlie Lindgren, which currently ranks as the league’s eighth-best unit. Thompson was excellent in his first season as Washington’s starter, saving 25 goals above expected in 43 games, the eighth-best mark in the league. He was even better in the playoffs, saving 8.5 goals above expected in 10 games.
Whether Thompson can repeat last year’s excellence remains to be seen, and for now, the model is cautious, rating him as the league’s 15th-best goalie. Perhaps that’s too low for some, but another year like last season can easily push Thompson firmly into the top 10.
Either way, Lindgren serves as a solid fallback option and is expected to be one of the league’s best backups. Over the last two seasons, he’s saved 24 goals above expected over 89 games. The only current backups who have fared better are Joseph Woll and Cam Talbot.
Up front, the Capitals have a lot of question marks regarding ultra-high-end talent, but what they lack in quality they make up for in quantity. A second line featuring Dylan Strome and Ovechkin should once again be offensively excellent after scoring 3.7 goals per 60 together last season. Connor McMichael taking over as the team’s 3C also adds a lot of intrigue, especially if Leonard can immediately step in as a top-six player.
Whether there’s enough wealth to spread in the top nine without going thin, though, is the question.
We hinted at it in the big question and again in the strengths, but it bears repeating: the Capitals have a high-end talent problem. It doesn’t matter which of Washington’s forwards are viewed as the team’s three best — they simply do not stack up to the league’s other contenders.
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For an average team, the barometer is plus-13.5 for a top forward, plus-9.6 for his sidekick, and plus-6.6 for the third wheel. The Capitals have a trio of players worthy of third-wheel status, but none that qualify as anything more. Look at the rosters for the Panthers, Lightning, Hurricanes, Leafs or Devils and imagine where Dubois, Wilson or Strome land on the depth chart. More likely than not, it would be in the top six — but in a supporting role. Here, they’re the leaders.
That was plain to see from each player’s placement within this year’s Player Tiers. Wilson was the team’s only forward to rank higher than Tier 5 and even he only made it to 4A. The Panthers, Lightning, Leafs and Devils all have at least two Tier 2 forwards (or higher), with Carolina being close with Sebastian Aho in 2C and Seth Jarvis landing in 3A.
What the Capitals currently have — a lot of good players — is enough to be a playoff-caliber team. What the Capitals don’t have — any actually great players — is why they’re not in the contending class.
All of that can change if last year was the real deal. Dubois was at plus-13.9, Wilson was at plus-12.0, Protas was at plus-11.2 and Ovechkin paced at plus-9.6. That is a contender-worthy big four, one that (combined with the team’s depth) easily positions the Capitals as an Eastern Conference powerhouse. Those four playing to that level is how Washington ended up with 111 points.
But there’s a reason for skepticism, and that includes the model’s expectations for that quartet to regress from plus-46.7 last year to plus-22.8. Age for some and a short resume at this level for others is one reason. So too are gaudy on-ice percentages that usually aren’t repeatable.
To an extent, that problem also extends to Carlson on the back end. At 35, the clock is ticking on his effectiveness and that was plain to see in the playoffs with an ugly 40 percent xG. Carlson looked sluggish, fell behind the play and was a defensive mess without Fehervary next to him. Last year’s bounce was also well off the trajectory he was previously on. It’s possible Carlson has charted a new path, but the more likely scenario is a course correction.
In that case, Carlson does fall behind what’s expected of a typical No. 1 defenseman. That’s less of a problem here, given the depth otherwise, but it is still noteworthy come playoff time. That’s where problems get exposed by stronger teams and it is exactly what the Capitals faced against Carolina last spring. Getting out-starred (by the Hurricanes, of all teams) is not ideal.
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There’s a world where Washington proves the last regular season was no fluke. It’s just far from a safe bet considering everything these players have shown to date.
Against all odds, the Capitals are the real deal and replicate last year’s magic to a tee. Dubois and Wilson solidify themselves as Selke-level forces and the next era looks bright with a strong debut from Leonard and another step taken from Protas.
The clock strikes midnight on last year’s biggest overachievers as the rest of the league figures them out. Ovechkin’s game falls off completely, the team’s PDO magic runs dry and Washington’s veterans take a step back.
Even with so much focus on Ovechkin’s goal chase last year, there was one looming question for the Capitals: how much of their success was real.
That is what this team has to prove — whether a quick retool, Spencer Carbery’s direction and some rising stars truly reshaped them into a consistent playoff threat.
References
How the model works
How the model adjusts for context
Understanding projection uncertainty
Resources
Evolving Hockey
Natural Stat Trick
Hockey Reference
NHL
All Three Zones Tracking by Corey Sznajder
(Photo: Scott Taetsch / Getty Images)
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