The Washington Capitals are going into their 4th season with GM Bagopucks at the helm. The team that has been chasing a championship is still looking for it after they lost in Game 7 in the 2nd round of the 22-23 Playoffs agains the Devils.
Last season marked a clear shift in gear after acquiring Connor McDavid. The team that used to be filled with almost no superstars finally went in the direction of getting some top players. Fitting with that direction, the Capitals made a splash in the first round of UFA this year getting two of the best forwards available in Ovechkin and Kopitar. While they are aging, they are still very much in the fold to be top 6 players through out the contract. Capitals are hoping that adding those two will give McDavid more opportunities to produce on the PP. Other players upfront that have come in include Arvidsson, Carter and Bemstrom. We will doing some line juggling early in the season to find some chemistry for the players we have and finding complementary pieces for the top end players we do have in the line up.
The blue line has been changed over from last year with the only real exception being Fowler and Mikkola. Pelech, Chiarot, Simek, Nemeth and Jack Johnson round out the blue line.
The net has changed over completely as starting goalie Tristan Jarry got traded to BOS. UFA Jakob Markstrom has taken the starting job while Lankinen will likely play back up.
The draft was a rough one for the Capitals as most if not all of their players went lower in the NHL draft than where we picked them. Nick Lardis was a player we really wanted and thought might sneak into the 1st but ended up going to CHI in the 3rd round in the NHL. Bagopucks still loves the player as we will watch his development in D+1 year. We also brought back Simon Holmstrom in a trade and we await to see how badly the NHL Islanders screw up his development.
Overall, the goal of the franchise remains to be competitive and make the playoffs. An improvement on the 97 points from last year would be nice and we believe we have the roster to do so.
A.Ovechkin (79) - C.McDavid (88) -C.Coyle (74)
M.Marchment (71) - A.Kopitar (79) - V.Arvidsson (74)
W.Carrier (71) - J.Carter (72)- J.Armia (69)
G.Hathaway (69)- D.Stepan (67) - K.Kolesar (69)
E.Bemstrom - H.Fasching
B.Chiarot (72) - C.Fowler (76)
J.Johnson (70) - A.Pelech (73)
N.Mikkola (69) - R.Simek (68)
J.Middleton (66) - P.Nemeth (68)
J.Markstrom (83)
K.Lankinen(77)
LETS GO CAPS!
2023-2024 Washington Capitals Thread
