Top 5 Reasons This Caps Team Is Better Than 2009-10
WASHINGTON — Exactly six years ago to the day, the Capitals were preparing to play the Atlanta Thrashers with a blizzard bearing down on the Washington, D.C. region.
In the midst of a magical season, the Caps won 5-2 that Friday night. Fans who entered Verizon Center under light flakes left the building to a few inches of snow. By the next afternoon the area was buried up to 30 inches.
Yet, two days later Verizon Center was open for business again and witnessed one the greatest games ever played there: A 5-4 Caps win over the Pittsburgh Penguins on Super Bowl Sunday. Alex Ovechkin had a hat trick, Washington rallied from 4-1 down and won its franchise record 14th game in a row.
The Caps were 41-12-6. They had 88 points. They were 14 points clear of the next best team in the Eastern Conference. Sound familiar?
Washington is back atop the NHL standings again this season at 36-9-4 and with 76 standings points. The Caps are 15 points ahead of the second-place New York Rangers in the Metropolitan Division despite playing two fewer games. They are nine points ahead of the Florida Panthers for the Eastern Conference lead – again playing two fewer games. The advantage on the Chicago Blackhawks for the overall NHL lead is two points, but in six fewer games.
And so with 33 games left, Washington needs to go 23-10 to topple that 2009-10 team’s franchise-record 121-point season. Of course, that group blew a 3-1 series lead to Montreal in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. Is this team better prepared for a deep playoff run? Here are five reasons why it is:
Better goaltending
In 2009-10, the Caps relied primarily on veteran Jose Theodore. He started 42 games that year, but his save percentage (.911) ranked 21st. At 33, he was fading. How short was Theodore’s leash? Two shots into the second game of that playoff series against Montreal he was benched. Semyon Varlamov had replaced Theodore the year before in the playoffs, too, and performed well. But Varlamov was just 21 and had never been a full-time starter. He played well enough in the postseason. But he wasn’t the goalie he’d become in Colorado after a trade.
This year, Washington goalie Braden Holtby is playing the best hockey of his career. He ranks seventh in the NHL in save percentage (.928) and fifth in goals-against average (2.07). Both would rank as franchise bests after a full season. Holtby is also in his prime (26) and has already played in 34 playoff games, starting five series and winning two. He has played in three decisive Game Sevens. He could win a Vezina Trophy as the league’s best goalie. The Caps haven’t been this stable in net since Olie Kolzig took them to the Stanley Cup final in 1998.
Deeper blueline
Take a good look at what the Caps had on the blueline in 2009-10. Two players – Shaone Morrisonn and Tyler Sloan – were out of the NHL after just one more season. Injuries contributed, but Tom Poti lasted until just 2012-13. Jeff Schultz asked for a trade after that same 2012-13 season and has played in just 36 NHL games since. Joe Corvo, a disappointing addition at that year’s trade deadline, played three more full seasons, but hasn’t appeared in an NHL game in over two years.
Of the eight defensemen who played in that playoff series against the Canadiens, only Karl Alzner, Mike Green and John Carlson are still effective NHL players. And Alzner made his playoff debut in Game 7 that year after Poti was struck in the eye by a puck. Carlson was just a 20-year-old rookie.
This year’s group is much deeper. And t’s been winning even with Carlson and veteran Brooks Orpik injured. Younger players like Nate Schmidt and Dmitry Orlov have filled in well with Alzner and Matt Niskanen the top pairing. The Caps have allowed just 111 goals, fewest in the NHL. Even factoring in Holtby’s stellar play and fewer games total so far, it’s a vast improvement on 2009-10 when the Caps finished tied for 16th in goals allowed (233).
Evegeny Kuznetsov
One of the few other weaknesses on the 2009-10 team was the lack of a playmaking center for the second line. Sergei Fedorov had retired the year before at age 39. The Caps scored plenty, but their lack of depth down the middle allowed the Canadiens to devote their full attention to Alex Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom on the top line and put far too much pressure on a dominant power play that went dry in the playoffs.
In his second full NHL season, Kuznetsov has developed into a star at age 23. He has 15 goals and a team-best 51 points. He’s a wizard with the puck and a matchup any playoff opponent must take seriously. The 2009-10 team had to rely on veterans like Brendon Morrison and Eric Belanger, who were fading. Morrison was out of the NHL within two years, Belanger within three. Kuznetsov is a world-class player not yet in his prime who has already scored a series-winning goal in a playoff series and played in an All-Star game. He’s a force the 2009-10 team just didn’t have.
Barry Trotz
No one will question the coaching credentials of Bruce Boudreau. He won a Jack Adams Award in Washington as NHL coach of the year and he’s gone on to great success in Anaheim. The man has won seven division titles and made the playoffs seven times in eight years. But there’s also no doubt he could be a little high strung during postseason series. Does that carry over to his teams? Impossible to answer. But they are 1-6 in Game Sevens in Washington and Anaheim, including that 2010 loss to the Candiens. Bad luck or is there more to it? Trotz, of course, has never taken a team past the conference semifinals. But he seems to handle the ebb-and-flow of the regular season better. You almost never see him rattled. Boudreau is a wonderful coach. But for an organization battling the playoff demons the Caps have endured, the calm-and-collected Trotz approach is probably a better fit.
New blood
Washington general manager Brian MacLellan did a nice job adding experienced pieces to his team over the summer. T.J. Oshie’s skillset blends beautifully with Backstrom and Ovechkin on the top line. Adding a Game 7 wizard like Justin Williams doesn’t hurt, either. He’s won the Stanley Cup three times and won a Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP. There is a nice blend of youth and experience here. In years past it always seemed like the Caps were trying to add the “experience” part at the trade deadline, which sometimes made for an awkward fit in the locker room. Think of the Jason Arnott trade in 2011.
This time, MacLellan made his major moves in the summer – though he did add Mike Richards, himself a Stanley Cup champion and former captain, at a cheap price this month to play fourth-line center. In 2009-10, then-general manager George McPhee may have tinkered too much by adding Belanger and Scott Walker at forward and Corvo on the blueline – marginal upgrades at the expense of players who had contributed all season. And that all happened on March 3, giving Washington’s players little time to adjust. MacLellan doesn’t have much cap space anyway, but a major move before the deadline seems unlikely this time.
