The Washington Capitals finished the regular season with a flourish, posting four straight wins.
Unfortunately, a pair of April losses, in which they allowed seven goals in New Jersey and eight goals at the New York Rangers, proved to be just enough to keep the Caps out of the postseason for just the third time in 19 seasons.
Philadelphia’s win Monday night eliminated Washington and set what could be a pivotal offseason in motion. Does Alex Ovechkin come back for a 22nd campaign? And do the Capitals make any other major moves like the one in 2017 that brought T.J. Oshie to D.C.? Thirty-two players appeared in a regular season game for Washington this past winter, and two of the veterans who were 30 years or older (John Carlson and Nic Dowd) are already gone.
Record: 43-30-9 and in fourth place in the Metropolitan Division. The Caps finished three points behind Philadelphia after going 2-2 against the Flyers (while getting outscored 13-12) during the season. The Caps were two points behind Ottawa for the second wild card after going 1-2 against the Senators (getting outscored 12-8). Little did we know that Fabian Zetterlund’s goal with 2:22 left in regulation on Jan. 1 would eventually prove to be the difference of playing in April or packing up early.
Rankings: The Capitals finished with the 15th most goals per game in the NHL at 3.18. The team ranked ninth in goals against (2.90), while the power play (17.8%) ranked 25th and the penalty kill (80.1) finished 14th.
Iceman of the month: Tom Wilson tallied three goals with five assists to lead the team with eight points in April. On a team whose players mostly failed to match career highs set last season, Wilson’s 30 goals with 32 assists is only three goals and three points shy of the total he posted last winter.
Hot sticks and cold pads: Connor McMichael scored four goals with three assists while Ryan Leonard tallied four goals and two assists. Cole Hutson had two goals with three assists, while the rookie and Martin Feh茅rv谩ry each posted five points in April. Logan Thompson went 4-1 with a goals-against average of 2.22 and a saves percentage of .912.
Ovi odometer: Alex Ovechkin wraps up the season with one goal and four assists in April to give the captain 32 goals and 32 assists for the season, the first time since 2007 he finished a season with the same number of goals and assists. In his 21-year career, Ovechkin’s had more goals 14 times and more assists five times (2010-11 saw him post 32 goals with 53 assists in the most non-Ovi season ever).
He played all 82 games of the season for the first time since 2018 while averaging the lowest average time on ice (17:27) of his career. The tally gives Ovechkin 929 goals for his career. The question of course is will that become the number (like 892 and 801 before it) that players will be shooting for in the future.
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