With the 2021-22 season now in the rear view mirrors for the Washington Capitals, it’s time to begin assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the team, and where changes are needed. The first step is to take a “big picture” look at how the team fared with regards to the league.
This post presents the final league rankings for key statistics and metrics for the Capitals in 2021-22 regular season.
Basic Stats
The Capitals unsurprisingly finished in the middle of the pack in a number of key statistics, including wins (16th), points (13th), goals against (13th) and shots for (14th). On the flip side, the Capitals did well in shots against (6th) and net penalties (3rd).
The Capitals finished among the league’s worst in faceoffs and were average in the turnovers, hits and blocked shots categories.
Advanced Metrics
The next table presents the results for key advanced metrics and their relative league rankings after 82 games.
Again, most of the rankings fall in the middle of the pack. The Capitals once again had one of the league’s best shooting percentages, but dipped this season in the high-danger area.
We will take a deeper assessment of most of these key metrics in the coming days, and look at what that might mean with regards to changes.
By Jon Sorensen
That about sums it up. Middle of the pack. That tells me we are not just a few changes away from competing for a cup.
Yep. The dips in the high-danger stats and even shot attempts are about the most concerning issues for me, right now (outside of player needs – veteran goaltender, etc.)
Unfortunately, due to our cap space and mix of players, there really wasn’t a lot we could do last offseason. Trading to get Vanny back as a cheap second goalie was part of that. This offseason will be a lot different in that we free up a lot of cap space with Schultz, Kempny, and all of our UFA likely gone. it is a good opportunity to retool with some younger players this offseason without doing a complete rebuild like we did just before drafting OV. I like Eller a lot but I prefer getting younger and giving McMichael the 3C spot which also just happens to free up space. Seems like Hags want to play so I’m not sure there is much we can do about that unless he agrees to do LTIR or retire (and then come back the following year).
This is true. Things should begin to loosen up with regards to the salary cap in the coming weeks.
Sammy and a veteran or starting 1?
Starting #1
I saw a lot of good from Sammy in playoffs. But need a veteran as well. So I’d like to see a sign and trade of VV and bring in Holtby as a number 2 / mentor. He wants to get back to DC post career so I suspect he would take a discounted two-year deal. He’d have to know his role which would be back-up / mentor but he’d still get a lot of games.
I do not believe tweaking will solve the problem. Swapping one or two players will not do it. The team needs to decide what kind of team they want to be and then get pieces (players and coaches) to fit. If MoJo can come back and not have to study the playbook because nothing has changed since he left, perhaps that should tell us something. So should the #23 in PP and #30 in faceoffs.