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The Capitals won 11 games in December. It turned playoffs (?) into playoffs (!).

By Chris Cerullo

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January 2, 2023 5:56 pm

On December 3, after a 5-2 loss on the road in Calgary to the Flames and with still building injury issues, the Capitals’ chances at a run to the Stanley Cup Playoffs come springtime looked rather worrisome. The team had collected just 24 available points out of 50 — a paltry .480 standings-points percentage.

A month later and with the calendar flipped to 2023, the Capitals have turned that narrative completely around. The Caps finished off the month 11-2-2 and surged all the way back into the Eastern Conference playoff picture.

As of January 2, the Capitals sit third in the Metropolitan Division with 47 standings points. Only the Carolina Hurricanes (56) and the New Jersey Devils (49) have more. If the playoffs started today, the Capitals would have the third seed in the Metropolitan Division and would be the sixth-best team in the Eastern Conference overall.

Here’s how drastically things have changed from a playoff chance perspective. We’ll compare what three leading sources had on the Caps starting at the time of that early December loss to now.

As of December 3, 2022:

As of January 2, 2023:

Micah Blake McCurdy’s HockeyViz model is now even projecting that the Capitals will finish second in the Metropolitan Division overall and just barely miss a second-straight 100-point season.

Wading even further into future scary waters, MoneyPuck now has the Capitals as the sixth-most likely team out of the Eastern Conference to win the Stanley Cup and the 11th-most likely overall.

That sort of confidence from those models has, of course, been brought on by superb on-ice results. At five-on-five in the month of December, the Capitals saw 51.3-percent of the shot attempts, 56.5 percent of the expected goals, 52.6-percent of the scoring chances, and 53.7-percent of the high-danger chances go their way.

The team also saw great results in terms of their five-on-five shooting percentage (9.2%) and especially their five-on-five saving percentage (93.6%). Both marks ranked firmly in the top half of the league. In other words, things have started to click on both sides of the puck.

Taking a peek toward January, the team still has more potential for upward mobility. They’ll play lowly teams like the Columbus Blue Jackets three times, the Philadelphia Flyers twice, and the Arizona Coyotes once.