The Washington Capitals are the hottest team in the National Hockey League at the moment. They have won five games in a row and eight of their last 10 and currently sit second in the Metropolitan Division.
A large portion of that success can be credited to the team finally trusting in more of the younger players within their organization after a few years of leaning solely on their veteran core. This year’s team came into the season with the most players 25-year-old or younger on their roster (8) since the start of the 2017-18 campaign (10).
General manager Brian MacLellan was a guest on The Jeff Marek Show on Tuesday and talked about some of those players’ contributions and how getting those fresh faces more involved will help stymie the effects of the dreaded aging curve.
Aging curves simply show how a player’s production level and effectiveness on the ice wanes with age. A player’s physical and scoring peak normally comes in their early 20s and then they’ll see depreciating results for the rest of their career.
So, older teams would be expected to see less positive results the longer they stick with the same core of veterans. The Capitals came into the 2023-24 campaign with the second-oldest projected roster. MacLellan was asked by Marek to give his thoughts on that conversation.
“I do think [the aging curve] is a factor but I still think teams need guys in their 30s on their team,” MacLellan said. “I just don’t think you can have too many of them. I think you have to be supplementing your guys with younger guys coming underneath. I think with us and Pittsburgh you have guys like Ovi, Crosby, etc. that were at such an elite level as they aged they became closer to the average type player but their drop off happens in a different way than a normal player would. They’re still effective players, they’re still good players. If you can balance out the older guys with the young guys, I still think you’re competitive in the league.”
The Capitals are now 16 games into the season and hold a .688 point percentage which ranks sixth in the entire NHL and third in the Eastern Conference. The team is posting those results while led by a rookie bench boss and during a season that many thought would see the Capitals on the outside of the playoff picture looking in.
Marek asked MacLellan if the latter would like to take a victory lap after the Capitals’ hot start has put some doubt in the minds of preseason predictors. MacLellan brought up the team’s youth in his reply.
“I think it’s a little too early to do a victory lap,” MacLellan said. “But we’ll take it. I think we’re at a good spot. I still think we’re a work in progress but pleasantly surprised. We’ve got some young guys contributing offensively which has really helped us out and good goaltending too. I think both those factors have contributed to a pretty good start for us and gives us something to build on for the rest of the year.”
The primary “young guys” chipping in offensively so far have been Connor McMichael and Aliaksei Protas. McMichael is tied for fifth on the team in scoring with eight points (4g, 4a) and Protas is just one point (2g, 5a) behind him. The “elder statesman” of the bunch, Dylan Strome at 26 years old, also leads the Capitals in goal scoring with eight tallies.
After legendary center Nicklas Backstrom stepped away from the team indefinitely due to injury issues, McMichael was transitioned to his natural center position. The 22 year old, armed with more NHL responsibility than he’s ever received before, has not looked back since.
“As he’s developed, [McMichael] has become a two-way player,” MacLellan said. “Now, he’s killing penalties, we’re starting to get him on the power play now, plays a 200-foot game, seems to be in the right position in his own end, supports the puck really well, and I think we’re just tapping into his offensive upside right now. He’s starting to challenge guys one-on-one, he’s starting to get a little bit more power play time now. So, I think the upside is there offensively and I think he has a good base of what he’s learned defensively and the PK side too. I think he’s going to be a really good, two-way player that provides some offense too.”
While McMichael is definitely impressing and the Capitals are on the longest, current winning streak in the league right now, MacLellan was wary to get too far ahead of himself. He believes the Metropolitan Division will still very much be an ever-changing landscape over the course of the year.
As things currently stand, the Capitals sit above three of the four Metro Division playoff teams from last season in the Carolina Hurricanes, New Jersey Devils, and New York Islanders.
“I think there are a lot of teams clustered together,” MacLellan said. “I know the Thanksgiving thing (with playoffs) but I think there might be more teams than usual that bump up into the top eight. I see some good teams that aren’t quite there but could get there and there’s not a whole lot of gap between some of the teams that are going to make the playoffs. It’s bunched up – I could see that jockeying back and forth for the whole year.”
The “Thanksgiving thing” that MacLellan refers to is that, according to Sportsnet, since the 2005-06 season, 76.7 percent of NHL teams in a playoff spot on US Thanksgiving go on to make the playoffs. Teams that bank points early simply have an easier time getting into the postseason.
The Capitals will hope to be one of those teams playing for the Cup come springtime and if they are, it’ll be on the back of MacLellan’s mixed roster of veterans and youth. A roster that he also still seemingly has plans to add to.
Headline photo: Katie Adler/RMNB
