The Washington Capitals’ postseason begins tonight, and thank goodness before it begins we have an authoritative record of your feelings about its players. Thank you for completing the Happiness Survey, even though you had no choice in the matter. You were one of 1500 respondents, and your input was critical. We fed your answers into drAIsAItl, who will one day get me fired, and he has output the following report on that old-timey printer paper with the strips on the side.
This is the fourth and final Happiness Survey of the 2024-25 season. Here is the prompt:
On a scale from 1 to 5, how HAPPY are you to have this player on the team?
1 means VERY UNHAPPY TO HAVE THEM ON THE TEAM
2 means UNHAPPY
3 means NEITHER HAPPY NOR UNHAPPY
4 means HAPPY
5 means VERY HAPPY TO HAVE THEM ON THE TEAM
The average score for each player is listed below along with their standard deviation, a measurement of disagreement (smaller numbers mean more consensus). I have sorted them into tiers.
The Tippy Top Tier
Some of the highest scoring Caps ever.
- Alex Ovechkin 4.88 ± 0.43
- Aliaksei Protas 4.87 ± 0.42
- Tom Wilson 4.85 ± 0.49
- Dylan Strome 4.85 ± 0.44
Your top four are also the four top goal-scorers of the the team, responsible for 142 goals in 2024-25. Ovechkin’s 4.88 is the highest score I’ve ever seen in the survey.
Difference-Makers Tier
If these guys deliver, you win games. It’s that simple.
- Jakob Chychrun 4.71 ± 0.59
- Pierre-Luc Dubois 4.69 ± 0.57
- Logan Thompson 4.58 ± 0.67
- Nic Dowd 4.57 ± 0.66
This is a great group. When these guys are on, which they often are, the team is unstoppable. Chychrun’s outside shot is ridiculous, Thompson was a Vezina goalie for a couple months, Dowd is one of the best fourth liners in the league, and you’re still sleeping on PLD, getter of 46 assists, tied with Carlson for second on the team. All four have dropped off recently. Please kick it up a notch, fellas.
Secondary Scoring Tier
Sure is nice when these guys put up points.
- John Carlson 4.34 ± 0.78
- Connor McMichael 4.30 ± 0.74
I didn’t realize until now that Carlson had career-low five goals this season. He’s still an assist beast though, and you all still under-appreciate him. McMichael, meanwhile, is a bit of an inconsistent scorer (26 on the year, most early on). I’d sure like to see him deliver this week.
Depth Tier
Looking up from down the lineup.
- Brandon Duhaime 4.14 ± 0.78
- Rasmus Sandin 4.13 ± 0.75
- Martin Fehervary 4.13 ± 0.73
That’s a season-high for Duhaime, up from the 3.8’s in the first half. I wonder if that’s a function of his physicality lately. Sandin and Fehervary are slightly down from early March, but right around their season averages.
Mixed Bag Tier
There is a lot going on here.
- Charlie Lindgren 3.98 ± 0.87
- Matt Roy 3.86 ± 0.79
- Trevor van Riemsdyk 3.73 ± 0.83
- Anthony Beauvillier 3.49 ± 0.79
- Andrew Mangiapane 3.47 ± 0.89
- Taylor Raddysh 3.35 ± 0.87
- Lars Eller 3.24 ± 0.96
There is a well-known goal-scoring bias to the Happiness Survey. The top three here – Lindgren, Roy, and TVR, have four goals among them. Beauvillier scored two goals on 29 shots, and Raddysh has the lowest PDO (sum of finishing percentages at both ends of the ice) among full-time, non-Eller players.
By now I understand well why you are cool on Eller, but I can’t say the same for Mangiapane, who has been a defense-first, play-driving forward all season. Oh wait, it’s defense. You people hate defense.
Remainders
Don’t count.
- Ryan Leonard 4.07 ± 0.89
- Ethen Frank 3.29 ± 0.86
- Dylan McIlrath 3.28 ± 0.96
- Alexander Alexeyev 3.18 ± 0.79
Frank got the most ice with 24 games, but the rest of these guys haven’t really been seen enough to count too seriously. Leonard hasn’t put up points, Alexeyev might not get a Caps sweater ever again, and McIlrath just does what McIlrath does.
And so ends the Happiness Survey series for 2024-25. We’ll revisit all the scores again in the season review series, which starts when the playoffs end, so hopefully not for a while. In the meantime, what did we get wrong?
