Capitals end their season with a win, head into offseason with a giant question mark: numbers for the morning after

The Washington Capitals ended their 2025-26 season on a four-game winning streak, capped off with a 2-1 victory over the Columbus Blue Jackets on Tuesday night. With 82 games completed, the Capitals missed out on the playoffs by a measure of one or two games. The thinnest of margins, and that’s just how she goes sometimes.

Now comes the hard work, and perhaps, the hardest decision in the history of the franchise. We’re potentially wading into some unexplored waters this summer. Join us, won’t you?

• I typically don’t treat these final game posts like your normal morning evaluations of the single game that occurred, as that seems a bit pointless when there is no game tomorrow or the next day or the next. So, we’re not going to do that here. First and foremost, thank you for another year of reading these posts. I have to say, I don’t think this season was my best writing, at least where this column is concerned. Compared to the excitement and fun of last year, this year felt like the opposite side of that coin. I didn’t enjoy a ton, or really any, of the hockey the Capitals played after about December 3. There was a shift in how this team played that was a regression rather than the progress I thought we were witnessing through those first few months. It’s crucial that the coaching staff and front office identify those struggles and work to find solutions. This team was genuinely terrible from the start of the winter on both the ice and to watch. If they don’t get the best goaltending performance since prime Braden Holtby, we’re talking about another 2022-23 type season. That’s incredibly concerning to me, and I hope it’s just as alarming to the team’s decision-makers.
• If you want some actual mathematical evidence for the shift I’m referencing, let’s touch on that real quick. I’ll list the league rankings in these stats after the percentage total in parentheses. At five-on-five, from the beginning of the season to that fateful December 3 date I mentioned, the Capitals had controlled 54 percent of shot attempts (3rd), 54.8 percent of expected goals (4th), 54.1 percent of scoring chances (4th), and 55.4 percent of high-danger chances (5th). From then on, they controlled just 47.4 percent of shot attempts (26th), 48.4 percent of expected goals (22nd), 48 percent of scoring chances (26th), and 48.3 percent of high-danger chances (22nd).
• Now, what went into that drastic shift? Well, it’s tough to reduce that to one thing, but I do believe you can identify the start of the decline as that fateful December 5 night when Jacob Trouba drilled Ryan Leonard in the head. I’m not saying Leonard is the team’s MVP, but his injury threw the lineup into chaos, and I don’t think they ever recovered from it. Once that chaos and lack of chemistry started leading to losses, I think there were tweaks made to the system in all three zones that, while on the surface, may have looked like a more defensively stout team, actually just exacerbated the team’s issues. And again, while Logan Thompson stepped in to cover up a lot of that bad, the free-flowing, dominant hockey from the fall disappeared, and now the Capitals were like a Blastoise stripped of its water cannons, just left with its shell. That’s when the gigantic cracks began to form in the club’s insistence on playing a bygone man-to-man system in the defensive zone, constant deferring to defensemen at the point in the offensive zone, and avoidance of zone entries with control in favor of high “punt” plays.

• Let’s take a turn and talk about special teams. I think the power play recovered well enough down the stretch, although I really think some tweaks still need to be made there. Just like at five-on-five, teams had way too easy a time entering the Capitals’ zone and setting up. Instead of constantly having to soak up pressure for an extended time in their own zone, I think some of those shifts could be avoided by putting more focus on breaking up clean entries. Now, that’s a lot easier said than done, and I’m not one to ever say I could coach an NHL team better than any of the guys paid the big bucks to do so. These are strictly opinions of a guy who’s probably watched more hours of hockey this year from several different leagues than most people do in two decades. I don’t want to get too into the weeds and start talking about specific system play and such, as even I, as a former (horrendous) player myself, am still learning more with that side of things every year.
• Now, the power play. Simply, needs new eyes next season. You and I both know what that means. I did enjoy watching it much more once Cole Hutson arrived and the late addition of Ilya Protas, but those guys felt like band-aids on a cannonball-sized wound. Next season needs to have those guys involved, and likely a guy or two currently on other NHL teams. The old faces, other than a potentially returning Big Man, need to re-earn their time on those two units. I specifically didn’t love Dylan Strome‘s season overall. Certainly, a step backward from him.
• We obviously have to talk about one of those guys I just referenced. The “giant question mark” in the title, while also about all that we’ve discussed in this post before now, is clearly in reference to the team’s 40-year-old captain, Alex Ovechkin. I just want to say how much of a pleasure it has been to watch that man for the last 20 years. He debuted when I was nine years old, and I’m now a washed-up 30-year-old. I wouldn’t be writing this post right now without him. I don’t think I have the words that can fully describe just how thankful I am for his commitment to this team and community. He brought me and likely you endless joy. There aren’t many constants in today’s world, but Alex Ovechkin has been a constant for me, and I could always lean on that. I truly hope he’s back for a proper send-off season next year, but he’s also earned the right to do whatever the hell he wants. All the love and respect in the world, Ovi )))))
• Have a great summer, guys. I’ll still be around, writing basically every day, and I’m always messing around on Twitter (@CJC_95), but these posts are shut down until next October. Let’s go, Caps, forever.