Washington Capitals Fantasy Preview

In this last team by team series, we’ll be previewing the 2024-25 season ahead with a specific look at banger category options. We’ll start tackling the potential lines to get a sense of deployment, we’ll rank players by offense, bangs (PIMs, hits and blocks) and overall value and finally feature a few players in depth.

(update: Oct 8)

We made it! It’s the final team preview. On top of releasing our top 350 skaters in banger leagues with full projections, we’ve custom built 140 player cards alongside more than 72,000 words of analysis covering all 32 teams. 

Let the season begin!

After 3 years of Peter Laviolette, Spencer Carbery made his head coaching debut for the Capitals last year. Carbery is a former assistant coach with the Leafs but before that he served as the head coach for the Hershey Bears, the AHL affiliate of the Caps. So he’s familiar with several of the players having coached guys like Connor McMichael, Martin Fehervary and Aliaksei Protas.

Kuznetsov was a shell of himself to start the year before entering the assistance program, they lost Backstrom a few games into the season and Pacioretty was out most of the first half. Still though, the Washington Capitals found a way to sneak into the playoffs last year despite ranking near the bottom of the league in shots per game. 

They were swept by the powerhouse Rangers in the first round but it was still a wild year for the Caps and likely gave management false hope that they were only a few moves away from being competitive. And sure enough, GM Chris Patrick made a bunch of moves in the hopes of getting the caps back in the playoffs.

The Caps added Stanley Cup champ Logan Thompson alongside Chychrun, Matt Roy, Dubois, Mangiapane, Duhaime and Raddysh. We’ve gotten a glimpse of what the starting lineup would like with camp wrapping up. Note that Oshie is stepping away from this season because of a chronic back issue and the team just announced that Vrana has officially signed.

Here’s my best guess for now:

Ovechkin - Strome - Mangiapane
McMichael - Dubois - Wilson
Vrana - Lapierre - Protas
Duhaime - Dowd - Raddysh
Extras: Milano, Miroshnichenko

Chychrun - Carlson
Fehervary - Roy
Sandin - TVR
Extras: Alexeyev, McIlrath

Thompson
Lindgren

Potential PP units:

PP1: Wilson, Dubois, Strome, Ovechkin, Carlson
PP2: Mangiapane, McMichael, Lapierre, Chychrun, Sandin

Tom Wilson is the most valuable overall skater in banger leagues on the Caps, that’s if you count PIMs. If you don’t Ovi still takes the cake and it’s not even close, Wilson gets a ton of value from the PIMs department. I’m banking on Carlson keeping PP1 as long as he stays healthy but he hasn’t had competition for his role for several years, Chychrun is chilling, waiting.

Dubois has to bounce back? I' wouldn’t reach for him, especially if you don’t count PIMs but the man can’t do any worse that last year. Fehervary is a population streaming option for banger cats. Matt Roy and Duhaime won’t add much offence but they are also good streaming options. Mangiapane deserves a sleeper callout here because of his current deployment, all the shutdown focus will be on Ovi and Andrew will be wide open and might bust out.

By now, Tom “Whip” Wilson is one of the better known banger league legends, rightfully so, he’s an assistant captain on the all Beefers team. There’s 10 players last year who paced for 100+ PIMs and 250+ hits, but only 2 of those players are on one of their team’s PP units: Brady Tkachuk and Tom Wilson. Banger legends.

Last year, Wilson played in 74 games and paced for 39 points, 13 PPPs, 187 shots, 147 PIMs, 253 hits and 82 blocks. The banger cats are elite, all of them. But the offense was underwhelming last year. For the past 5 years, Wilson’s been a 52-58 point player so stepping down to 39 last year wasn’t a great sign in his age 30 season.   

So was it the aging curve hitting Wilson really hard, or did he suffer some poor luck? Let’s dive into his underlying metrics last year by comparing them to his previous 3 seasons (158 GP). 

To start, Wilson’s all strengths iSH% was down -33% from 15.8% to 10.7%. Right off the bat, if he would’ve shot at his normal rate, he would’ve potted an extra 9 goals last year. The other positive signs in the goal scoring department at 5v5 is that Wilson actually increased his SOG/60 by +16% but he also saw his ixG/60 rise by +26% as well as his iSCF/60 by +22%. These are all really positive signs that at least in the conversion department, Wilson was snake bitten and is not suffering an age regression.

On top of that, you could even argue that he missed out on a few extra apples as well. His 5v5 on-ice SH% was way down -52% and his 5v5 2A/60 rate was down -37%. I’d bet on both of those rebounding for him next year since he actually saw positive improvement in his 5v5 iCF/60 by a very solid +29%.

Whip also managed to maintain his 5v5 PIMs/60 and his 5v5 hits/60 but he saw a really interesting increase in his blks/60 by +67%. There’s a lot to love about this man’s category coverage and he’s a solid candidate to bounce back points wise. Tom is a top 20 skater in banger leagues with PIMs but you should totally drop him way down your rankings if you don’t count PIMs, somewhere in the 85th spot. So it’s a big difference, he’s a 2nd rounder in a full banger league (12 teams) but more of a 7th or 8th rounder if you don’t count PIMs.

The gray-haired future Hall of Famer only missed 3 games last year, putting up 65 points and 28 PPPs, alongside 272 shots and 161 hits. 

If you include the shortened COVID year where Ovi put up 24 goals in 45 games good for a 44 goal pace, he put up at least 30 goals in every single one of his 17 seasons in the NHL. That’s insane. 853 goals in 1,426 games. He’s 42 goals short of Gretzky and by last year’s pace, he might need to play 2 more seasons to get the record but he has a chance this year! 

But it was a tale of two seasons for Ovi in the goal scoring department last year. In his first 39 games, he put up 149 shots but only potted 9 goals, shooting at a dismal rate of 6%. In his second half, he put up 133 shots and 23 of those went in the net, good for a shooting rate of 17%. That’s wild. 

He finished the year with a 11.4% shooting percentage, -20% down from the 14.32% he converted on in his previous 3 seasons. While we shouldn’t expect Ovi to be a 6% shooter for his remaining seasons, there are plenty of regression signs in his metrics. In fact, it’s all red, across the board.

His shots on goal per 60 minutes (SOG/60) have dropped by -21%, while his individual expected goals (ixG/60) and individual scoring chances for (iSCF/60) are both down -20% and -19%, respectively. This indicates that he is not only shooting less but also generating significantly fewer high-quality scoring opportunities, making him considerably less dangerous in his shots. This is likely age-related decline for the soon to be 40 year old. 

He did have some poor luck in the on-ice SH% department seeing his rate drop -25% as well as his 5v5 2A/60 rate considerably drop -53%. Those should bounce back next year but when you factor in that he’s also seeing a decline in 5v5 iCF/60, I’d be cautious.

Combining all of this with declines in his 5v5 PIMs/60, hits/60 and blks/60… The Great Eight isn’t the banger legend he once was. Still though, I think you can count on a return to the 70-75 point range with 30 PPPs and 270ish shots. That type of offense with 160+ hits is still incredibly rare and Ovi’s still a 3rd rounder in banger leagues, maybe a late 2nd if you don’t count PIMs. 

Despite dealing with a slew of injuries over the past few seasons which included a skull fracture and a lacerated temporal artery, Carlson found a way to dress for all 82 games last year. He took a big step forward in the blocks department but a big step backwards in points. After pacing for 68-89 points over the course of 5 seasons from 2017-2022, Carlson fell to 59 points in an injury riddled season in 2022-23. But things continued to decline last year in a larger sample size, pacing for only 52 points while many (including myself) were hoping for a bounce back to 65+. 

When comparing Carlson’s season last year to his previous 3 seasons (170 GP), there are signs that things aren’t as bad as they seemed. His iSH% at all strengths was down -29% and -34% at 5v5. His 5v5 on-ice SH% was down -9%, his 2A/60 rate was down -14% and his 5v5 IPP was down -12%. Are all of those rates should regress positively.

That being said, his 5v5 SOG/60 was down quite a bit by -23% and his ixG/60 was down -11%. Interestingly though, his 5v5 iSCF/60 was up considerably by +23%. This could suggest a tweak in Carlson’s game, focusing more on quality than quantity. While he’s getting more scoring chances, they might be from slightly less optimal positions compared to previous seasons.

Say what you want about the Capital’s year last year, they are a much improved team this year. Carlson with Chychrun could be an amazing pair with heavy o-zone starts while Feher and Roy take over shutdown duties. There was concern about Chychrun taking over PP1 and that could still happen, but Carlson has his spot there for now. 

All things considered, I need to see another step down before being ready to say Carlson is more of a 45-50 point guy. I still think he has 55-60 juice in him. At the very least, he’ll help you clear up blocks every week. Only 3 Ds paced for 180+ blocks, 170+ shots and 20+ PPPs last year: Matheson, Dobson and Carlson. 

There’s few players who had a more disappointing season than PLD last year. Fresh off a fat eight-year, $68 million contract, expectations in LA were sky high for him. Most folks had him projected for 65-70 points, 25 PPPs, 230-240 shots. But PLD finished the year with 40 points, 8 PPPs and only 146 shots. What in the world?!

Things were worse in the first half. He paced for 36 points and only 4 PPPs but boosted that pace a bit in the second half to 44 points and 11 PPPs… still incredibly disappointing. 

So what the hell happened?

For starters, Dubois’ TOI on the year was down -12% compared to his previous 3 seasons, but things were even worse on the PP where his PP TOI was down -28%. To be fair, he was handed PP1 duties to start the year, averaging 3:40 PPTOI through the first 19 games. But after only putting up a single PPP, it was a big decline from there where he was averaging only 1:35ish per night. That’ll destroy a guy’s offensive production with just that. 

PLD’s iSH% was down -12% on the year and he also shot way less, his 5v5 SOG/60 was down -15%. I wish we could say something like with Tom Wilson where his expected goals and his scoring chances for were up and he was super unlucky… but that wasn’t the case for PLD. His 5v5 ixG/60 were down -7% and his iSCF/60 were down a concerning -23%. Not good boys. 

His 5v5 IPP was actually up +19% but that’s not because he was overly lucky, it’s more of a reflection over lower quality linemates, a lot of his time was spent with guys like Grundstrom, Laferriere and Anderson-Dolan. To his credit, he did have some poor luck on the season. His on-ice SH% was down -10% and his 2A/60 were down -31%. Both should regress positively.

Honestly, I want to write off last year completely for him, and I manually tweaked the projection model by hand. Washington just doesn’t have the firepower to not staple him on PP1 with Ovi. And while he’s not playing with him at 5v5 to start the year, they will try it at some point. Let’s not forget that despite passing the 500 game mark already, PLD is only 26 years old. He’s only 1 season removed from a 71 point pace and 2 years removed from 106 PIMs.

I’m betting on last year being the outlier and booking a return to the 60 point range and 200 shots mark. He’s not a huge banger, but he should be in the 70-80 PIM range with 100 hits. In leagues with PIMs I think he’s a top 80 skater but ranked lower in the 120 range if you don’t count PIMs. 

Doesn’t look like Miro cracked the opening night lineup, but you can count on him being the first in line for call ups. I wanted to give him a shout because his 5v5 ixG/60 was absolutely nuts last year. He only played 21 games, but in his 12:08 average TOI he put up an insane 1.13 individual expected goals per 60 seconds, which was good for 14th overall in the NHL last year (min 20 GP). He put up more ixG at 5v5 than guys like Pasta, Verhaeghe, Jack Hughes and Crosby. At 5v5 his iCF/60 (47th) and his iSCF/60 (26th) were also elite. Oh and he also put up a very respectable 12.44 hits/60 at 5v5. 

A quick look at his rate stats card from his AHL season in Hershey and you see a future multi category stud.

Folks it’s been a ride. Thanks for reading. We’ll be back during the season to help you make your competition look like a bunch of marshmallows. 🥊

Sources I used in part for this article:

• Frozen Tools from DobberHockey. Game Logs, Line Combinations, NHL Lineups, Advanced Stats, Boxscores, Reports and more.

• Fantasy Hockey Life. Prospects, Team Previews, Draft Content, Dynasty Strategy and more.

• Natural Stat Trick. Line Combos, Shift Chart, Advanced Stats, Expected Goals, Shot Attempts, Rush Attempts, Zone Starts, Scoring Chances, IPP, Corsi and more.

• HockeyViz from Micah Blake McCurdy. Visualizations, Predictions, Shot Maps, WOWYs, Quality of Teammates, Common Linemates, 5v5 Shift Starts and more.