Team Update: 01/04/23

Consistent goaltending difficulties and what lies ahead

The Capitals have done quite well for themselves up until this point. Currently 2nd in the Metro and tied for 3rd in the league, the Capitals were expected to be 4th or 5th in the Metro, so to say they've exceeded expectations would be quite the understatement. 

That being said, there's a lot of work to be done. Goaltending is specifically an area where improvement is definitely going to be needed. The Capitals pretty consistently outshot their opponents. In fact, they lead the league in shots for with 1352 (100 shots more than 2nd place) and shot differential with +348 (95 higher than 2nd place) while having the 3rd lowest amount of shots against with 1004. Pretty insane stats on paper. And yet, they rank in the top half of the league for most goals against. Luckily, they've been able to score enough to win more games than not, but they cannot keep consistently winning games while letting in so many goals. Swayman is the current starter with Forsberg backing him up. Swayman is still very young, and especially for a goaltender, 24 is extremely young. Forsberg is much more of a veteran and though he has served as a bit of a mentor to young Jeremy, he is not prone to mistakes himself Regardless, if the Capitals continue to keep letting in this many goals on so few shots, they'll likely have very small odds to make any kind of push in the playoffs.

This next stretch of games is an extremely important stretch for the Capitals. Their next 6 games feature 5 games against Metro opponents. 2 against the Blue Jackets, 2 against the Flyers, and 1 against the Islanders. The WSH-CBJ games aren't too worrisome, as Columbus is lower in the standings. Philadelphia, on the other hand, are currently 2 points behind Washington with 2 games in hand, and New York is 5 points ahead with 1 game in hand. On top of that,  Carolina are not too far behind and New Jersey is looking to come back into the playoff race. Needless to say, every game in the next few weeks are must win games for the Capitals. 

The Capitals will be taking on the Blue Jackets, who are coming into that game with a 2 game win streak, in Columbus this Friday.