Pause In NHL Season Could Be Blessing In Disguise For Capitals

• The Washington Capitals are in third in the Eastern Conference with 90 points.

• The Capitals scored the second-most goals in the East with 240. Alex Ovechkin is tied for first in scoring with 48 goals and John Carlson ended first among NHL defensemen with 75 points. Both players will be crucial in the quest for Lord Stanley's Cup.

• At +900 on DraftKings, there's certainly value to bet on the 2018 champions.

Evaluating Washington's 2019-2020 Season

The Washington Capitals (31-10-8-20) finished third in the Eastern Conference with 90 points, which means they avoided a potential first-round elimination. However, they still have to endure a Seeding Round Robin and will play the Boston Bruins, Tampa Bay Lightning and Philadelphia Flyers to determine the first four seeds in the East. It’s not an easy path for Washington, but they received a huge boost with the stoppage of play in March. It’s feasible to think they can easily go all the way during the postseason.

It’s not as if the Capitals were overachieving this season. Their third-place finish is a great reflection of the kind of team they were during the 2019-20 campaign. They ranked second in scoring in the East with 240 goals -- only the Lightning posted a better offensive output with 245 -- and that’s considering their power-play struggles. Before the stoppage, the Caps had posted an abysmal 19.4 percent of conversion in their power play chances, ranking 17th-best in the NHL. That’s below-average for a team with such a strong record.

The good news for the Capitals is that they have the pieces to turn things around. Alex Ovechkin is tied for first in scoring during the regular-season with 48 goals and John Carlson ended first among NHL defensemen with 75 points (15 goals, 60 assists). That’s an excellent duo, and the Caps had also boosted their depth with mid-season acquisitions of defenseman Brenden Dillon and Ilya Kovalchuk from the San Jose Sharks and the Montreal Canadiens, respectively.

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Road Excellence And Offensive Prowess

The Capitals lost three of their last four games before the season was suspended and were 4-3-3 in their last 10 games, meaning a few more days into the season could have pushed them outside of the top-four if they hadn’t turned things around. Not only that, but they’ve now secured a spot in the second round of the playoffs and will also play in neutral venues the rest of the way: That’s big for the Capitals if we consider they were the best away team in the East during the regular season. They shouldn’t have issues playing outside of Verizon Center.

The presence of Ovechkin and Evgeny Kuznetsov suggests that Washington has a stellar one-two punch in their offense. The team needs to make adjustments, but they are not massive ones. It seems the season got suspended at the best moment for them, because the Capitals can now regroup, analyze what was going wrong down the stretch, and turn things around. They have enough personnel to go toe to toe with any team in the league.

Undoubtedly, the Capitals will be a challenging opponent during the 2019-20 NHL playoffs. If they can recover the form they showed midway through the regular-season, then no one should sleep on them as a potential Stanley Cup candidate.

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