The Washington Capitals keep winning hockey games. After finishing last season with a minus-37 goal differential, they’re at plus-24 through just 17 games. Their 12-4-1 record has some people asking if they’re a true Stanley Cup contender or a team riding a hot streak that will inevitably regress to the mean. Well, it may be a mix of both.
We’ll take a look at how and why the Capitals are playing so well right now. Though they’re bound to cool off in some capacity, it might not be wise to count this team out. The unlikely breakout from a roster filled with unspectacular on-paper talent might be a sign of things to come. Just maybe, they aren’t so unspectacular after all.
Three Star Producers Emerge: Strome, McMichael, & Protas
After having one of the least effective offenses in the NHL last season, the Capitals sprung into action during the summer and added some weapons. But their big additions aren’t the reason they’ve risen to their mid-to-late 2010s era of dominance. It has actually been the players who were already on the roster.
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For starters, let’s take a look at Dylan Strome. The third overall pick of a stacked 2015 NHL Draft had a short, underwhelming stint with the Arizona Coyotes, leading to him being traded at the age of 21 to the Chicago Blackhawks. While he established himself as a reliable scorer in his new home to the tune of 0.68 points per game (P/G), the Blackhawks chose to let him test the open market when he was a restricted free agent in 2022. Embracing a full-on rebuild for prospect Connor Bedard, they parted ways with virtually anyone who made them a better hockey team. The Capitals swooped in.
Strome put up 65 points with Washington in his 2022-23 campaign, leading to a five-year contract extension. Following that up with 67 points and still being 26 years old, no less, they found a nice piece for a nothing cost. However, those numbers (0.81 P/G) pale in comparison to what he’s doing now. Today, he’s nearly doubled that total.
In 2024-25 thus far, Strome has an unbelievable 21 assists and 26 points through 17 games (1.53 P/G). His 11 primary helpers are tied for fifth in the NHL, only behind stars Kirill Kaprizov, Martin Necas, Nathan MacKinnon, and Mitch Marner. We’ll get to whether or not Strome is a legitimate number-one center in a bit, but he’s playing like it right now—and at a $5 million cap hit. He has made everyone around him better.
Strome is hardly “old”, but he has at least been an established full-time NHLer for a decent chunk of time. Connor McMichael, on the other hand, didn’t truly make himself a lineup-lock until 2023-24. He had a modest 18 goals and 33 points (0.41 P/G) on middle-six ice time, so it certainly comes as a surprise that he, through 17 games, has 12 goals and 19 points (1.12 P/G). Almost tripling his previous production, the 25th pick of the 2019 NHL Draft has been especially lethal on the rush.
A potential path to stardom is somewhat surprising for McMichael, seeing as he doesn’t follow typical trends. After remaining more or less stagnant over his previous four seasons in terms of scoring at the American Hockey League (AHL) and NHL levels, he has been shot out of a cannon to tie Leon Draisaitl for the even-strength goal-scoring lead (11). At a cap hit of $2.1 million for two years, the Capitals found themselves a bargain.
Finally, we have Aliaksei Protas. The 23-year-old signed a five-year deal at a $3.375 million cap hit last January, so he’ll be on an affordable deal in D.C. for quite a while. Following a 29-point showing last season (0.37 P/G), the massive 6-foot-6 playmaker has seen a usage boost in what is looking to be yet another breakout campaign for the Capitals. He has 17 points in 17 contests (1.00 P/G) and is on pace to surpass his 78-game point total before the 2025 calendar year begins.
The Capitals’ Offense as a Whole Has Exploded
These three in-house breakouts have certainly contributed a lot, but let’s look at the numbers as a whole. Just how well is Washington’s offense playing?
Although they made the playoffs in 2023-24, they weren’t a great hockey team. The Capitals allowed 37 more goals than they scored, and it wasn’t because of their defense or goaltending. The offense wasn’t doing its part.
Last season, Washington was one of the worst teams at generating offense at even strength. As a result, they finished 27th in goal share (45.6 percent) at even strength, with their record largely salvaged by tight, one-goal wins. Their first-round sweep by the hands of the New York Rangers was far from surprising. Now, they’re one of the best even-strength offenses in not just scoring goals, but generating chances.
| Stat (Even Strength) | Capitals in 2023-24 | Capitals in 2024-25 | League Rank |
| Corsi For Per 60 (CF/60) | 54.18 | 59.48 | 28th to 19th |
| Shots For Per 60 (SF/60) | 25.17 | 28.56 | 32nd to 16th |
| High-Danger Chances For Per 60 (HDCF/60) | 10.62 | 12.93 | 23rd to 4th |
| Expected Goals For Per 60 (xGF/60) | 2.56 | 3.42 | 26th to 3rd |
| Goals For Per 60 (GF/60) | 2.36 | 4.31 | 28th to 1st |
Ignoring the fact that the Capitals have the league’s highest shooting percentage (a mark too high to maintain), this team has still shown unfathomable growth. They’ve spent very little time in the offensive zone (38.5 percent to 43.7 percent in the defensive zone, one of the worst differentials in the NHL), but the team has been so rush-dominant and defensively sound that it hasn’t mattered. Washington has seamlessly transitioned from defense to offense, creating high-danger chances and expected goals at the fourth- and third-best rate in the league. They’re shooting the puck a bit more, which is good to see, but the quality of those chances has skyrocketed.
The numbers are being limited to even strength here because, despite this being the number-one scoring offense in the NHL, it has a 15.4 percent cash-in rate on power plays. Yes, the team with the greatest power-play scorer in history (Alex Ovechkin, 315 goals) can’t convert on the man advantage. The good news is that when the shooting percentage dries up, the power play may start clicking again. Even if it doesn’t, the Capitals are operating at an elite level when nobody is in the penalty box.
Looking at the Sustainability of the Capitals’ Run
It wouldn’t be right to talk about the Capitals’ incredible run thus far without mentioning their PDO, which is the sum of shooting percentage and save percentage. Historically, the teams that see early-season cruising turn into a collapse for the ages are playing way over their heads in PDO (from ‘NHL’s Biggest Collapses Every Season Since 2009-10,’ The Hockey Writers – NHL Stuff, September 2024). Is Washington destined for regression?
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On pace for 120 standings points this season (nobody reached that in 2023-24), there should be some sort of pushback as time moves along. Ranked first in shooting percentage and 11th in save percentage for a 1.046 PDO, it should be noted that the Vancouver Canucks led the league at 1.025 last season—it may not seem it, but that’s a notable difference.
Over the past 10 seasons (excluding the COVID-19-delayed 2020-21 campaign), teams that finish third or better in even-strength xGF/60 through Nov. 17 are fairly successful. Of those 30 clubs, 25 made the playoffs (83.3 percent), and their cumulative average in points by season’s end was 102 per 82 contests.
In addition, from 2014-15 to 2023-24, the teams that finished top 10 in points percentage through the first month of the season (a group Washington is in) performed at a similar rate. They made the playoffs 79 percent of the time and finished with 100 points on average per 82 games (from ‘How Important Is a Strong Start in the NHL?,’ The Hockey Writers – NHL Stuff, October 2024). By all accounts, the Capitals are in a good spot.
As for our three breakout performers, their on-ice shooting percentages (oiSH%) are fairly high. The statistic tracks a team’s shooting percentage while that player is on the ice—anything above 15 percent is basically unattainable over a full season. Strome and Protas both have on-ice shooting percentages at or above the 20 percent threshold, so expect their point totals to decline as time goes on. McMichael is above average in this department, no doubt, but he’s outside the 90th percentile for oiSH% among forwards with at least 50 minutes of ice time.
Getting away from analytics but sticking with those three players, their scoring likely won’t vanish. Among players who reached 17 or more points through Nov. 17 of last season, only Mark Stone (53 points in 56 games) was unable to reach the 60-point mark. Just looking at Strome, it’s hard to dismiss his ridiculous stretch—only two players (J.T. Miller and Elias Pettersson) surpassed his 26-point total at this point in 2023-24. Sure, his team may be scoring on an unsustainable amount of their shots, but this may be a warning to the rest of the league that he’s an 80-plus point player from now on. Both McMichael and Protas might not finish with that many points, but they project to be two quality contributors this season and perhaps in the future, too. They are both 23 years old, after all.
The Capitals are one of the best teams in the NHL right now, and the numbers suggest they can still be in that conversation when the season ends. They may be outperforming their overall outlook right now, but Strome, McMichael, and Protas all seem to have taken that next step. It looks like a new contender has emerged in the Eastern Conference.
Advanced stats courtesy of Natural Stat Trick
