The 26-year-old has been the catalyst for the Capitals offense. Here's what's driving the hot start to his season.
WASHINGTON — To open the 2023-24 season for the Washington Capitals, center Dylan Strome has flipped the script, going from a playmaker to a goal scorer as he's taken on Alex Ovechkin's role for his team through the month of October.
Strome is currently leading Washington with six goals, all of them coming in his last five games. He also has a goal in three straight games.
While it's a testament to the 26-year-old, he remains modest as he reflects on what's working, crediting the hot streak to his teammates rather than himself.
"The coach has a lot of confidence in our line, just throwing us out there consistently. A lot of o-zone face-offs, a lot of o-zone starts, so that always helps," Strome said nonchalantly.
After starting the year on the third line with Sonny Milano and Matthew Phillips, he earned a promotion quickly and got to work with Alex Ovechkin and Tom Wilson. That trio has immediately clicked, with all three working in tandem to put an end to the team's early-season scoring woes and get offense on the board.
"I'm playing with really, really good players. Tom’s very good on the forecheck and gets pucks back and very easy to play with, and then Ovi just knows how to find guys and he knows how to score," Strome said. "So I think it’s like a good mix and when you get put out there, you got to take advantage of that ice time."
To continue to add to the goal-scoring narrative, Strome's six goals are his only points so far this season. Despite generating chances, making plays and pulling off a number of strong passes, he doesn't have any assists, as he's been the primary finisher this season for D.C.
"We have a joke: he's in the run for Cy Young... He's that middle reliever. Really good season at 6 and 0," head coach Spencer Carbery said with a laugh.
Not only is Strome able to make things happen out on the ice, but he has distinguished himself from the rest of the league in that category, as his expected goals-for percentage leads the league at all strengths to open the season (76.8). His shots-for percentage (66.21) also ranks seventh among players with at least eight games played.
While Strome's goals have come from him getting to the net and opening himself up to be in the right spots, face-offs also play a big part in his hot streak to open the year.
Strome has won 57 percent of his draws and 73 total to open the season (24th-most in the league). On Sunday alone against the San Jose Sharks, he won 21 of 27 opportunities (77.8 percent).
"Those are insane numbers for a centerman... he's winning a crazy amount [of draws]," Carbery added.
For Strome, it's an area where he's tried to pick up some of the slack with Nic Dowd, who has been the top face-off man since joining the organization in 2018, on the shelf.
"We got some good centermen on this team that take pride in winning face-offs and we’re missing Dowd, too. Obviously, he’s a very good face-off man and very reliable, so we knew we had to dig in," Strome said, electing to continue spreading kudos all around, "Credit to the wingers in the d-zone and the defensemen kind of jumping in and winning pucks back and kind of like a five-man unit on the face-offs."
At the end of the day, Strome said that he felt the turning point for his game — and his team's — was the game in Montreal, a 3-2 overtime loss. Since then, Washington has been able to break out offensively, and No. 17 has been the one to lead the charge there. Now, it's just a matter of keeping the good time
"We've had that belief ever since," Strome said.
“Yeah I think it kind of started in Montreal. We felt like we had some chances in that game and obviously the start of the season was pretty start. It kinda started there. We’ve had that belief ever since then. We obviously had a little blip against Toronto but other than that, I feel like since Montreal, but ever since that game we found a way to put some goals in the back of the net.”