The Washington Capitals made some major renovations to their roster this offseason, bringing in a handful of names as they turned themselves back into a contender.
With the additions of Jordan Kyrou, Alex Tuch, Boone Jenner and Vincent Desharnais, Washington not only brought in some names that give the team some much-needed depth, but also added quite a bit of size.
Heading into this season, the Capitals the tallest and heaviest team on average going into this season at 6-foot-2, 205 pounds. It's something that the group is looking forward to seeing and implementing on the ice, and it'll certainly benefit the group, too.
"We're going to be scary," Desharnais said, adding, "When you have a lot of big guys like that, you take so much room in the D zone. It's hard to go by, it's hard to create things, because there's so many long sticks out there."
That said, while Washington was happy to add some size to the mix, it didn't forget about another important need: speed.
Last season, amid injury and uncertainty up front, the Capitals lacked that extra step, and struggled at times with entries and secondary scoring. At times, a lack of speed played a role in that.
However, it's not necessarily a weak area for the team; last season, Washington ranked sixth in maximum speed with an average of 24.26 MPH, sixth in 22+ MPH speed bursts (119) and eighth in 20-22 MPH speed bursts (1,873). Ryan Leonard led the team in max skating speed and ranked in the 99th percentile league ride (24.26), and Ethen Frank was in the 95th percentile (23.52) while Aliaksei Protas was in the 89th percentile (23.14).
Now, coming into this year, the addition of Kyrou, who ranked in the 86th percentile last season (23.04), offers more speed up front, as does the continued rise of the team's young up-and-comers. Combine that with a fully healthy Pierre-Luc Dubois, Aliaksei Protas and Tom Wilson, and Washington has plenty of speed coming into this season.
"Technique and skating are important... we have a team with good technical skills. You can’t say that Tom Wilson is a player with poor skating ability," Protas recently said in an interview with MatchTV, per a DeepL translation. "With our size, we’ll be able to get results in certain situations. Recent seasons have shown that bigger teams have a better chance of winning."
Desharnais, who's been on the other side of it, knows just how fast the team can go, all while dialed in on the details. That in itself is just another exciting aspect for him as he joins the mix this fall.
"We're not just going to be big; we're structured, fast, moving the puck well," Desharnais added. "That's something I've noticed about Washington; they always move the puck well."
