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Are the Caps this year's biggest frauds?

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Preseason plenty of people said the Caps weren't going to make the playoffs. The talk was that the Caps main goal was to putter along while Ovi chipped away at the goals record.

Today they are at the top the East. The off-season moves are planning out. Their main goalie is a Vezina candidate. The coach's system is working. Ovi is scoring like a man possessed.

Weird terminology to call them frauds when there are multiple teams in each conference that enter each season as favorites to go to the SCF then fizzle out. With the parity in this league it's tough to call a team doing what the Caps are doing a fraud.
 
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They are a good team but they won't keep finishing as well as they have and won't get Vezina quality goaltending from Thompson over a full season.

Definitely a playoff team but I don't expect they'll be a contender.
 
They picked up their 16th win of the season last night when allowing the 1st goal of the game (16-6-4). That's a .692 Points% when spotting 1 goal leads to their opponents. For the season, only 1 other team even has a total Points% above .692 and that's Winnipeg who the Capitals are tied with for the NHL lead (Caps have a game in hand). They're better down 1-0 than 31 other teams are when tied 0-0.
 
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I don't think so.

They made some moves this past offseason that is paying off very well right now.

Capitals have been a playoff team for some time now, but this time they got an upgrade at center and goalie. No surprise they are doing better.
 
The Caps and Jets are the picture of today's NHL. No prime-age superstar forward power. (Don't come at me about Ovie. He's the GOAT and playing amazing, but he's 39.) Instead, they get it done with balance, depth, discipline, grit, great coaching, and stellar tending. I'd argue that FLA is in this same vein. They may have more superstar-ish guys than Washington and Winnipeg, but they don't have anyone on the McD/MacK tier (taking nothing away from Barkov and Tkachuk because they're both awesome).

In the age of parity, this is the way.
 
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43sfriends said:
If you watch him play you'd see how f---ing hard he works to get to the slot before ripping his wicked wristers. Goalies have no chance.

There's nothing lucky about his game, or the Caps season in general. "Luck" is simply what YOU don't understand.
Click to expand...

I went back 4 seasons to see if anyone maintained the shooting percentage Protas is now sporting over the whole season
2020/21 - nobody
2021/22 - Foligno, Barbashev
2022/23 - Kuzmenko
2023/24 - Reinhart

Of those ones, only Reinhart is pacing for 45 goals this season after posting 57 goals last season (and in the playoffs Reinhart was scoring at a 34-per-82 pace).
The other 3 players have never since come close to what they did in these seasons.
So no, you can't flap your arms and fly just because you are hard-working.

Protas has developed in a good 20-goal player; maybe he will be even more than that in a season or two.
But at the moment he is scoring at a 35-goal clip, and his shooting percentage is not going to last.
 
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