{"id":203054,"date":"2025-10-05T08:32:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-05T08:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/203054\/"},"modified":"2025-10-05T08:32:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-05T08:32:08","slug":"capitals-eager-to-prove-they-can-replicate-2024-25-success-it-feels-like-the-league-is-maybe-writing-us-off-again-saying-last-year-was-a-fluke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/203054\/","title":{"rendered":"Capitals eager to prove they can replicate 2024-25 success: \u2018It feels like the league is maybe writing us off again, saying last year was a fluke\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON, DC \u2014 The Washington Capitals finished last season atop the Eastern Conference, but they don\u2019t believe they\u2019re done having to prove themselves just yet.<\/p>\n

After wrapping up their 5-1 preseason with a victory against the Columbus Blue Jackets on Saturday, the Caps have their sights set on replicating the success they found in 2024-25. That roster vastly outperformed expectations to put up a 51-22-9 record and contest for the Presidents\u2019 Trophy. Now, they want to prove it wasn\u2019t just luck.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels like the league is maybe writing us off again, saying last year was a fluke,\u201d said goaltender Logan Thompson. \u201cI think a lot of guys are hungry to keep proving the league wrong and that we\u2019re a legitimate contender.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Capitals\u2019 strong season was fueled in large part by a slew of players recording career-best seasons. Alex Ovechkin, Tom Wilson, and Aliaksei Protas all scored at least 30 goals \u2014 the latter two for the first time \u2014 Pierre-Luc Dubois emerged from a tumultuous exit from the LA Kings to become a pivotal weapon in Washington, and Logan Thompson established himself as a number-one goaltender, to name a few.<\/p>\n

With so many things going right for the 2024-25 Capitals, regression could be a strong possibility, but the team isn\u2019t buying into outside predictions predicting just that.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t really change anything that we do, but we\u2019re human beings, so people read things and hear things,\u201d head coach Spencer Carbery said Saturday night. \u201cIt\u2019s on us as a group, whether it\u2019s outside people that think we\u2019re a non-playoff team, or that certain players can\u2019t replicate the seasons that they\u2019ve had last year, and that\u2019s unsustainable, or whatever it is, the shooting (percentage), this and that. That stuff is fine, and people are entitled to their opinion. It\u2019s on us to do the things necessary to replicate a lot of the things that we did last year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Much of that optimism stems from the relatively unchanged roster \u2014 unlike the massive turnover during the 2024 offseason, the Caps return this fall with largely the same group \u2014 but Washington also has faith in its new additions. This year\u2019s training camp has seen a tight competition for roster spots<\/a>, with more than a handful of players making their case that they have what it takes to play NHL games.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think what impressed me right off the bat is just how much depth we have and how many of these young guys can play,\u201d Thompson said. \u201cWe have a lot of guys that we can put into this lineup that are going to make this team competitive.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Capitals will finalize their Opening Night roster on Monday before officially starting the year against the Boston Bruins on Wednesday. They\u2019ll enter the season with high expectations and a chip on their shoulder, and they\u2019re not shying away from the chance to turn doubters into believers again.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhether people think we\u2019re going to do it or not do it, we\u2019ve got a bunch of guys that are self-motivated young men,\u201d said Carbery, \u201cthat every day when they wake up \u2014 and myself, our staff included, support staff included \u2014 is we\u2019re going to try to be better than we were the previous day, and we\u2019re going to get after it as hard as we possibly can.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON, DC \u2014 The Washington Capitals finished last season atop the Eastern Conference, but they don\u2019t believe they\u2019re…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":203055,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-203054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/203055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}