Washington Capitals Goalie Preview
This offseason, the Capitals front office left no stone unturned when reshaping their team for the 2024-2025 season. Despite signing Darcy Kuempeur to a long term starting goalie contract just two seasons ago, the Capitals decided it was time to move on from him. This cleared the way for a new face in the crease and the Capitals went out and acquired Logan Thompson to partner up with Charlie Lindgren this year. Let’s look back at how Charlie wrestled the starting gig away from Kuemper last season and introduce Logan Thompson to Capitals fans and discuss how he will fit into the rotation this coming season.
Charlie’s Journey
A storyline which captivated me last season was slowly watching the team coalesce in front of Charlie Lindgren. The netminder going into his second season with the Capitals was slated to be the team’s backup, stepping in on occasion for Darcy Kuemper. However, at the end of the season it was Lindgren who was the number one goalie and who played all four playoff games the team appeared in.
Until the 2022-2023 season, Lindgren had primarily been an AHL goalie, with only short stints in the National League. He played 31 games in 2022-2023 as Darcy’s backup. The 30 year old goalie showed his brilliance last season. Lindgren played the best hockey of his entire life in what was shockingly only his second full NHL Season. He posted a 0.911 save percentage compared to Kuempers 0.890. Lindgren recorded 11.3 goals saved above average with Kuemper a far cry from him sporting -12.1 GSAA (Numbers provided by Hockey Reference). With Lindgren’s play elevated and Kuemper struggling, Lindgren appeared in 50 games last season becoming the clear number 1 goalie as the season went on. He went 25-16-7 and led the league in shutouts with 6. Further, he provided the Capitals with 29 quality starts and only 6 really bad starts. He did all of this with a Capitals team in front of him that had one of their worst seasons in recent memory.
Charlie’s play is highlighted by his ability to stick with the puck. It is rare to see him put himself completely out of position preventing him from making a save. He has excellent vision and tracking that allows him to make highlight reel saves. His crease movement is not as calm and exacting as most NHL starters. But, his ability to see the puck and read the movement of a play makes up for that deficit. He has an excellent glove and can make big side to side movements to cover off the crease. Lindgren is far from a complete natural talent, but his work effort is evident in his play style. This extra effort Lindgren can exact in the crease is reminiscent of Jonathan Quick’s playstyle.
Introducing Logan Thompson -
Logan Thompson is a Canadian born netminder from Calgary, Alberta. He will be 27 years old this season as he begins his Washington Capitals tenure. He is a smooth skating netminder in the crease. His play is highlighted by calm movements and great positioning. In addition to that, Thompson can be aggressive, playing toward the top of the crease and forcing the play to him as he protects the net. His strength in positioning protects him from needing to make desperation saves very often, but he has the capacity to reach across the crease and generate highlight reel saves. Standing at 6’4’’ it is impressive to watch as he compresses himself in the athletic position when the play approaches him. His calmness in net however, is not any indication of the tenacity Logan has. On Friday, Logan delivered what is an incredible called shot against his former team.
https://x.com/sammisilber/status/1837146147338572037
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Logan Thompson on the differences between the way the Capitals and Golden Knights play:<br><br>"I guess Vegas takes all the credit for goaltending, right? I'm curious to see how different it will be and if I can even play in the league."</p>— Sammi Silber 🏒 (@sammisilber) <a href="
https://twitter.com/sammisilber/status/1837146147338572037?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September
20, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The Capitals were able to get Logan Thompson from the Las Vegas Golden Knights for two 3rd round picks. In the last season with Vegas, Thompson appeared 46 times and had 25 quality starts. He went 25-14-5 last season and had a save percentage of 0.908 saving 6.5 goals above average. He, like Lindgren, is a late comer to the NHL with 2022-2023 being his official rookie season where he finished 8th in Calder voting for rookie of the year. Prior to that Thompson spent two seasons with the Henderson Knight in the AHL and is a product of the Brandon Wheat Kings of the Western Hockey League major juniors.
Thompson is on the last season of a three year deal inked with the Vegas Golden Knight in 2022. His hit against the Caps this year will be $767k. Combined the Capitals are expending a total of $1.87mm on both their goalies this year - not bad business for the front office.
What we may see -
Moving on to the speculative section of the article. There has been a trend in NHL goaltending that in my opinion the Capitals are buying into with the pick up of Logan Thompson. Over the past few years, the NHL has seen the emergence of the tandem duo. This goes against the traditional goaltending usage of one clear starter and one back up. The tandem has become such a popular maneuver that there has even been debates as to using the tandem in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. With two goalies now on the Caps who both have displayed performances that show their capabilities to be a NHL starter, I think the Capitals will be expecting to get equal work loads out of their goalies. This is a dramatic shift from a team that once allowed Braden Holtby to play 73 games in one season, but it is also not without precedent. The Capitals are actually not far from their most recent tandem goalie experiment of Samsonov and Vanecek. In 2021-2022, Samsonov and Vanecek played 44 and 42 games respectively. However, this experiment seemed far less intentional, rather a product of circumstance that ended with neither goalie returning for the 2022-2023 season.
This leads to the deeper concern of the tandem goalie strategy. In recent memory the most notable tandem goalie team has been the Boston Bruins, who struck gold with Linus Ullmark and Jeremy Swaymen, two goalies who, on any other team, would be the clear starter. This power duo benefitted undoubtedly from the two goalies' close personal friendship. But, all good things must come to an end and unfortunately for the Bruins their tandem experiment has ended in total disaster. Since both goalies are bona fide stars there was no way the Bruins would cough up the required cap space for each goalie. With Swayman in a contract year, the Bruins dealt Ullmark to the Ottawa Senators, making it clear Swayman is their number one. However, the Bruins have still yet to sign Swayman as of September 20th as the two parties continue to battle with the season looming. If the Bruins are unable to get the star goalie to suit up soon he could miss a significant chunk of the season. The team has until December first to ink a deal with the restricted free agent. The worse case scenario here would be a total disaster for the franchise.
Now, the Capitals are poised to chart the murky waters of a tandem duo. The fickle nature of NHL goaltending could easily change the Capitals’ calculus when it comes to these two players early on in the season. If the experiment is successful, ideally the Capitals would have two high performing goalies which would give the front office plenty of capital to use at the trade deadline if they were to prioritize only one in a hopeful playoff push. In addition, both goalies are entering contract years, with the future of their NHL career and the possibility of cashing in significant pay raises on the line. There will no doubt be another year of goaltending drama for this team, something that has plagued the organization since the departure of Braden Holtby. We wish both players all the success in the world and we are excited to see them play in a few weeks time.