From Alexeyev to Wilson, we’re taking a look at and grading the 2023-24 season for every player who laced ‘em up for the Washington Capitals for a significant number of games during the campaign, with an eye towards 2024-25. Finally, Tom Wilson.
The Bio:
#43 | Right Wing | Shoots: Right
Height: 6’4” | Weight: 220 | Born: March 29, 1994
Birthplace: Toronto, Ontario | Acquired: Drafted in 2012, 1st round (16th overall)
Cap Hit: $6,500,000 | Signed Through: 2030-31 | Expiry Status: Unrestricted Free Agent
The Scouting Report (via CapFriendly):
Report: November 2023 | Rating: 83 | Projection: Second Line
- Power forward.
- Averages over 18:00 TOI
- Deployed in all situations.
- Leans goal scorer more than distributor. Extends plays along the wall. Solid skater. Heavy player to defend off the rush – and overall.
- Plays on the edge. Imposing figure. At times lacks discipline / crosses the line …
- Competes. Cares. Stands up for his team mates. A bit of a throwback approach.
The Stats:
The Charts:
The Key Stat: For the first time since the 2018-19 season, Wilson hit over a 100 penalty minutes, logging a whopping 133 – the most amount of time he’s spent in the penalty box since 2017-18. One of the positive signs for Wilson’s performance in recent years has been an improvement in discipline, but that seemed to be missing this season – not great, considering Wilson is one of the team’s top-six forwards, who needs to be on the ice as much as possible.
The Good: There was definitely worry about how Wilson’s knee would be coming into this season, but luckily it looked like it held up fine, and his speed and physicality were mostly back to normal. Wilson finished the season with 18 goals and 35 points, his fourth-best offensive output of his career and good enough for fourth-best on the team in both categories. He posted the team’s second-best CF% Rel, third-best SF% Rel, and third-best CF% at even strength.
Wilson was also one of the team’s better forwards in their brief foray into the postseason, posting three points
The Bad: Overall, it was a pretty bad season for Wilson, at least production wise. After signing an extension that won’t kick in until this summer, Wilson put up his worst points per game stats (1.39) since the 2015-16 season, and no Caps’ forward had a worse points-per-60 rate than Wilson’s .92. It’s a shame, because up to this point, he had improved upon his point-per-game rate almost every year since 2017-18. Only the 2020-21 season was out of order and it was his best season in his career.
Wilson does a lot of good things on the ice, especially defensively, but for $6.5M he needs to be putting more points on the board. While 35 points in 74 games was among the team leaders, on most teams that is basically good third-line production. He needs to be hitting at least 50 points while doing his usual defensive impacts and under-the-skin shenanigans.
The Video:
The Discussion: Do you think this was just a fluky down production year for Wilson, or are age/injuries catching up with him? Do you think his on-ice shenanigans were good, bad or average for him this past season? And finally, what would it take for you to give Wilson a 10 next season?
The Vote: Rate Tom Wilson below on a scale of 1-10 (10 being the best) based on his performance relative to his potential and your expectations for the season – so if he had the best year you could have imagined him having, give him a 10; if he more or less played as you expected he would, give him a 5 or a 6; if he had the worst year you could have imagined him having, give him a 1.