Capitals Player/Prospect Highlights - Week 1

Highlighting performances from Washington's players and prospects over the past week (and prior for leagues that started earlier)

Zeev Buium

Buium went scoreless in his first game but scored a goal and an assist in his 2nd NHL game last night. Though he went -4, that doesn’t exactly tell the whole story. While he was on the ice for 4 goals against, he was also on the ice for 4 powerplay goals for, but of course, those don’t count towards +/-. He hasn’t been amazing defensively, but when it comes to offense, Zeev Buium has been stellar and is a big part in the Wild leading the league in powerplay percentage so far in the season.

Sam Rinzel

Rinzel scored a goal last night and has probably been the best defenseman on the Blackhawks, leading the entire team in ATOI with an average of 23:26 after 3 games. The team has struggled mightily early on which will hold back from Rinzel’s ability to produce, but if he continues playing how he’s been playing, the production should come. 

Arseny Gritsyuk

Gritsyuk started the season off on the 4th line after showing chemistry with Cotter in the preseason, but despite not playing terribly, wasn’t able to produce. Gritsyuk was moved up to the 3rd line and immediately showed very good chemistry with Connor Brown, assisting on Brown’s two goals. Gritsyuk played a great game and has already shown how his game translates to the NHL game.

Emmitt Finnie

The Red Wings played a terrible game to start the season, but Finnie was hardly responsible for what occurred, so he remained on the top line for game two and scored his first NHL point with an assist on a Lucas Raymond goal. Finnie plays hard, fast, and has shown that he has a very high hockey IQ. If he can continue to play the game he played last night, he could have 40 point potential. As a 20 year old 7th round pick, any positive progress at all is a huge win in my eyes. 

Lynden Lakovic 

Lakovic missed the first few games of the WHL season but hasn’t missed a beat since his return, scoring 5 goals and 2 assists for 7 points in 6 games so far.

Spencer Knight

Knight is 0-2-0 so far with a terrible Blackhawks team, but he has done a tremendous job putting up a .908 save percentage despite a 3.03 GAA. The Hawks defense is incredibly young and will make a lot of mistakes this season, and so far, Knight has proven that the team can rely on him when they do.

Marco Kasper

Yesterday, in a press conference, the Red Wings coach Todd McLellan said that he sees shades of Zetterberg in Kasper’s game, and it’s easy to make those comments myself, but when the actual head coach says that, it’s hard not to get excited. Kasper scored the goal that gave the Red Wings the momentum to mount a comeback and eventually win the game 6-3.

Igor Chernyshov

Chernyshov was unable to make the Sharks’ starting roster after a disappointing training camp, but put up 2 assists on goals by Bystedt and Musty in his first AHL game this season, a 7-6 win. 

Arvid Drott

Selected at 139th in the past draft, Drott has gotten off to a great start in the U20 Swedish league putting up 6 goals and 2 assists in 7 games. He leads the team in goals and has double the goals of anyone else on the team individually. 

Dmitri Buchelnikov

It was a rough start to the season for Buchelnikov who put up just 1 assist in his first 9 games. Since then, however, he has exploded offensively scoring 5 goals and 3 assists in his last 5 games.