“It’s not my first rodeo” – Evgeny Kuznetsov. (Caps Outsider)
Evgeny Kuznetsov netted his 20th goal of the season on Wednesday, becoming the sixth Cap on the roster to score 20 or more goals. Nick Backstrom has 18 and could easily join the 20-goal crew, which would give the Caps seven members, the most they’ve had since the high-flying 2009-10 season.
If Backstrom gets his 20th, it will be the sixth time the Caps hit that number.
Their best season for that stat? That would be 1992-1993, when they had nine. That 20-goal crew included Peter Bondra, Kevin Hatcher, Dmitri Khristich, Mike Ridley, Al Iafrate, Pat Elynuik, Michal Pivonka, Sylvain Cote and Dale Hunter. In fact, Kelly Miller was just two off from being the tenth.
What’s interesting about this is it includes three defensemen, yet the the Caps have only had D-men score 20 or more 11 times in their history. Larry Murphy, Kevin Hatcher, and Sergei Gonchar each did it twice. Mike Green was the last to do it, scoring 31, just three short of Hatcher’s team record for a defenseman.
Alex Ovechkin accomplished this 14 times, followed by Bondra who did it 13 times. Gartner did it 10 times with the Caps.
Check out the chart below. Not surprisingly, the numbers peaked in the bad-goalie 1980s before plummeting in the offensively-challenged 90s.
| Season | Players | High | |
| 1974 | 1975 | 2 | 22 |
| 1975 | 1976 | 2 | 26 |
| 1976 | 1977 | 3 | 36 |
| 1977 | 1978 | 2 | 38 |
| 1978 | 1979 | 6 | 31 |
| 1979 | 1980 | 4 | 36 |
| 1980 | 1981 | 6 | 50 |
| 1981 | 1982 | 6 | 60 |
| 1982 | 1983 | 7 | 38 |
| 1983 | 1984 | 7 | 40 |
| 1984 | 1985 | 5 | 53 |
| 1985 | 1986 | 7 | 41 |
| 1986 | 1987 | 6 | 41 |
| 1987 | 1988 | 4 | 48 |
| 1988 | 1989 | 5 | 42 |
| 1989 | 1990 | 5 | 41 |
| 1990 | 1991 | 6 | 24 |
| 1991 | 1992 | 7 | 38 |
| 1992 | 1993 | 9 | 37 |
| 1993 | 1994 | 4 | 29 |
| *1994 | 1995 | 1 | 34 |
| 1995 | 1996 | 2 | 52 |
| 1996 | 1997 | 1 | 46 |
| 1997 | 1998 | 1 | 52 |
| 1998 | 1999 | 2 | 31 |
| 1999 | 2000 | 2 | 29 |
| 2000 | 2001 | 3 | 45 |
| 2001 | 2002 | 4 | 39 |
| 2002 | 2003 | 3 | 36 |
| 2003 | 2004 | 2 | 29 |
| 2005 | 2006 | 4 | 52 |
| 2006 | 2007 | 4 | 46 |
| 2007 | 2008 | 3 | 65 |
| 2008 | 2009 | 5 | 56 |
| 2009 | 2010 | 7 | 50 |
| 2010 | 2011 | 3 | 32 |
| 2011 | 2012 | 3 | 38 |
| *2012 | 2013 | 1 | 32 |
| 2013 | 2014 | 3 | 51 |
| 2014 | 2015 | 3 | 53 |
| 2015 | 2016 | 6 | 50 |
| 2016 | 2017 | 5 | 33 |
| 2017 | 2018 | 3 | 49 |
| 2018 | 2019 | 6 | 48 |
*48 games
