In what is sure to create a fad among SBN hockey blogs before the end of the season, J.P. over at Japers' Rink wrote a post detailing the Capitals players and how close they are to their career highs in goals, assists, and points. I know a good idea when I see one, and I figured the Penguins fans deserved a post like that of their own.
As with the Japers' Rink article, pluses indicate that a player has already surpassed his career high, and minuses means he hasn't reached the goal yet. The number indicates how far ahead or behind he is. Also, like the Japers' Rink post, this is for players who have been with the organization all year.
Let's get to it.
| Player | Goals | Assists | Points |
| Craig Adams | -10 | -4 | -13 |
| Matt Cooke | -2 | -13 | -15 |
| Sidney Crosby | +6 | -41 | -32 |
| Pascal Dupuis | -2 | -13 | -15 |
| Mark Eaton | -1 | +2 | +1 |
| Ruslan Fedotenko | -16 | -4 | -13 |
| Eric Godard | -2 | 0 | -2 |
| Alex Goligoski | +1 | +10 | +11 |
| Sergei Gonchar | -16 | -20 | -23 |
|
Bill Guerin |
-23 | -23 | -45 |
| Tyler Kennedy | -5 | -9 | -14 |
| Chris Kunitz | -14 | -17 | -31 |
| Kris Letang | -7 | +1 | -6 |
| Evgeni Malkin | -23 | -32 | -43 |
| Jay McKee | -4 | -4 | -7 |
| Brooks Orpik | -1 | +2 | +1 |
| Michael Rupp | +7 | -1 | +6 |
| Jordan Staal | -9 | 0 | -2 |
| Maxime Talbot | -12 | -10 | -21 |
Some of these numbers are perfectly understandable. I don't think anyone really expected Gonchar or Guerin to perform like young men again, although on some level I think many of us are finding Guerin's play underwhelming. But if you needed a reminder that Malkin hasn't been himself this year, his line on that table really puts it into clear focus just how off he's been all season. This is to say nothing about how little help Crosby has gotten; if I'd said before the season that Crosby would be over 40 assists off his career high with less than ten games remaining in the season, I'd have been run out on a rail. And yet, here we are, staring that ugly number in the face.
About the only players I see on this list who are right about where they should be are Letang (as goals from the defense depend a lot on luck), Kennedy (whose season has been shortened by injury), Goligoski, Eaton, and Orpik. Let's not get into the ramifications of expecting any sort of offensive production out of those last two.
As much as a lot of people like to hate on Goligoski lately, please take notice that his points per game this season (0.52) is much higher than last season (0.44) when he was the leading scorer on defense before he got shuttled back to the AHL. Furthermore, unlike last season, most of his production has come at even strength, the most valuable time in the game.