Which Caps Bobbleheads Are Coming in 2015-16? A Statistical Breakdown

Will Marcus Johansson finally get a bobblehead? (Caps Outsider)Another blood drive has come and gone and now one more Caps player, Brooks Orpik, is forever immortalized in bobblehead form. This brings an end to this season’s blood drives but it’s never to early to look ahead as, according to Inova Blood Donor Services, the next bobblehead is already in production. Although there is no set date for the next drive, we can confirm that it will take place in November.
Sadly, this is the only information regarding the next blood drive and bobblehead giveaway. However, we can still speculate as to what who we think the next bobblehead will be and who is the most deserving Caps player to be given away in bobblehead form. If you take a look at the chart below of potential lines for next season, we’ve detailed which players have received bobbleheads while on the Caps, while not on the Caps, and those without bobbleheads.

Let’s take a look at the players who have yet to receive a bobblehead of themselves from any team. We have Andre Burakovsky, Evgeny Kuznetsov, Marcus Johansson, Michael Latta, Dmitry Orlov, Nate Schmidt, and we also threw in Stan Galiev as the 13th man. Below we broke down some basic statistics from each of these players and the one clear stand out in Johansson. He has played almost as many games and has more points than all the other bobbleheadless players combined. However, he just continues to get overlooked for new players, such as Matt Niskanen and Orpik, as well as younger players, such as Tom Wilson.

Kuznetsov and Orlov played the most games with the Caps behind Mojo. So statistically speaking, three of the four clear standouts for next bobbleheads would be Johansson, Orlov, and Kuznetsov with a more unclear tie for fourth between Nate Schmidt, Burakovsky, and Latta. We think Galiev has a better shot at a bobblehead in Hershey this season.
However, players aren’t being picked based on their contribution to the team but more by their fan favorite status. That includes TJ Oshie, who hasn’t even played a game yet. He, Justin Williams, and Philipp Grubauer have already received bobbleheads from different teams but of the new guys we wouldn’t count them out just yet.

In a perfect world every single player would get a bobblehead by the end of the season but that seems like quite a stretch at this point. Also note that if the Kids Club makes one of these guys into a bobblehead, then that narrows down the choices even further. Luckily however, Inova has gotten a jump start on the next Caps bobble so we wouldn’t expect in to be MIA at the drive in November.
Check back for any updates on blood drive dates and bobblehead releases as the season draws closer!