WASHINGTON — The Capitals aren’t going to win eight out of every 11 games, which is exactly how they started the season. Do that, and they would finish with 119 points, which almost certainly would make them the best team in the NHL. No one, even amid this wildly encouraging start, is saying they’re the best team in the NHL.

But what makes this early stretch feel sustainable — what makes it feel real — is that an overhauled roster has identified the way it needs to play. Which means when the bumps in the ice inevitably arrive — in December or January or starting Wednesday night against the Nashville Predators — they won’t be grasping for a solution. They already know it.

“We’ve put together enough showings of exactly — exactly — how we want it to look,” second-year coach Spencer Carbery said. “And what that does is it creates two things. One is confidence. Guys are feeling good. And then it creates buy-in. Everybody is on the same page because they know: ‘Hey, this works. Let’s stick to this. Here’s what we need to do. Here’s what we need it to look like. Let’s repeat it.’”

Such a difference from a year ago. Last season, every Capitals game was a Rubik’s Cube. So frequently, they couldn’t solve it. Even when they did, it took as much luck as logic.

This year, their games are eight-clue crossword puzzles: easy, fun, rewarding. Each leaves you wanting to get to the next one — fast.

The easily identifiable difference is offense. Suddenly, it doesn’t take Venus aligning with Mercury and Pluto in retrograde to score a few goals. Rather, they’re expected. That’s a difference on the score sheet, sure. It’s also a difference in psyche.

“What’s guys’ confidence like when, after 10 games, you’re scoring one or two goals a game as a team?” said defenseman John Carlson, now in his — checks notes — 16th season with the Caps. “It’s tough on a team. There’s mental wear and tear.”

Now, that wear and tear is replaced by — it’s early, yes, but this feels accurate — a swagger. In their first 11 games of last season, the Caps scored more than three goals once. They finished the season ranked 28th at 2.63 goals per game. It was, at times, painful to watch.

Through 11 games this season, the Caps have scored more than three goals seven times. Entering Tuesday, they sat third in the NHL at 4.18 goals per game. (That’s an improvement of a goal and a half per game!) They are, on a nightly basis, a joy to watch.

Which is important in producing digestible hockey. It’s also important in staying competitive over the season’s first month and change in what looks to be a hotly contested Metropolitan Division. It’s even more important in providing a foundation they can fall back on.

“If you want to provide a blueprint, whether it’s now or at the end of the year, that you can look back on and say, ‘Hey, this was a winning brand of hockey,’ we have it,” Carlson said. “Was it hard to play against? What did it look like offensively? You want those reps on film, and you want them in your head, so you know what to get back to.”

This is all possible because, almost to a man, the new additions made by the hockey operations department led by Brian MacLellan and Chris Patrick — the former being the general manager since bumped up to team president, the latter being his onetime assistant who inherited his former job — have fit sublimely.

The big bet on highly touted but well-traveled center Pierre-Luc Dubois might not be showing up much on the stat sheet — he has just one goal and five assists. But Dubois has given Carbery far more flexibility than the man he replaced: the perpetually mailing-it-in Evgeny Kuznetsov.

The coach now can match up Dubois’ line — he plays between Connor McMichael and Tom Wilson — with the opponent’s top line. That gives the extremely productive fourth line of Nic Dowd and newcomers Brandon Duhaime and Taylor Raddysh more room to scrap for offense — which they have, with eight goals between them.

“We’re getting really balanced scoring,” Dowd said. “It’s been a really good mixture.”

Each newcomer — including third-line winger Andrew Mangiapane and defenseman Jakob Chychrun — feels perfectly slotted into his spot. That’s even before fellow newbie Matt Roy returns, probably Wednesday, from an injury suffered in the first period of the first game. Throw in significant advances by forwards McMichael and Aliaksei Protas — both still 23 — and there’s a formula here that works.

A team with this many new faces, skill sets and habits should be taking time to round into form. This one has roared into form, going 8-3-0 with clean victories over Stanley Cup contenders Vegas, Dallas and the New York Rangers. That makes it easier for every single player to not only accept his role but excel in it.

“To say on a professional club that everybody that’s currently playing is excited to be where they’re playing, that doesn’t happen often, right?” Dowd said. “Obviously, all of us want more minutes, more time on special teams, more responsibility. That’s never going to change. But we have a really good mixture of players that are excited to be where they are, and that just allows them to play better and have more confidence.”

A couple of other developments factor into all of this. For the first time in three seasons, the Capitals aren’t wondering whether stalwarts Nicklas Backstrom and T.J. Oshie could be in the lineup consistently and, when they were in there, whether they could be effective. On a personal level, it’s a shame that both have succumbed to injury. It’s highly unlikely either will play again. That’s tough.

From a roster-building perspective, the clarity is absolutely freeing. The lineup is set. The skill sets can be maximized. The identity is developed.

Oh, and Alex Ovechkin is … productive?

“Everybody know what we have to do exactly,” the old man said.