Joffrey wins it. Someone get him some wine. (Photo: Graig Abel)
In last week’s snapshot I said the Caps were facing down a gauntlet in their next four games. The Caps lost 3 of those 4 games. While Alex Ovechkin is doing incredible things and working on what could be a historic season, the team as a whole doesn’t seem to be able to beat the league’s best teams reliably.
In an effort to turn that around, Adam Oates tried a few moves. After a failed attempt to solve the “black hole” line (Troy Brouwer, Brooks Laich, and an unsuspecting victim) by putting Erat at center, he decided to just break it up altogether. That certainly worked against the Leafs and resulting in the Caps dominating puck possession, though I have a feeling the Hershey Bears could have won the possession game against Toronto on Saturday.
It’s likely the team’s fortunes have not changed much this week. Let’s find out why.
These are the numbers as of noon on Sunday, November 24th. My sample doesn’t include power play or penalty kill situations– 5-on-5 play while the score is close only. That eliminates the effects of blowouts and comebacks and lets us know how games get to be blowouts in the first place. Stats of note are highlighted in a cutesy pink and discussed below.
See previous snapshots: week 1, week 2, week 3, week 4, week 5, week 6, week 7
Player | Pos | GP | TOI | GF | GA | SA% | Sh% | Sv% | PDO | ZS% |
Brooks Laich | C | 24 | 186.5 | 3 | 7 | 39.9% | 4.5% | 93.5% | 98 | 47.8% |
Marcus Johansson | C | 24 | 192.4 | 8 | 8 | 44.3% | 9.8% | 92.5% | 102.3 | 56.1% |
Mikhail Grabovski | C | 24 | 184.6 | 11 | 8 | 47% | 11.5% | 92.7% | 104.1 | 50.4% |
Nicklas Backstrom | C | 24 | 202.8 | 10 | 7 | 47.1% | 9.1% | 94.5% | 103.6 | 59.9% |
Alex Ovechkin | L | 22 | 192.1 | 7 | 7 | 46.2% | 6.7% | 94.6% | 101.2 | 63% |
Jason Chimera | L | 24 | 180.9 | 10 | 13 | 47.6% | 10.4% | 87.6% | 98 | 45% |
Eric Fehr | R | 15 | 98.4 | 2 | 7 | 53.1% | 4.4% | 83.3% | 87.8 | 48.5% |
Joel Ward | R | 24 | 171 | 8 | 12 | 51.5% | 8.6% | 86.5% | 95.1 | 47.4% |
Martin Erat | R | 23 | 152.7 | 5 | 6 | 49.8% | 7.2% | 92.6% | 99.8 | 53.2% |
Tom Wilson | R | 24 | 99 | 3 | 4 | 48.2% | 7.1% | 90.7% | 97.8 | 59% |
Troy Brouwer | R | 24 | 176.8 | 5 | 5 | 39.4% | 8.9% | 94.8% | 103.7 | 49.8% |
Michael Latta | R | 14 | 54 | 2 | 4 | 54.7% | 7.4% | 83.3% | 90.7 | 51.7% |
Player | Pos | GP | TOI | GF | GA | SA% | Sh% | Sv% | PDO | ZS% |
Nate Schmidt | D | 20 | 193.4 | 6 | 6 | 52.3% | 6.3% | 93.8% | 100 | 54.8% |
Alexander Urbom | D | 18 | 134.9 | 6 | 7 | 44.1% | 10.5% | 91% | 101.6 | 51.2% |
John Carlson | D | 24 | 224.1 | 9 | 11 | 44.4% | 9% | 91.7% | 100.7 | 52.7% |
Karl Alzner | D | 24 | 232.3 | 11 | 10 | 43.5% | 10.6% | 92.6% | 103.2 | 52% |
Mike Green | D | 21 | 222.9 | 6 | 10 | 51.4% | 5.4% | 91.2% | 96.6 | 57% |
Steve Oleksy | D | 20 | 162.3 | 10 | 8 | 46% | 12.3% | 91.1% | 103.5 | 48.4% |
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