Of course. (Photo: Eliot J. Schechter)
The Capitals have won a point or more in 7 of their last 10 games. How they have done that despite some really funky starts, some holey goaltending, retreating puck possession, and Mike Green’s singularity of awfulness is beyond me.
Wait, no it’s not. Alex Ovechkin went buckwild on special teams, Grubauer did some sturdy work in relief of Holtby, and the defense all of a sudden started scoring. It was an exciting week, if not reassuring.
So in the short term: a great 7 days for the Capitals. They still have second place in the division, and those games were fun to watch. In the longview, some stuff needs fixing ’cause winning like that can’t last forever. And with some big questions about talent evaluation about to pop up– like in the next hour, I think we’re about to learn a lot about what makes the Caps tick.
These are the numbers as of noon on Sunday, December 15th. Ten shopping days until Christmas. My sample is all 5-on-5 play while the score is close. That means within one goal in the first two periods and tied in the third. That way special teams, blowouts, and comebacks don’t color the data. Stats of note are highlighted in powderpuff pink and discussed below.
See previous snapshots: week 1, week 2, week 3, week 4, week 5, week 6, week 7, week 8, week 9, week 10
Player | Pos | GP | TOI | GF | GA | SA% | Sh% | Sv% | PDO | ZS% |
Brooks Laich | C | 25 | 194.5 | 4 | 7 | 40.3% | 5.6% | 93.8% | 99.4 | 47.6% |
Marcus Johansson | C | 32 | 260.8 | 8 | 12 | 48.3% | 6.6% | 91.4% | 98 | 55.3% |
Mikhail Grabovski | C | 32 | 250.4 | 13 | 11 | 47.3% | 10.3% | 92.5% | 102.8 | 50.7% |
Nicklas Backstrom | C | 32 | 272.1 | 10 | 11 | 48.7% | 6.7% | 93.3% | 100 | 58.5% |
Alex Ovechkin | L | 30 | 264.2 | 7 | 11 | 49.8% | 4.8% | 93% | 97.8 | 60.3% |
Jason Chimera | L | 32 | 240.2 | 13 | 15 | 47.5% | 10.2% | 89.1% | 99.3 | 44.1% |
Eric Fehr | R | 23 | 162.1 | 5 | 10 | 51.3% | 6.4% | 87.8% | 94.2 | 49.7% |
Joel Ward | R | 32 | 228.8 | 10 | 14 | 50.2% | 8.3% | 88.4% | 96.8 | 45.9% |
Martin Erat | R | 29 | 192.9 | 7 | 8 | 49.5% | 7.9% | 92.5% | 100.3 | 49.5% |
Tom Wilson | R | 32 | 132.1 | 5 | 5 | 39.5% | 10.2% | 93.3% | 103.5 | 53.6% |
Troy Brouwer | R | 32 | 235.7 | 7 | 8 | 41.7% | 8% | 94.1% | 102.2 | 51.1% |
Michael Latta | C | 16 | 63.1 | 3 | 4 | 48% | 10.7% | 87.9% | 98.6 | 48.4% |
Aaron Volpatti | L | 25 | 106.2 | 3 | 4 | 37.4% | 7.3% | 93.3% | 100.7 | 48.9% |
Jay Beagle | C | 12 | 59 | 1 | 2 | 40.0% | 4.5% | 93.5% | 98.1 | 50.9% |
Player | Pos | GP | TOI | GF | GA | SA% | Sh% | Sv% | PDO | ZS% |
Nate Schmidt | D | 28 | 270.8 | 12 | 10 | 51.4% | 8.6% | 93.1% | 101.6 | 55.3% |
Alexander Urbom | D | 20 | 145.1 | 6 | 8 | 42.1% | 10.3% | 91% | 101.4 | 50.8% |
John Carlson | D | 32 | 308.6 | 12 | 18 | 43.7% | 8.5% | 90.5% | 98.9 | 49.6% |
Karl Alzner | D | 32 | 316.8 | 12 | 11 | 44.2% | 8.4% | 93.9% | 102.3 | 50.6% |
Mike Green | D | 29 | 310.6 | 8 | 11 | 51.6% | 5.1% | 93% | 98.1 | 56.6% |
Steve Oleksy | D | 23 | 187.7 | 12 | 8 | 47% | 13% | 92% | 105 | 49.7% |
Dmitry Orlov | D | 6 | 53 | 0 | 4 | 50% | 0% | 86.2% | 86.2 | 38.8% |
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