Photo: Patrick McDermott
In 2004, the DC band Beauty Pill released an album called The Unsustainable Lifestyle on Dischord. It’s a great record, but it can tend to bum you out. The band seems to be aware of all this stuff wrong with the world that you might otherwise not be aware of. If you don’t listen to the album, you might think everything is okay.
So feel free to skip this week’s snapshot.
The Capitals played only two games this week thanks to the holiday. They split the pair, but they could have won both had they not given up a two-goal lead to Anaheim on the 23rd. That’s the party line at least. In truth the Capitals got dramatically outplayed in both games they played. That they held a temporary lead over the Ducks and snuck out with a win over the Rangers is thanks to some of the most unreliable stats in our sport: shooting percentage and save percentage. The more stable numbers describe a Capitals team that is about to lose games– a lot of of them, and badly– unless something changes.
These are the numbers as of noon on Sunday, December 29th. Our sample is 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, week 11, week 12
But first:
Player | Pos | GP | TOI | GF | GA | SA% | Sh% | Sv% | PDO | ZS% |
Brooks Laich | C | 26 | 201.4 | 4 | 8 | 40.4% | 5.5% | 93.2% | 98.6 | 48.4% |
Marcus Johansson | C | 38 | 322.2 | 9 | 16 | 48.4% | 6.1% | 90.5% | 96.6 | 54.5% |
Mikhail Grabovski | C | 36 | 294.7 | 15 | 11 | 47.5% | 10.3% | 93.5% | 103.7 | 49.8% |
Nicklas Backstrom | C | 38 | 337.7 | 11 | 15 | 48.2% | 6.2% | 92.4% | 98.6 | 57.2% |
Alex Ovechkin | L | 36 | 331.7 | 7 | 15 | 48.7% | 4% | 92.3% | 96.3 | 58.7% |
Jason Chimera | L | 38 | 304.9 | 15 | 17 | 43.8% | 10.2% | 90.8% | 101 | 43.2% |
Eric Fehr | R | 29 | 221.1 | 8 | 11 | 48.8% | 7.9% | 90.4% | 98.4 | 48.2% |
Joel Ward | R | 38 | 291 | 12 | 16 | 46.7% | 8.5% | 90.3% | 98.8 | 44.8% |
Martin Erat | R | 35 | 252.2 | 10 | 10 | 47.6% | 8.7% | 93% | 101.7 | 48.2% |
Tom Wilson | R | 38 | 168.4 | 6 | 5 | 39.1% | 10.7% | 94.3% | 105 | 54.6% |
Troy Brouwer | R | 38 | 289.8 | 10 | 9 | 42.3% | 9.3% | 94.4% | 103.8 | 50% |
Michael Latta | C | 17 | 67.6 | 3 | 4 | 48.1% | 10.3% | 88.2% | 98.6 | 48.5% |
Aaron Volpatti | L | 30 | 137.6 | 3 | 4 | 34.6% | 6.7% | 94.7% | 101.3 | 48.6% |
Jay Beagle | C | 18 | 104.1 | 1 | 2 | 36.8% | 3.2% | 96.2% | 99.5 | 50% |
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% |
John Erskine | D | 13 | 129.9 | 6 | 7 | 46.7% | 10.3% | 90% | 100.3 | 44% |
John Carlson | D | 38 | 383.4 | 12 | 22 | 42.6% | 7.1% | 90.4% | 97.5 | 48.6% |
Karl Alzner | D | 38 | 392.8 | 12 | 15 | 43.2% | 7.1% | 93.1% | 100.3 | 49.2% |
Mike Green | D | 35 | 395.1 | 10 | 13 | 49.3% | 5.2% | 93.7% | 98.9 | 55.3% |
Steve Oleksy | D | 29 | 247.7 | 16 | 9 | 46% | 14.5% | 93.2% | 107.8 | 49.5% |
Dmitry Orlov | D | 12 | 136.8 | 2 | 6 | 43.5% | 3.5% | 92.2% | 95.7 | 43.2% |
I know @JapersRink tweeted out 10-gm MA of #Caps FenwickClose% earlier. Here it is with Sv% (via @ExtraSkater) pic.twitter.com/P2zRgYJ9Qo
— Neil Greenberg (@ngreenberg) December 28, 2013
Russian Machine Never Breaks is not associated with the Washington Capitals; Monumental Sports, the NHL, or its properties. Not even a little bit.
All original content on russianmachineneverbreaks.com is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)– unless otherwise stated or superseded by another license. You are free to share, copy, and remix this content so long as it is attributed, done for noncommercial purposes, and done so under a license similar to this one.
Share On