Photo: Patrick McDermott
The Washington Capitals had four days off this week, during which the rest of the Metro started raking in standings points. Now the Caps are back in action, and they’re about to play one of the busiest parts of their schedule with nine games in the back half of January. That’s gonna be tough, and it’s only gonna get worse. After the Olympics, in March, the Caps’ opponents are almost all great teams. The end of the regular season will be a meatgrinder, so the team would be wise to grab every point they can now. Starting with Sunday. Starting with Buffalo.
Do the team’s lineup choices reflect a “win now” attitude? I’m leaning towards hell no, dude. With Connor Carrick getting some experimental shifts with John Erskine, a reconstituted Laich-Brouwer singularity, and the Aaron Volpatti > Martin Erat fiasco, there’s a whole lot of inefficiency on this Caps roster. You can interpret that as bitter criticism, but I think of it another way: this team can get better. That’s not so bleak, right?
There wasn’t a whole lot of action this week. The team played just two games– both awfully close– and most players got only around twenty minutes in our sample. Let’s delve.
These are the numbers as of noon on Sunday, January 12th. The sample is restricted to 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, week 13, week 14
Player | Pos | GP | TOI | GF | GA | SA% | Sh% | Sv% | PDO | ZS% |
Aaron Volpatti | L | 34 | 161.5 | 3 | 4 | 37.4% | 5.5% | 95.2% | 100.7 | 50.4% |
Alex Ovechkin | L | 42 | 400.9 | 12 | 16 | 49.3% | 5.4% | 93.1% | 98.5 | 57.7% |
Brooks Laich | C | 30 | 239.2 | 7 | 9 | 42.8% | 7.5% | 93.2% | 100.8 | 49.7% |
Eric Fehr | R | 35 | 288.4 | 11 | 13 | 51.6% | 7.4% | 91% | 98.4 | 48% |
Jason Chimera | L | 44 | 367.7 | 18 | 20 | 46.8% | 9.6% | 90.6% | 100.2 | 45.4% |
Jay Beagle | C | 24 | 141 | 2 | 3 | 42.2% | 4.1% | 95.4% | 99.5 | 51.8% |
Joel Ward | R | 44 | 353.2 | 16 | 19 | 48.9% | 8.9% | 90.3% | 99.2 | 46.9% |
Marcus Johansson | C | 44 | 383.7 | 12 | 17 | 49% | 6.7% | 91.4% | 98.2 | 53.2% |
Martin Erat | R | 39 | 287.4 | 11 | 13 | 48.9% | 8.1% | 91.8% | 100 | 49.5% |
Michael Latta | C | 17 | 67.6 | 3 | 4 | 48.1% | 10.3% | 88.2% | 98.6 | 48.5% |
Mikhail Grabovski | C | 42 | 362.8 | 19 | 12 | 50.1% | 9.5% | 94% | 103.6 | 49.4% |
Nicklas Backstrom | C | 44 | 405.1 | 13 | 17 | 49.7% | 6.1% | 92.5% | 98.6 | 56.2% |
Tom Wilson | R | 44 | 200.5 | 7 | 6 | 40.8% | 10.1% | 94.1% | 104.2 | 56.2% |
Troy Brouwer | R | 44 | 352.2 | 11 | 11 | 46.8% | 7.7% | 94% | 101.7 | 49.2% |
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 | 19 | 192.6 | 8 | 10 | 49% | 8.9% | 89.7% | 98.6 | 51.1% |
John Carlson | D | 44 | 457.4 | 15 | 24 | 44.4% | 7% | 91% | 98 | 49.3% |
Karl Alzner | D | 44 | 465.9 | 15 | 17 | 44.5% | 7.2% | 93.3% | 100.5 | 49.6% |
Mike Green | D | 41 | 484.3 | 15 | 16 | 52.2% | 6% | 93.5% | 99.4 | 54.2% |
Steve Oleksy | D | 33 | 293.8 | 18 | 11 | 47.5% | 13% | 92.8% | 105.7 | 52.2% |
Dmitry Orlov | D | 18 | 228.6 | 6 | 8 | 53.2% | 5% | 93% | 98 | 44.3% |
Laich – Backstrom – Brouwer
Fehr – Grabovski – Ovechkin
Chimera – Johansson – Ward
Volpatti – Beagle – Wilson
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