Week 1 Snapshot: Good Things are Coming Our Way

They are all smiles. We are all smiles. (Photo: Patrick McDermott)

Welcome back, everybody! This is the Sunday Snapshot, where we take a peek at how players performed when the game was on the line. Here’s how it works.

For each player, I’ll dump a bunch of stats about what happened he was on the ice– possession, scoring, and deployment– during the last week. I’ll highlight in “powderpuff pink” (I didn’t name it) the stuff that jumps out at me, and then I’ll discuss them below.

If this were last season, I’d also be a cranky jerk and you guys would have to cheer me up in the comments. As you’ll see below, that is no longer the case. The Capitals are pretty damn good again. They’re 3-0-2 with positive possession, a deep defense, and a top line that should terrify the rest of the league. This is going to be fun.

If you need a refresher on these statistics, I made a video that might be helpful.

Usually I put a song in here to sum up the mood of the week, so here’s “Good Things” by Rival Schools.

Because, yeah, good things really are coming our way.

Now, finally, let’s do the numbers. These are current as of noon on Sunday, October 19th. The sample of the data is restricted to 5v5 hockey when the score is close. That means the score is within one goal in the first two periods and tied in the third. There’s a glossary at bottom.

Forwards

Defense

Observations

• The Capitals have played 230 minutes of 5v5 so far this season. 140 of those minutes were played with the score close, which comprises our sample. That’s not a lot of data, so we’re not going to be drawing strong conclusions today. You’ll notice that the player’s goal percentages are mostly half, two-thirds, and three-quarters; that’s because most players haven’t been on the ice for more than four goals during 5v5 close. We’re just getting started, but as long as we keep that in mind, let’s proceed.
• The Capitals have owned 52.7 percent of shot attempts during close games, good for 11th in the league. Their possession number during 5v5 in general is about the same. Anything above 48 would have made me do the dance of joy last season, so I’m basically in love right now.
• Alex Ovechkin is outshooting (SA% or shot-attempt percentage) and outscoring (Goal%) his opponents during 5v5. He’s getting deployed in the offensive zone (ZS%) where he’s more likely to score. And you’ve seen him– he looks great at both ends of the ice. If you had a low projection and a high projection for how Ovi might do this season, start leaning towards the latter.
• Ignore Michael Latta at the top of the forwards list. He played fewer than three minutes inside our sample for a grand total of three shot attempts in either direction. I kept him on here to illustrate how flimsy the data can be this early in the season and because I really like him as a player, but for now he’s just noise. Same with Jack Hillen.
• Matt Niskanen rules. I don’t have any analysis here; I just want to go on record to say that he rules. Remember that mistake he made in the season’s first five games? That one mistake? Me neither. (Hyperbole, but I really do think Nisky rules. Have I mentioned that yet?)
• I put Brooks Orpik‘s entire row in powderpuff pink not because he was bad, but because everyone who reads this was going to gravitate towards him and what I say about him anyway. If we are looking for evidence of Orpik sucking, we do not have it. Despite going against the best the Caps’ opponents had to offer, Orpik was only marginally outshot when the game was on the line, and he was not outscored at all. We saw a not-so-great outing from him on Tuesday, but nothing to freak out about. I’m gonna keep an eye on this, but it’s up to his performance to lead the way here–and not my reflexively skeptical attitude about his contract.
• Now John Carlson, on the other hand, appears to be suffering from his pairing with Orpik. This is sort of inevitable. If Orpik performs to expectations (my expectations) and he gets used against the opponent’s top lines, his partner will struggle in possession and boxcar stats alike. That might be a good thing for the team as a whole, but if you’ve got Carlson in fantasy you should consider dumping him.
• Andre Burakovsky has been the season’s biggest surprise. I like everything I’ve seen from him so far, but I’ve got two concerns in the back of my head. The first is what will happen to the second line if Brooks Laich (who had been excellent so far) misses game time from that hit on Saturday. Evgeny Kuznetsov might fill in (more on him below), which I suspect would result in a net loss in possession. Also, Burakovsky is getting some pretty cozy zone starts (ZS%), starting way more shifts in the offensive zone than the defensive zone. Saturday saw Burakovsky’s scoring streak end; how will he do facing real adversity next week?
• The fourth line just kind of stinks. They’re getting plopped out with very, very favorable zone starts (76.9 percent in the offensive zone for Evgeny Kuznetsov), and yet they’re still getting plowed with sub-50-percent possession (SA%). It’s clear by now that Barry Trotz doesn’t really trust that line to eat up significant ice time (Brown cracked 10 minutes only in the blowout win over New Jersey). To me it appears that the fourth line is the most inclined to dump the puck (no surprise there), and I think that’s probably a deliberate coaching decision– perhaps based on the talent on that line. Is this a roster problem? Are Brown and O’Brien up to the task? Is Latta? More frighteningly: is Evgeny Kuznetsov capable of carrying a line during 5v5? I bet we’ll see the lineups tweaked next week, and the imminent returns of Jay Beagle and Tom Wilson might shake up this fourth line significantly.
• The Twins, Jason Chimera and Joel Ward, are fun to watch, but they’re not outshooting or outscoring their opponents inside our sample. That might be okay for a third line deployed to match up against the opposition’s best talent. But if they can do that without Eric Fehr, who has been impeccable through five games, that’d probably be preferable. That said, I really enjoy the look Troy Brouwer gave the top line this week. This is a good problem to have. There’s a lot of good problems going around right now. Gee, it sure is tough to be us.

Road trip next week through the bad parts of Canada. By rights the Caps should have six standings points and look like superhumans by this time next week. Let’s enjoy it.

Glossary

• 5v5 Close. Our sample. The portions of games when each team has five skaters and the score is within one goal in the first two periods and tied during the third.
• GP. Games played.
• TOI. Time on ice. The amount of time that player played during 5v5 close.
• SA%. Shot-attempt percentage, a measurement for puck possession. The share of shot attempts that the player’s team got while he was on the ice. Also known as Fenwick. Above 50 percent is good.
• Goal%. Goal percentage. The share of goals that the player’s team got while he was on the ice. Above 50 percent is good.
• PDO. A meaningless acronym. The sum of a player’s on-ice shooting percentage and his goalies’ on-ice save percentage. Above 100 means the player is getting fortunate results that may reflected in goal%.
• ZS%. Offensive zone start percentage. Excluding neutral-zone starts, the share of shifts that the player starts in the offensive zone, nearer to the opponent’s net.

Thanks to War On Ice for the stats.