Week 3 Snapshot: Patience, My Young Padawan

I don’t like this angle because you can’t see Schmidt’s smile. (Photo: Scott Iskowitz)

The Caps aren’t winning the game they’re supposed to. They’re playing the right way on a pattern level, but a few turnovers here and bad bounces there have led them to a winless week. That stinks, and it’s definitely causing some dissension in Caps fan ranks.

But the team is gonna be alright. The Caps are still doing the big stuff right. There’s cause for mild alarm in a few places, but this is still a playoff team. I’m confident about that.

The snapshot shows us numbers that help us project future success better than just goals or the team’s position in the standings. Those projections still look good. This is a challenge not of the team’s constitution, but of the fans. Do we have the nerve to stay calm? I think so, and here are some numbers that’ll help us do so.

Previous snapshots: week 1, week 2

Let’s do the numbers. These are current as of noon on Sunday, November 2nd. The sample is restricted to 5v5 hockey when the score is close. I added this sentence just to see if anyone reads this paragraph anymore. That means the score is within one goal in the first two periods and tied in the third. There’s a glossary at bottom with an explanatory video.

Forwards

Defense

Observations

• The Caps outshoot their opponents 55.6 to 44.4 during close games, the third highest ratio in the league, and yet they lost every game this week. Some folks last night said, “Eff Corsi, we need wins.” But shot-attempt differential does a better job predicting future wins, and the list of teams that finished a season in the last 4 years (exluding the lockout) within 1 percentage of the Caps’ current possession go like this: 2014 Hawks, 2012 Blues, 2012 Penguins, 2011 Sharks, 2014 Sharks. That is good company. Stand fast, Caps fans.
• Another week for Mike Green. Another week of solid play and great underlying stats. Also another week closer to his contract expiring. It’s time to start talking. Out of the 165 defenders with 100 5v5 minutes played, Green improves his team’s puck possession better than all but one (Detroit’s Jakob Kindl). Green’s also getting more power-play time this week (smart move), and I liked how he played one odd-man rush in particular last night. Nothing not to love except his pending UFA status. If the Caps wanna keep this going for years to come– and they should– it’s time to talk dollars.
• Andre Burakovsky is the real deal (56.2 percent on-ice shot-attempt percentage), but he’s getting really cozy zone starts (68.3 offensive zone starts). I keep wondering if normalization is coming for him, and though he still hasn’t faced tough assignments I’m starting to doubt it will. He’s just good. Even Mike Babcock agrees.
• Nick Backstrom is getting smoked on goals (25 percent on-ice goal percentage). He’s been outscored 6 to 2 during close games at 5v5, which means absolutely nothing except that he’s a bit unlucky so far. Alex Ovechkin from 2013-14 feels his pain, which brings up another point.
• Backstrom and Alex Ovechkin must play together. They outshoot the opponent with 62.5 percent of the shot attempts during 5v5, but they’re both in the red (sub-50 percent) when apart. This is a no-brainer. Tim Barnes, where you at?
• Welcome to the snapshot, Jay Beagle. Chris Brown and Liam O’Brien have been removed, though I think we’ll see O’Brien again. He should get a sweater instead of Tom Wilson on Sunday night.
• Michael Latta‘s sample size is still a few games smaller than the pack, but he looks terrific (62.8 shot-attempt percentage). There is genuine fourth-line heat coming from him, and he might have even have a future in the top nine– perhaps between the twins? I’m very pleased with Latta. Last season I had a conversation with a Caps employee who projected that Latta could even fill in on the top six in a pinch, and I scoffed at him. It looks like that guy was right and I was wrong. I’m happy to be wrong.
• Jason Chimera has become our first snapshot member to drop below 50-percent in on-ice shot-attempt differential (SA%). If he sticks with Kuznetsov and Eric “Call me Bacon Bits because I make everything better” Fehr on the third line, I think he’ll bounce back up by next weekend.
• Why did Eric Fehr get scratched? I asked twitter if anyone could point to something specific he did to earn it. No one gave me anything. All Trotz would say is “he doesn’t have the puck enough” and “he’s watching the game more than he needs to.” Except Fehr’s possession stats (SA%) are stellar and he’s attempting shots more than anyone on the team except Alex Ovechkin. Obviously coaches see things I can’t, but Fehr is undeniably bacon bits, y’all.
• Poor Karl Alzner. Just 12.5 percent of the goals he’s been on the ice for during 5v5 in close games have belonged to the Caps. That crummy luck actually goes a long way to explaining the Caps’ woeful record this week. In my opinion, Alzner hasn’t ever looked better. He’ll be fine.

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.