Week 14 Snapshot: What Does a Bad Goalie Look Like?

Photo: Glenn James

What do you make of a week like that one? The Caps split the week with two wins and two losses– winning over the bad teams and losing to the good teams. Are we to conclude that the Caps bullied the weak teams but couldn’t compete with the dominant possession teams?

And what about those defensive mistakes that cost the Caps both games this weekend? Matt Niskanen’s giveaway lost the game on Friday, and a half dozen blown assignments lost the game on Saturday. What even does “defense” means in a game like hockey where players transition from attacking to defending in the blink of an eye?

And what can we conclude about back-up goalie Justin Peters based on last night’s game?

In this week’s snapshot, we cut the game in half and question everything, because what do we really know anyway?

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

Let’s do the numbers. These are current as noon on Sunday, January 18th. The sample is restricted to 5v5 hockey when the score is within one goal. There’s a glossary at bottom with an explanatory video.

Forwards

Defense

Observations

• The Caps beat two mediocre teams this week (Philadelphia, Colorado) and lost to two pretty good teams (Nashville, Dallas). Looking at wins and losses alone, the week was not inspiring, but I think the Caps played pretty good hockey overall. The team’s score-adjusted possession climbed from 51.7 percent to 52.3 percent— or from 13th in the league to 10th place. They arguably looked better against those good teams than the bad teams, aside from the defensive goofs that blew the weekend games. I’m not really bummed at all.
• Unsurprisingly Andre Burakovsky‘s on-ice unblocked shot attempt percentage (SA%, our measure for puck possession) has increased during his 7-game stint on the top line. The bigger question to me is whether or not he makes that line better. I think the jury is still out, but it’s possible. Nick Backstrom‘s 5v5 shot-attempt percentage increases from 53.2 to 56.3 when he’s joined by Burakovsky at wing, and Alex Ovechkin’s individual shot attempts seem to be up as well. I’m liking it, though you already know who I’d like there instead.
• On the topic of Ovi, I liked Neil Greenberg’s story for the Post about how opponents are getting fewer shot attempts while Alex Ovechkin is skating. That effects been happening for all forwards, but for Ovi more than others.

• Even Jay Beagle is getting shot on less! What I don’t know is if this is a sign on improved defense (or improved individual defense) or something else. It’s possible all these players are suppressing shots better simply because they’re on attack more often. Hockey, unlike baseball and football, has no clear delineation between defense and offense. Everyone’s doing both all the time. Let’s take at look at the offense now:

• It’s no shock that Tom Wilson has seen his offense explode since he got off that fourth line he was stuck on last season. Thing is, now that Wilson’s been on the fourth line for nine games, that number is starting to retreat. So much for Trotz’s “I don’t believe in young players not playing decent minutes” line; Wilson’s ice time as plummeted as Evgeny Kuznetsov’s (who has been terrific lately) have soared.

• Last note about those bar graphs above: Jason Chimera’s decline is shocking, but he’s only been outscored 16 to 15 so far during 5v5. I’m not confident we’ll see a change in Chimera’s status until it starts costing games. Based on how little ice time Chimera sees (11th out of the 12 regular forwards), he might not get outshot enough at 5v5 to cost a single win. So maybe we should just deal with it?
• Knowing me, I probably won’t. Chimmer is, as far as I can tell, the only forward who hasn’t noticeably improved in shot-attempt differential since Oates got fired. That says a lot to me.
• Jack Hillen sees the Capitals possess 49.8 percent of the unblocked shot attempts in our sample, the lowest non-Chimera number in the snapshot. His partner, Mike Green, has the highest number: 55.8 percent. Since Hillen was made Green’s de facto buddy as of  game 32 (at New Jersey on December 20th), Green has been made way less awesome. The Green D-pairing is no longer automatically better than the other two, and that’s a huge problem. I hope Nate Schmidt recovers soon, or that Dmitry Orlov’s wrist gets better soon, or that Steve Oleksy gets a crack at a game soon. Hillen isn’t cut out for this.

• I mentioned this in the game recap last night, but it bears repeating. Justin Peters wasn’t great in net last night, his eighth appearance for the Caps this season. But that game means almost nothing in the grand scheme. If we were to rank analytical techniques for goalie evaluation, picking a single game as emblematic of the player would be one of the worst. Retrospectively adjudicating which goals were “soft” and which he “should of had” as a proxy for blame would be only slightly better. Let’s all remember that the goalie behind the single worst game of the last two decades was Braden Holtby, who should be in the all-star game now. Peters’ lifetime save percentage isn’t awesome– it’s .900– but for his role and for his salary, he is not a bad goalie. Last night means almost nothing.
• Speaking of the ASG: No snapshot next weekend! Have a good one.

Glossary

• 5v5 Within 1. Our sample. The portions of games when each team has five skaters and the score is within one goal.
• 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 and being generally awesome.