Photo: Amanda Bowen

Ahoy, snapshot people! The season is almost a quarter of the way over (not to be confused with the quarter pole) and the Caps are trucking right along as one of the best teams in the league. As of the start of play on Sunday, the Caps 27 points (13-5-1) is good for fifth in the NHL.

The Caps score-adjusted shot-attempt percentage of 54 percent is tied for second, trailing only the Kings of Los Angeles. I could go on and on about how everything is turning up Caps so far this season, but I’ll let our friend Muneeb take the mic for a second.

https://twitter.com/muneebalamcu/status/668413407947849730

It’s a great time to be rooting for this team and it’s okay to want to party a little bit over how well they’ve played. I’m not planning a parade or anything, as the season is far from over and the playoffs are more a crapshoot than anything else. But, I’m saying it’s okay to listen to some Andrew WK to celebrate where the Caps are after 19 games.

Forwards

Defense

Observations

• There are three players who have not received their own snapshot bullet so far this season, so today we’re going to spread the love around by starting with the trio of Marcus Johansson, Alex Ovechkin, and Karl Alzner.
• Johansson and Evgeny Kuznetsov have had two rough games in a row in terms of possession. It’a dragged Johansson’s relative shot attempt percentage below the break even point of 0. This could just be a blip for MJ90, as he’s generally a positive possession player over the course of a season.
• I’m not going to get into a full defense of Johansson here because I already dropped the hammer on all you haters in his season review last Spring. For all the criticisms of he loses puck battles, he’s soft on the boards, he misses the net etc, it’s important to remember that all of those things, board battles and the like, are a means to an end. The end is scoring goals. In both production and possession, possession being the best indicator we’ve got for future goals, Johansson is a solid second line player. I’m not even granting that he loses board battles. Do I see him lose a board battle sometimes? Yes, as I do with every player. What I’m saying is the eye test doesn’t matter here. Just because Johansson doesn’t play hockey in the manner some people believe it should be played doesn’t make the criticism of him fair. Whatever means Johansson uses to get results isn’t really important. What’s important is that he’s a net positive for this Caps team.
• At least we can all agree that Ovechkin is wonderful, through and through. Somehow, at the age of 30, he’s putting together a season that could be among his best in terms of possession, scoring chances, and his rate of goal scoring at 5v5. We’re talking 2009-10 levels here, people.

• Like the sun rising each day, Ovechkin is leading the league in shot-attempt rate.
• Karl Alzner is a solid presence on the Caps blueline and his head coach clearly trusts him. Alzner has faced the toughest zone starts and competition among all of the Caps D.
• The Caps allow the fewest scoring chances/60 (as defined by War on Ice) when Alzner is on the ice.

• It’s only been in 85 minutes of ice time, but the John Carlson and Nate Schmidt pairing only has a 49.4 shot attempt percentage. This isn’t a “they are handling the tough minutes” thing that sometimes gets thrown around way too loosely when defenders have poor possession numbers. For example, last night it was the Avs third line that dragged down their possession numbers. I’m not ready to make any grand conclusion based off of this, but I think it’s enough of a sample to be worth mentioning. There is not hot take to make here about Schmidt or Brooks Orpik, but I think it’s worth noting that Carlson’s possession numbers struggle even away from Orpik and with a noted possession wizard in Schmidt.
• Last season, shot generation was a problem for the Caps forwards. There’s still room for improvement, but it’s much better this season. Of the 363 forwards to have skated 100-plus 5v5 minutes, the Caps have 7 players in the top half, or “top six” level of shot-attempt rates. If the anti-Johansson crowds wants to use ammo that is actually valid, pointing out that his shot-attempt rate has plummeted this season is a good place to start. Only Evgeny Kuznetsov is behind Johansson among the Caps’ forward in shot attempts per 60.
• Michael Latta sure has been solid in his limited playing time. His possession numbers are great and the fourth line with him, Brooks Laich, and Tom Wilson is a really disruptive force on the forecheck. The line did well enough this week to pull Wilson out of the cellar in terms of possession among Caps forwards.
• That honor now goes to Jason Chimera. I’ve said this all season: Chimera and Jay Beagle need less ice time. They are suitable as fourth line players but their portion of the ice-time pie needs to be smaller. They can still have toppings on it, but their portion needs to be smaller.
• I don’t have too much of a reaction to the Burakovsky scratch other than this:

My Burakovsky take: player isn't playing well. Are other people as/more deserving? Sure, but it's just one game so nothing to fuss about.

— Pat Holden (@pfholden) November 21, 2015

Glossary

• 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.
• rel SA%. The percentage more or less of the overall shot attempts the Caps see with the player on the ice as opposed to when the player is on the bench
• Goal%. Goal percentage. The share of goals that the player’s team got while he was on the ice.
• 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%.