This Team, Y’all: Week 12 Snapshot

January 10, 2016 12:45 pm

Photo: Bruce Bennett

This team, y’all.

Whether it be through elite goaltending, top-notch special teams, strong 5v5 play, luck, some sort of Calvinistic predestination, or a of combination of all of the above, the Caps just keep winning. They’ve lost just seven times in regulation through the first 41 games entering Sunday’s tilt against the Ottawa Senators.

The good news is that the 5v5 play continues to come back to life after a prolonged stretch in which the Caps were relying heavily upon MVP-caliber play of Braden Holtby and elite special teams. The bounce back comes at a time when perhaps it’d be understandable if the process and results dipped, as injuries and suspensions have forced the team to call upon their depth recently, particularly on the blue line.

Hockey is fun and this team should be cherished. This group of players won’t be together forever.

Here’s a look at the numbers as of noon on Sunday.

Forwards

Player	GP	TOI	SA%	rel SA%	GF%	PDO
Backstrom	38	559.83	54.91	4.38	70.59	103.99
Ovechkin	40	622.21	54.3	3.77	64.71	103.37
Williams	41	527.08	53.99	3.18	57.78	100.89
Laich	41	353.58	53.52	2.21	33.33	95.01
Oshie	41	579.03	52.35	0.97	65.79	103.17
Burakovsky	38	425.51	51.54	-0.55	53.57	101.11
Johansson	39	540.17	51.31	-0.25	66.67	103.99
Kuznetsov	41	582.92	51.24	-0.61	63.04	103.17
Latta	28	238.96	50.7	0.51	47.06	99.4
Chimera	41	452.43	49.24	-3.16	52.94	100.74
Beagle	36	425.47	47.45	-5.43	57.69	102.56
Wilson	41	458.63	47.06	-5.93	57.14	102.86

Defense

Player	GP	TOI	SA%	rel SA%	GF%	PDO
Orlov	41	580.32	55.17	4.81	60.47	102.52
Chorney	32	389.52	53.14	2.14	64.86	106.29
Schmidt	36	607.94	52.12	2.02	61.54	102.32
Niskanen	41	763.42	50.61	-1.72	61.7	102.92
Orpik	14	231.89	50.18	-6.65	43.48	95.85
Alzner	41	717.9	49.72	-3.06	59.09	102.36
Carlson	34	610	49.42	-2.58	53.66	100.21

Observations

As of the start of play on Sunday, the Caps sit 10th in the NHL with a 51.7 score-adjusted shot-attempt percentage. For the better part of a month, the snapshot touched on the fact that the Caps pace of winning was unlikely to continue if their 5v5 play continued to slip. We can all exhale a bit. In the eight games since the Christmas break, the team in red has started to show signs of the 5v5 world beaters they were early in the season, with a 54.3-percent shot-attempt percentage in that span.
The Caps are one of the best possession teams in the league when trailing, are around average when leading, and barely deserve to be called middling when tied. Here’s how the numbers breakdown:

Situation	SA%	Rank
Tied	49.6	18th
Leading	45.4	13th
Trailing	61.0	3rd

There’s likely a lot going on here to explain why the Caps are one of the best teams in the league when trailing but below average when tied. I suspect it’s all deployment and strategy related, as it’s not possible that the Caps’ abilities as a team simply drop to below average when the score is tied.
The lineup has some new faces in it but they haven’t been added to the snapshot yet. Once a player hits 100 5v5 minutes, I’ll add them.
Alex Ovechkin is one goal away from reaching 500 for his career. I shared these sentiments on Twitter yesterday, but I feel like no matter how much I appreciate this guy, I’m not appreciating him enough. Ovechkin currently sits one goal off the league lead, having played four less games than league leader Jamie Benn.
Simply put, Ovechkin is the greatest goal scorer in the history of the NHL and the fact that he is still producing at an elite-level 11 seasons into his career is remarkable, especially given the style of hockey he plays. We’ve touched on this before but for age 20-29 seasons, once adjusting for era, Ovechkin has more goals than any player in the history of the NHL.
Since Ovechkin entered the league, 25 players have 250 goals or more. At 499, Ovechkin is 148 goals ahead of the next player, Jarome Iginla, who has 351 goals. 148 goals is the difference between Iginla and the 51st ranked player, Mike Fischer (the difference between Iginla and Fischer is actually 149 goals, no player is exactly 148 goals behind Iginla). Ovechkin won’t play hockey forever. Savor this.
The second line of Andre Burakovsky, Evgeny Kuznetsov, and Justin Williams seems, to my eyes, to have trouble getting the puck out of the zone once they are pinned in, especially on Saturday against the Rangers. This could be my eyes lying, a small sample, a product of the two defensemen on the ice with them at any given time, or any other number of things. On the bright side, they are unsurprisingly dynamic once they get the puck into the offensive zone. Their numbers together so far are pretty strong. In 42 minutes together, the trio has a 53.25 percent shot attempt percentage (plus-0.53 relative) and a 51.61-percent scoring-chance percentage (minus-0.1 percent relative).
Has Burakovsky turned a corner?

Stan Galiev caught some heat in the comments and on Twitter yesterday for his terrible pass on the 3-on-2 rush-in the second period. It was a bad pass. But Galiev’s ability to create the opportunity shouldn’t be ignored. He skated the puck out of danger in the Caps zone and brought it down the wing and into the offensive zone with speed. I have my doubts as to whether he can becomes a successful NHL player, but Galiev’s has some offensive abilities that not every player has.
Galiev has appeared in 10 games, only skating about eight 5v5 minutes per game. The Russian winger’s ice time has been inconsistent and sparse, and he’s often played with fourth-line-caliber linemates, but he’s done fine enough. His shot-attempt percentage is 53.64 percent, plus-3.78 percent relative.
How much longer can the Caps continue to shoot 4.73 percent when Brooks Laich is on the ice? The next lowest on-ice shooting percentage among the team’s forwards is Jay Beagle at 7.5 percent. Without making any evaluative statement of Laich’s play or his contract, it is safe to say he has been unlucky this season.
Four games isn’t enough to convince me that Aaron Ness is anything beyond a depth option on defense, but his skating and passing abilities stand out. The sample size make his numbers essentially meaningless, but he’s rocking a 56.19 shot attempt percentage, plus-3.17 percent relative.
Prior to John Carlson‘s injury, Matt Niskanen was averaging 23.4 minutes per game. Since Carlson has been out, Niskanen is skating 27.6 minute per game.

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
GF%. 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%.