Photo: Amanda Bowen

It’s basically late March and, since the Caps have had the conference wrapped up for a couple months now, it seems like the playoffs have approached at the pace a watched pot boils. But the playoffs really are growing near and, given that the Caps are basically a lock to enter as the number one seed in the East, the two things to worry about are health and process. In other words, don’t anyone get hurt and, regardless of results, hopefully the Caps will look like the dominant team they’ve been for much of the season and the standings suggest they are.

Before jumping into the snapshot numbers, let’s take quick stock of just how dominant the Caps have been this season. The numbers are current prior to Sunday’s game against the Penguins:

• It’s March 20 and the Caps have long been over the 100-point mark, something just five other Caps teams have done since the late 1980s.
• With two more points, the 2015-16 Caps will pass the 2008-09 team for the second most standings points in a season in franchise history. The 2009-10 Caps (121 points) could be caught with 14 points in the final 12 games.
• The Caps plus-63 goal differential is the 11th best since 2005-06. No one is even close to the Caps this season, as the second place Kings currently have a plus-36 goal differential.
• The 2015-16 Caps currently sit fourth in franchise history in goal differential, and they’ve got their work cut out for them if they want to crack the top three. Granted, the NHL scoring environment was much different in the 1980’s when two Caps teams posted goal differentials above plus-80.

Let’s dig into the numbers, current as of noon on Sunday.

Forwards

Defense

Observations

• The Caps sit 13th in the league in score-adjusted shot attempt percentage at 51.3 percent. The Caps have been on the right side of 50 percent just twice in the past six games, against the Kings (52.6 percent) and Carolina (54.8 percent). But their 20-game rolling average suggests the free fall may have been halted. Shane O’Donnell recently wrote about how well puck possession translates to playoff success.

• Daniel Winnik still hasn’t met the 100 5v5 minimum to make the chart, but he’s posted a 54.6 percent shot attempt percentage, plus-7.5 percent relative in eight games. He’s been great, but I’ll boldly take the under on his current 22.2 percent shooting percentage and 100-percent goals for percentage.
• A friendly snapshot reminder that we should never take Justin Williams for granted. He’s been the Caps best possession forward for much of the season and a boost to whatever line he gets placed on. Remember how Peter called Eric Fehr bacon bits? Williams is something even better than bacon bits. The Caps are above water in shot attempts with just about every teammate he skates with:

• Hopefully Williams can help right the ship for one of his newest linemates, Marcus Johansson. Johansson’s puck possession numbers have been on a steady decline for a bit and having him on track as the Caps enter the playoffs would be a nice boost. One caveat here is that much of his decline in shot attempt percentage came while he’s been playing with Tom Wilson and Jason Chimera, who should not be on the third line together unless the goal is to have a third line that drags down puck possession. Here’s a look at Johansson’s decline:

• One thing that I like to keep tabs on  is how much Johansson is shooting the puck. Shooting the puck more often is what led Johansson to post a career-high of 15 5v5 goals last season. He’s not shooting the puck as much this season, with 9.59 shot attempts per 60, but it’s still above where he had been in the Oates years. Here’s his 20-game, rolling shot attempts per 60, brought to you by Corsica:

• Could someone place update me on TJ Oshie‘s goal pace? Does anyone still think he’ll score 30? [Ed. note: Ugh. – Peter]
• Speaking of bets, please place your bets on how many more games we will see top line Beagle. The over/under is set at two more.
• Is Nick Backstrom hurt? He hasn’t looked like himself for prolonged stretches in the second half of the season and his production has slowed. Given how long Backstrom has been a star in the league, I’m not ready to serve up any hot takes on who the Caps best center is, but here’s Backstrom and Evgeny Kuznetsov’s 20-game averages of points per 60 at 5v5:

• Is Braden Holtby back on track? He’s been above 90 percent in 5v5 save percentage in each of his last five starts, and above 95 percent in three of those. Brought to you by Corsica, here’s his 20-game, rolling 5v5 save percentage:

• A lot has been written about the pairing of Brooks Orpik and Dmitry Orlov, two of the most divisive players on the Caps roster, both here and elsewhere (and elsewhere). I think the pairing is okay but certainly not ideal. According to Corsica, Orlov has skated 50-plus minutes with four different defensive partners this season and Orpik is the only partner with which he posts a shot attempt percentage below 51.7 percent, coming in at 48.8 percent. The same goes for goals for percentage, as Orlov’s 62.3 percent or better with his other three partners, but comes in at 53.4 percent when skating with Orpik. There’s a lot of caveats that can be thrown into these numbers but once John Carlson is back, I’d like to see Orlov back with Nate Schmidt, seeing as the two owned 59 percent of the shot attempts in over 300 minutes together this season.

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%.