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Elite company: Snapshot 5

By Patrick Holden

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January 8, 2017 11:42 am

We’re now into January, and the Caps are sitting in good shape. The team has 55 points, good for fifth in the league. The team is fourth in the Metro division. Yes, the Caps are the fifth best team in the NHL yet sit in only fourth in their division. The Metro division is the best division in hockey this season and the Caps are one of the reasons why. They are sitting among elite company.

Take a look at the top-5 NHL teams in the standings, as four of these teams come from the Metro.

The same is true for league-wide goal differential. four of the top six teams are in the Metro.

This all just goes to show that the concept of divisions for playoff seeding, as well as divisional playoffs, are a complete failure. Chances are this season, once again, an elite team from the Metro will be knocked out in the second round.

But I digress. Let’s dig into some Caps-specific numbers.

Forwards

Player GP TOI SA% Rel SA% GF% PDO
Eller 38 422 58.8 +6.7 54.0 99.6
Connolly 25 241 57.9 +4.4 59.9 100.8
Williams 39 474 56.0 +3.3 55.9 100.2
Burakovsky 36 423 55.4 +2.5 55.4 101.0
Johansson 39 528 54.7 +1.5 61.8 103.4
Oshie 32 398 54.3 +0.4 72.3 106.6
Backstrom 39 517 53.1 -0.7 61.1 102.7
Kuznetsov 39 515 52.6 -1.6 62.1 104.2
Ovechkin 39 525 51.5 -3.3 57.3 102.4
Winnik 29 268 50.9 -3.3 80.3 106.3
Wilson 39 387 49.9 -4.6 64.2 105.2
Beagle 39 371 48.7 -6.0 65.2 105.3

Defense

Player GP TOI SA% Rel SA% GF% PDO
Schmidt 32 446 57.2 +4.4 64.3 102.9
Niskanen 38 609 56.8 +4.9 60.2 101.8
Orlov 39 649 55.9 +3.8 61.2 102.5
Orpik 39 553 53.8 +0.3 65.8 103.9
Carlson 39 620 50.8 -4.4 55.9 102.2
Alzner 39 619 48.2 -8.1 60.3 103.5

Observations

  • The Caps are currently fourth in the league in shot attempt percentage, coming in at 53.5 percent.
  • The primary concern for this team right now is TJ Oshie‘s health. Oshie left Saturday night’s game against Ottawa and his status for next week isn’t yet clear. Losing Oshie for an extended period would be a serious blow. The Caps have been, by far, the most fortunate team in the league this season when it comes to injuries.

  • The fourth line of Jay Beagle, Daniel Winnik, and Tom Wilson had been humming along all season. The former two had been potting goals seemingly at every turn and the trio’s shot attempt percentage was hovering in the 53-55 percent range. And then, the bottom fell out. Here’s Beagle’s rolling 10-game shot attempt percentage.
  • This could just be a market correction or the ebbs and flows of an NHL season. Or it could be coaching decisions. Since the reunion of Carlzner, John Carlson and Karl Alzner have skated 214 minutes together. Fifty-three of those minutes have been with Beagle. The Caps shot attempt percentage in those 53 minutes is 37.9 percent. At times, Trotz has been using Carlzner with the fourth line in a shutdown role. This isn’t working and needs to stop immediately.
  • There’s been a lot of talk this season about how disappointing Evgeny Kuznetsov‘s play has been. Some of it is justified. However, some if it stems from unrealistically high expectations given his brilliant first half last season. Just a few nuggets to help quell some of the Kuzy anxiety: he’s tied for first on the team team with Nick Backstrom in primary assists per 60 minutes of play, he leads the team in assists and primary assists per 60 minutes of 5-on-5 play, and he’s third on the team in points per 60 minutes at 5-on-5. It’s fair to expect more from Kuznetsov, but to act like he’s no longer one of the team’s top offensive contributors is inaccurate.
  • Marcus Johansson is having a stellar season but has cooled off a bit lately with only two goals in the last 13 games. The fact is Johansson just isn’t shooting enough this season, as his shot rate is the lowest it’s been since 2013-14. He was riding an unsustainably high shooting percentage earlier in the season. More shots please, Marcus.
  • Of the 310 forwards to skate 300-plus minutes at 5-on-5 this season, Tom Wilson ranks 306th in points per 60 minutes of ice time. Earlier in the season, Wilson was drawing a lot of penalties and hardly taking any. Lately, he’s taking more and his penalty differential on the season now is only plus-4. While he’s second in forward ice time on the Caps’ elite penalty kill unit, Wilson needs to get back to having an outstanding penalty differential to be worth the sweater he gets every night.
  • Out of all defensive pairings in the NHL that have skated 200-plus minutes together this season, the Caps have the top two in shot attempt percentage. Matt Niskanen and Dmitry Orlov are first at 60.7 percent while Nate Schmidt and Brooks Orpik are second at 58.5 percent. This is nothing short of outstanding.
  • Braden Holtby is putting together another elite season. He’s currently fourth among all goalies with a 5-on-5 save percentage of 94.2 percent. Taking a look at this in 20 game segments, you can see Holtby’s been playing at a level near where he was during his Vezina campaign last season
  • Micah McCurdy of the invaluable hockeyviz.com has released another dandy of a resource. He’s put together shot charts that show where a team or player takes and allows shots from. For example, you can see where the Caps take shots from with Nick Backstrom on the ice compared to the league average.
  • The Caps are a bit below average in shots right by the goal mouth when Backstrom is on the ice but well above average from the high slot.
  • Micah has these for every player on the offensive and defensive ends of the ice. If you want to take a look around for yourself, head to the Caps team page on his site. Find the player you want to look into and click on the “season” tab for that player. Once on the player page, scroll to the bottom and you’ll find the charts.

Glossary

  • GP. Games played.
  • TOI. Time on ice. The amount of time that player played during 5v5.
  • 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 difference of shot attempts the Caps had when the player on the ice as opposed to when the player is on the bench.
  • GF%. Goals-for percentage. The share of goals that the player’s team got while he was on the ice.
  • PDO. (A meaningless acronym.) The sum of the player’s on-ice shooting percentage and his goalies’ on-ice save percentage. Above 100 means the player is getting fortunate results that may be reflected in goal%.

All stats from Corsica unless otherwise cited or linked to

Headline image: Patrick Smith

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