Caps defeat the Flames to stay atop the Metro: numbers for the morning after

March 22, 2017 8:38 am

Tuesday night the Caps beat the Calgary Flames 4-2 and narrowly maintained their hold on the Metropolitan Division with Pittsburgh hot on their heels. This game was entertaining from start to finish, and it featured Kevin Shattenkirk’s first goal as a Capital as well as an 11-shot Alex Ovechkin charge that ended with a PP snipe on Flames netminder Brian Elliott.

The final five-on-five shot attempt tally was 55 to 49 in favor of the Caps, but that doesn’t tell the whole story. Five minutes into the third period, shot attempts were 53 to 32 in favor of the Caps. Scoring chances were also lopsided through the first two periods, with the Caps entering the second intermission up 22 to 14 in that statistic.

Key Stats

Sometimes the numbers don’t match the eye test. There is absolutely no denying that the top line stood out last night and made several highlight-reel plays. Ovechkin managed a season-high 11 shots on net despite spending a solid 10 minutes at five-on-five shadowed by the Flames’ highly-effective top pairing of Dougie Hamilton and Mark Giordano. But despite their monstrous night, that line ended the night almost even in possession. The fourth line? They matched up against a much worse defensive pairing and ended the night plus-12 in shot attempts.
We just talked about Nick Backstrom’s many three assist nights, and now we get to talk about them again. He is miles ahead of anyone else in three-assist nights since entering the league, with 36. He had yet another one last night, and it included a work-of-art saucer pass across most of the offensive zone to allow Ovechkin to set up TJ Oshie for this 30th of the season. Backy is now in a tie with Connor McDavid for the league-lead in assists at 57.
The ice time is still a bit wonky. At five-on-five, Tom Wilson played more than Oshie, Burakovsky, Eller, and Connolly (at 12:25). The “fourth line” also outpaced the “third” line by more than a minute, and the first line was the second again. It’s hard to be too concerned when the Caps play as well as they did last night, but it’s still something to keep an eye on.

Unsung Hero of the Game

For last night it goes to Andre Burakovsky. Mostly we are just thankful that he’s back in the lineup. He had some nifty moves and ended up with a couple of shots on goal, a plus-one goal differential, and a plus-four scoring chance differential. His line also came out a plus-two in shot attempts.

Trend to Watch

TJ Oshie is going to get paid, there is no doubt about it. After the game, Ovechkin was quoted as saying what we were all probably thinking:

Ovechkin on Oshie hitting 30: “Cha-Ching.” I’m still laughing about this. #contractyear

— Isabelle Khurshudyan (@ikhurshudyan) March 22, 2017

Since early on in his time as a Capital, Oshie has been a key piece of the top line. He has fit seamlessly with Ovechkin and Backstrom, and his 30 goals lead the team. But his shooting percentage is currently the highest of any skater in the league playing at least 200 minutes, at 24.2 percent. While it’s not so simple as to just proclaim that Oshie is “lucky” and nothing else (he’s been excellent), luck certainly plays a factor. Of all 800 minute seasons by NHL skaters since 2007, Oshie is on track to have the third highest shooting percentage out of a sample size of four thousand three hundred and sixty-six. Oshie is shooting in the 99.9th percentile of modern NHL skaters. That is the definition of “unsustainable.” Looking at his last four seasons, you can see that Oshie generally is an accurate shooter, but that his baseline shooting percentage this year is almost as high as some of his previous peaks.