Nine games into the season, there’s been some good and some bad from the Washington Capitals. There’s certainly been more bad than we’re accustomed to from a team that has been a juggernaut over the last two seasons. Is nine games enough to be be truly concerned about the issues we’ve seen? Well, yes and no.

If you look back at our first snapshot from last season, done after the 11th game of the season, you can see that two of the main takeaways held up over the course of the season:

• Brooks Orpik and Nate Schmidt look like a really good third pairing
• What is going on with Karl Alzner?

But there’s also reason to use caution instead of making sweeping generalizations about the Caps struggles early in the season:

• Matt Niskanen is out
• Numerous young players are adjusting to life in the NHL. If a player like Madison Bowey or Christian Djoos spend significant time in DC this season, they may become more comfortable and entrusted as the season goes on.
• There are 73 games left (which yes, could end up feeling like a curse, not a blessing, if the Caps continue to take this many penalties, more injuries happen, and so on).

This Caps team almost certainly won’t end up being as good as they were during the last two regular seasons, but this doesn’t mean the Caps are destined to be bad. There’s a middle ground between running away with the President’s Trophy and needing to trade away your stars and rebuild. This season might be more frustrating than the last two, but it’s too early to write off a team that’s 4-4-1 through nine games.

Welcome back to the snapshot, friends. LET US DO THE NUMBERS.

Forwards

Defense

• The Caps shot attempt percentage is 49.2, 16th in the league. This is okay but I expect it to improve. If it doesn’t improve, there are reasons to believe the Caps can be an above average team with average shot attempt numbers. It would take, among other things, a great year from Braden Holtby and stellar special teams, but these things are within the realm of realistic possibilities.
• I wrote about this in the recap after the loss on Saturday to Florida, but the Caps can’t keep taking this many penalties. The team’s penalty differential is minus-9, tied for second worst in the NHL. This was an issue last season, too. But last season the Caps had a more talented roster, which gave them a bigger margin for error. That’s not the case this season, and this is likely going to be a major issue if it continues.
• The line of Alex Ovechkin, Evgeny Kuznetsov, and Jakub Vrana is eventful. By eventful I mean they are fun as hell to watch when they have the puck and pretty frustrating to watch when they don’t. Their shot attempt percentage in 83 minutes together is 46.8 percent. But their expected-goals-for percentage (accounting for shot quality and shooting talent) is 51.2 percent. The higher the share of the overall shot attempts you have the better. But maybe this is a line, due to their shooting and passing talents, that can still be effective without the majority of the shot attempts.
• However, their on-ice goal differential won’t continue to outpace their shot attempt percentage by this much. The Caps have scored 68.6 percent of the goals when this trio has been on the ice this season. Expect that to come down closer to their expected goals and shot attempt percentages, even if their expected goals continue to outpace their shot attempts.
• John Carlson and Andre Burakovsky both have weaknesses in their games, just like every player in the league. But this doesn’t mean that the entirety of their games are weak or that they’re net-negatives overall. Refusing to condemn a player as a whole because of weaknesses isn’t making excuses for a player, it’s providing nuance and context that gives us a fuller picture of what’s going on.
• For example, I wrote recently that Burakovsky has had issues hitting the net with his shots and that this problem dates back to last season. It’s always possible that moving forward a weakness like this (and others) in Burakovsky’s game could negate the strengths in his game. But, it certainly hasn’t done this in the past. Last season at five-on-five, Burakovsky ranked 343rd out of 352 forwards in percentage of shot attempts that were on goal with 48.7 percent. This is bad, but it doesn’t mean Burakovsky is bad.
• Despite his issues hitting the net with his shot attempts, Burakovsky finished 102nd last season in shots on goal per 60 among that same group of forward, which is the 71st percentile. What this tells us is that yes, Burakovsky has more trouble hitting the net than most forwards in the NHL. This is frustrating, and it’s probably leading to some missed opportunities. But, his shot attempt volume is high enough that he’s comfortably in the top third of forwards when it comes to creating shots on goals. He’s also shown the ability to be productive despite this flaw in his game. In 2016-17, Burakovsky finished 18th among the 352 forwards in points per 60 at five-on-five.
• We all knew the Caps bottom-six was going to be weaker this season than last and this was assuming Lars Eller and Brett Connolly were going to perform as competent NHL players. These two have been awful so far and the Caps bottom-six is in even more trouble than we thought if this continues. Normally when a player has a 35 percent goals-for percentage (Eller) this early in the season, it’s because of a wacky and unsustainable on-ice save percentage. But Caps goalies have stopped 90.7 percent of shots with Eller on the ice at 5-on-5. We can expect that to come up some, but the overall results will continue to be awful if the Caps continue to get dominated this badly in puck possession when he’s on the ice. There’s a lot to like about Trotz reuniting this duo with Burakovsky, since this was such a successful line last season. The Caps need a lot better play from Eller and Connolly so hopefully going back to this line will do the trick.
• Nathan Walker isn’t in the chart above because he didn’t make the 50-minute cutoff. But in a bottom-six that’s been so miserable, the Caps need to find more minutes for Walker. In the 27 minutes Walker has skated at five-on-five, he’s posted a 59.2 shot attempt percentage (first on the team) and a 53.6 expected goals for percentage (second on the team behind Vrana).
• The Caps ice time per game on defense (with rank among the 199 NHL D with 50-plus minutes): Carlson, 26:43 (2nd), Orlov, 23:52 (24th), Orpik, 21:49 (51st), Bowey, 15:25 (163rd), Djoos, 14:37 (172nd), Chorney, 12:37 (194th), Ness, 12:15 (197th). The divide between the top three and the bottom four is big and likely to have a negative effect on the guys carrying the bulk of the workload as the season goes on. Hopefully Matt Niskanen will return in a couple weeks and Christian Djoos and Madison Bowey will continue to earn more ice time so John Carlson’s legs aren’t reduced to dust by mid-February.
• Orpik is 37 and skating 21:49 per night so far this season after skating 17:47 last season. Huge credit to Orpik as he’s somehow managed to be serviceable in an increased role at the age of 37. Regardless of further context, it’s hard to ask for more from Orpik when he’s skating these kind of minutes and keeping his shot attempt percentage around 50 percent.
• The Caps have carried play when Djoos is on the ice and he’s contributing offensively to boot. Early returns here are very good (yes, I saw his turnover that led to a goal against the Panthers).
• I thought Aaron Ness had a really strong preseason but he’s look completely outmatched since the real games have started.
• Something to keep an eye on: Dmitry Orlov’s shot attempt and expected goals numbers are down significantly from last season. The Caps need Orlov to play like the $5.1m player that he is regardless of his deployments, but who he’s skating the most minutes with is also worth looking at:

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%.

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Headline image: Cara Bahniuk