With the Capitals 2-1 loss to the Calgary Flames on Sunday night, they ended their western Canadian road trip like how they started it. Disappointing and not good enough.
The Flames out-attempted the Caps 54 to 35 five-on-five and outshot them 38 to 31 overall. I’m getting a little tired of having to continuously write: [Insert team here] out-attempted and outshot the Caps.
- Philipp Grubauer stopped 36 of the 38 shots he faced and you really can’t fault him for the two pucks he did let in. Goalies continuously being in this spot of the morning after numbers post is both a good and a bad thing. It means that they are very good at stopping pucks, but it also means the Caps defensive effort is forcing them to have to do that very frequently. That is more bad than good in my opinion, but I’ll leave this one up to discussion. Hugs for Grubi.
- Brooks Orpik played more minutes than any other Caps defender at five-on-five (21:31). I think that’s unacceptable, but my thoughts on the coaching of the Capitals is unrelated to statistics. To say Orpik did not handle those minutes well would be an understatement. He had the team’s worst shot-attempt differential (-17) at five-on-five and also was on the ice for a team high 16 scoring chances against according to Natural Stat Trick.
- Devante Smith-Pelly tries really hard and hasn’t seemed completely out of place within the top six, but this is a guy who had only nine points the entire season last year. The Caps are going to need to try something else or find a trade. After a great showing in Edmonton, his line with Alex Ovechkin and Evgeny Kuznetsov looked lost and were all sub-35 percent when it came to shot-attempt percentage at five-on-five.
- Dmitry Orlov was one of only two Capitals — the other being Nicklas Backstrom — to stay above an even shot attempt differential. His turnover did lead to the Flames’ second and game-winning goal, but Orlov needs to play more. The Caps are better when he’s on the ice and pushing play.
- The “second” line of Backstrom, TJ Oshie and Jakub Vrana is probably the only thing other than the Caps goalies that is really clicking. This line creates scoring chances more than their opposition five-on-five at a great rate and I’d like to see them stick together for an extended period of time to get more data on them.
Take a guess which team won via these shot charts: pic.twitter.com/deif1VWxPL
— Chris Cerullo (@CJC_95) October 30, 2017
- Lucas Johansen and Connor Hobbs both tallied their first professional goals while playing for the Hershey Bears. This weekend isn’t all bad.
- The Astros and Dodgers played 5 hours and 17 minutes of baseball in Game Five of the World Series. That’s like 16 periods of hockey.
Numbers thanks to Hockeystats.ca and NaturalStatTrick.com.
Photo: Gerry Thomas
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