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Capitals doomed by mistakes, untimely penalties, and bad stretches of play in Nashville: numbers for the morning after

By Chris Cerullo

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November 15, 2017 9:03 am

A Tuesday night in Nashville sounds like a fun time if you’re just about anyone but the Washington Capitals. The Caps matched up with a hot Predators team that had won four games in a row, and that streak did not end there. The Preds took the Caps to the cleaners in a 6-3 Nashville win.

The Predators out-shot the Capitals 31 to 29, but the Caps won the shot attempts battle five-on-five 55 to 43.

  • First things first, I feel like I have done you all a disservice not explaining why I like to use the above chart, which differs from the numbers I usually give for shot attempts in the introduction. This is because the charts I use display “score-and venue-adjusted shot attempts”, which differ from regular shot attempts. They aren’t a perfect science, but in my honest opinion they tell the story of a game better because they weigh attempts differently based on how close the game is. Puck On Net does a good job explaining the difference and outlining some of those reasons.
  • Housekeeping done, now to Tuesday night’s game. I think Peter summed this one up really well in the recap when he wrote, “A pitiful start doomed this from the drop. The middle was chaotic, and chaos can be fun, but you can’t build a winning team on chaos.” Lets get you some numbers to outline that awful start and chaotic middle.
  • The first period was probably the worst Capitals period of the entire season so far. The team recorded their first shot on goal with 2:11 left in the period. That’s roughly 18 minutes without a shot for the math-inclined. They ended the period down 2-0, with one recorded shot five-on-five and three total. They were out-shot by Nashville five-on-five 14 to 1 and 18 to 3 overall.
  • Good news! The second period actually started out with some great stuff from the Capitals. A few great shifts, featuring extended pressure on Nashville’s defense and all of the sudden the game was tied at two apiece. Bad news: All it takes in the NHL is a few minutes of stupid, preventable turnovers, some shaky goaltending, and dumb penalties to completely negate a good comeback effort. There was an absolutely wild stretch within the second that featured all of those bad things and five goals from both teams in only 4:52. Seven goals total were scored in the period. The Caps weren’t the beneficiaries of most of those goals, and the game was virtually after 40 minutes.
  • Braden Holtby finally looked human. Yes, the Caps goaltender was definitely not at fault for the majority of goals scored on him before he was pulled in favor of Philipp Grubauer, but I think he’d want at least one or two of those back. This was his first “bad” night in a long while. For those that wonder aloud with me on social media about how the current Caps would look without Holtby’s super-heroics night in and night out, you got a good example in this one. Holtby had allowed six goals on 123 shots in his previous four games, but gave up six Tuesday night on only 24 shots. Appreciate this man, he’s normally awesome and was dealing with some intense traffic basically in his lap all night, seen here:

  • Matt Niskanen is back and his pairing with Dmitry Orlov is already the best thing the Caps have going for them on the defensive side of things, bar Holtby. The two had the best shot attempt differentials on the team, Niskanen with a plus-18 and Orlov with a plus-17. Same story for on-ice scoring chances. Niskanen at a plus-7 and Orlov at a plus-5. These two need to start dominating the minutes doled out to defensemen so certain others can stop playing as much.
  • Brooks Orpik is still struggling big time. The Caps defenseman had a minus-13 shot attempt differential, worst on the team by five shot attempts. I think his effect can more effectively be seen in Nicklas Backstrom‘s line’s numbers from the game. Looking at shot attempt differential again, specifically the roughly four minutes that they played with Orpik five-on-five, Backstrom was a minus-11, TJ Oshie a minus-9, and Chandler Stephenson a minus-5. Away from him all three players, that play on the normally very strong line, had at least 70 percent of the shot attempts go in their favor. Is this Orpik’s cumulative shot-attempt differential progression through this season or Enron’s stock price chart:

  • Christian Djoos left the game late in the second period with what is being described as an “upper body injury”. He did not return. Djoos missing extended time on the backend would not only suck because I’ve taken a personally liking to his play style, possession numbers and general “coolness” he displays on the ice, but it also means Orpik may play once more with John Carlson. Djoos’ 52.7 percent score- and venue-adjusted shot attempt percentage is third on the team overall, only behind two players that have played a combined less amount of games than Djoos this season, Nathan Walker (53.7 percent) and Andre Burakovsky (55.4 percent).
  • Time for a few quick ones. Shocker, the third line led by Lars Eller is still great. The Caps had 70 percent of the shot attempts when they were on the ice. They still need to play more.
  • 500,000. The amount of times if felt like Predators did an annoying “Holtby, Holtby, Holtby” chant.
  • With a shot on the power play in the first period, Alex Ovechkin passed Joe Sakic for 11th on the all-time shots list. His 4.92 shots per game ranks first all-time among NHLers with at least 50 games played.
  • With his second period goal, Filip Forsberg has now scored as many goals against the Capitals as Martin Erat and Michael Latta scored for the Capitals.
  • It took the Caps until January 16 last season (the crazy 8-7 game against the Penguins) to get scored on six times in one game. That’s something that they only did twice in the entire season last year. They’ve already accomplished said “feat” three times this season. It’s November 15.

Numbers thanks to Hockeystats.ca, NaturalStatTrick.com, and Corsica.hockey.

Full RMNB Coverage of Caps at Predators

Headline photo: John Russell

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