The Caps are on a roll. They’ve won three in a row, eight of their last 10, and as things stand before the start of play on Sunday, they sit in first place in the league’s toughest division. What a difference a month can make.

There’s reasons to think this success can continue (hello Kuznetsov-Vrana combo and #TopLineTom). But, as Peter recently pointed out, there’s some concerning things going on with this team.

I’m not nearly as confident as I once was that this team will be one of the top teams in the league at the end of the season. But things have come together for this team recently. I think this team is clearly playoff-worthy, but given the current playoff format and the strength of the Metro, it’s not a lock. Not yet.

Three things I’m highly interested in keeping an eye on as this season continues:

1. Can the third line find their dominance from last season?
2. Can the team find a fourth line that is at least passable?
3. Can the team stay relatively health?

The more yeses to those three questions, the better of this team is going to be.

Let’s take a deeper dive into the numbers to see where things stand for the first place Washington Capitals.

Forwards

Defense

Notes

• Through 34 games, the Caps sit 22nd in the league in shot-attempt percentage with 48.4 percent. The Caps are taking 48.8 shot attempts per 60 minutes of five-on-five play, good for 19th in the league. At the other end of the ice, the Caps are allowing 51.0 shot attempts per 60, which places them 24th in the league.
• Since Matt Niskanen returned on November 14, the Caps are 18th in the league in shot-attempt percentage at 49.6 percent. Since Tom Wilson was bumped up to the first line and Jakub Vrana was partnered with Evgeny Kuznetsov on November 22nd, the Caps have posted a similar 49.7 percent shot-attempt percentage.
• The Caps still aren’t playing with a full deck, as TJ Oshie has missed the last handful of games. But, it’s encouraging to see the team getting close to 50 percent of the shot attempts over the last month. While it’d be ideal to see that percentage bump up a few more points, the Caps are a team capable of being middle of the pack in puck possession but outperform this in the standings. Some of the main reasons for this are Braden Holtby, a lethal power play, and elite shooting talent in the top-six.
• Speaking of the top-six, the Caps really seem to have found something with the Kuznetsov-Vrana combination. Something wasn’t working quite right, especially in the defensive zone, when Kuznetsov was skating with Alex Ovechkin earlier in the season, but his latest partner in crime seems to suit him well. Kuznetsov has skated 236 minutes with Vrana and 237 minutes without him at five-on-five this season. Here’s how the team has done in those minutes:

• It’s not likely that the team will continue to score on 13.4 percent of their shots or stop 93.4 percent of the shots against with this duo on the ice, but the underlying play should remain strong even once PDO regresses a bit. And, with the talent of these two, I’d expect their goals-for percentage to outpace their shot-attempt percentage.
• Oshie partnered with Kuznetsov and Vrana has been my favorite line to watch this season. And, as productive as the line has been with Oshie out of the lineup, it will be even stronger when he returns. The trio skated 69 nice minutes together before Oshie got butt-checked. In that time, the team owned 64.4 percent of the shot attempts. With Alex Chiasson on the line, the shot-attempt percentage falls all the way to 46.5 percent.
• Speaking of impressive duos, the Caps may have found something in putting Ovechkin with this Nick Backstrom guy. With this duo on the ice, the Caps get 56.9 percent of the shot attempts and 56.6 percent of the scoring chances. When you add in Ovechkin’s elite goal-scoring ability to dominant puck possession, you’ve got a lethal line.
• The sprinkles on top to this duo’s success is the fact that Tom Wilson has turned into a very useful and productive player with them. The season isn’t even halfway over and Wilson is two goals shy of his career high of seven and only seven points away from tying his career high there. With Wilson scoring more, it’s not because he’s shooting more frequently but because he’s shooting more accurately. Wilson has never shot above 7.2 percent in his career at five-on-five before this season. So far in 2017-18, he’s shooting 11.1 percent. There’s reason to believe some of these gains are sustainable, as they should be when playing alongside Ovechkin and Backstrom. Part of this is because Wilson is getting a lot more high-danger scoring chances this season.

• So, that’s the top six. But as Peter recently pointed out, things aren’t as pretty in the bottom six. The Caps have been able to survive recently despite this for multiple reasons, but one of them is that the top six has been riding some unsustainable percentages. The top six can still be productive and good even when their percentages regress, but they may not be able to cover this well for the weaknesses in the bottom six.
• But there’s some reason for hope with the reunion of the third line that was so good last season. Brett Connolly, Andre Burakovsky, and Lars Eller have only skated 59 minutes together this season and in that time have a 49.0 shot-attempt percentage. This isn’t the juggernaut they were last season, but it’s passable for a third line. And hopefully, if they are kept together, they’ll be able to continue to gel and find some of that puck-possession dominance from last season. A sturdy third line would do wonders for a team with a bottom-six that has been so weak in 2017-18.
• Jay Beagle has one of the toughest jobs on the team.  He seems to be on the ice for every defensive-zone faceoff, he’s sometimes matched up against one of the opponent’s top line, and he’s played with a shuffling cast of inadequate characters off and on this season. But, if a team is seeing just 39.9 percent of the shot attempts and 42 percent of the goals when a player is on the ice, that player is not up to the job they are being asked to do. This isn’t to say that Beagle is the entire issue here, or even the main issue, but the team needs to do something to put this fourth line in a better position to succeed.
• If the Caps are able to make a deal between now and the trade deadline, finding a bottom sixer who has chemistry with Beagle should be one of the top realistic priorities. Another possible fix is playing Beagle less with certain defenders. Beagle has skated 37.5 percent of his minutes with Brooks Orpik, his most common defenseman. In these minutes, the Caps own 31.6 percent of the shot attempts, 37.0 percent of the scoring chances, and 38.5 percent of the goals. Granted, when this duo is on the ice they are likely taking tough assignments. But the numbers suggest the Caps need to rethink deployments like this one.
• I didn’t intend to write so many words on the forwards when I started this. But, 1,300 words later, here we are. Some quick, sloppy thoughts on the defense:
  • Dang it’s good to see Niskanen and Dmitry Orlov back together.
  • Christian Djoos looks like the real deal and it’s going to be a real shame when the Caps lose him to Seattle in the 2019 expansion draft.
  • Some team is going to pay John Carlson a large sum of money this summer. Will it be the Caps?
  • Orpik needs fewer minutes.
  • Madison Bowey is skating with Orpik a lot. This hasn’t necessarily been good for either player, as both their numbers take a hit when playing together.
  • Thank goodness the coaching staff recognizes that Taylor Chorney is not one of their six best defenders.

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: Patrick McDermott