Bye week blues: numbers for the morning after

January 19, 2018 10:27 am

The Washington Capitals had their first game since coming off their scheduled bye week and their opponent, the New Jersey Devils very obviously did not. The rusty Caps somehow scraped out a point before falling to the Devils 4-3 in overtime.

The Devils both out-shot the Caps 32 to 19 and out-attempted them five-on-five 47 to 28. Yikes.

Not a single Capitals skater had a positive five-on-five shot attempt differential. The only line or pairing that came close was the Caps top defense pairing of Dmitry Orlov and Matt Niskanen at a minus-one. However, that pairing was also on for all three of the Devils’ goals in regulation and Orlov was witness to Taylor Hall‘s overtime winner.
I’ve complained about the usage of Devante Smith-Pelly ad nauseam. This game, one in which Andre Burakovsky was scratched and Jakub Vrana benched, was another indictor that something has got to give with that first line. One might think that you probably don’t touch Alex Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom, but who knows with this team.

Why are we ("we") making this so much harder than it needs to be? pic.twitter.com/RSMuG8nnzy

— Japers' Rink (@JapersRink) January 19, 2018

With trade rumors swirling about the Caps being interested in a defenseman it’s not hard to see why that may be the case. The third pairing of Brooks Orpik and Madison Bowey is vomitrocious. If you wanted to know who on the Caps last night had the worst five-on-five shot attempt percentage (21.7 percent), shot percentage (7.7 percent), scoring chance percentage (12.5 percent), or high danger chance percentage (14.3 percent), just plug in Orpik or Bowey for each category. Help us, save us Mike Green.
On a happier note, Brett Connolly is having a fantastic year in the goal-scoring department. His two markers on Thursday night gives him 12 goals in 37 games this season. That’s good for third on the team behind Ovechkin (28) and Evgeny Kuznetsov (13) and over a full 82-game pace (which Connolly will not play this year) would be a 25-plus goal output. I think it’s really easy to forget that due to his already long tenure in the league, Connolly is only 25 years old. He’s about two weeks older than Kuznetsov and almost a full year younger than Orlov.
The Capitals have earned at least one point against the Devils in 14 straight games. I feel like that’s a ridiculous output against one individual team in the sport of hockey. A sport that has just has so many random events in one period let alone 14 games.
Tom Wilson drew three penalties Thursday night. Tom Wilson should be put back on the first line.
Nate Schmidt scored against the Lightning.