Oh captain, my captain: numbers for the morning after

May 2, 2018 5:53 am

Now that was fun. The Washington Capitals went into Pittsburgh and stole Game Three from the Penguins 4-3 with a very late Alex Ovechkin tally after an overall tremendous third period effort. Two more times please, boys.

The Capitals and Penguins both recorded 22 shots on goal, but the Caps won the five-on-five shot attempts battle 34 to 32.

First things first, I want to give my personal take on the whole Tom Wilson business, so this could be a long first bullet. As we all know, outside of him recording his 7th point in nine games this playoffs (officially not just a “goon”), Willy got involved in some more controversy regarding a high hit. In my honest opinion, I think the hit was clean. I’ve watched the replay probably close to 60 times now and I see principal point of contact being the shoulder first and then physics takes over and the check gets finished through the shoulder onto the head. Tom Wilson has a combo of things that very few NHL players have that I think influences why he gets involved in stuff like this a lot. He’s a huge dude, he’s incredibly quick, one of the strongest guys in the league, and plays physical. I think the NHL’s Department of Player Safety has to take that into account as well as the fact that Zach Aston-Reese is about five inches shorter than Wilson. I don’t think there should be a suspension, I do however think there should be more talk about the exact rulebook regarding “hits to the head” this summer.
The Capitals first line, of which Wilson is a major part of, had an outstanding game. The trio when on the ice at five-on-five got 60.6 percent of the shot attempts, 72.2 percent of the scoring chances, and did not allow a single high danger chance against.
One other major part of that line is one Alex Ovechkin. Was this guy flying around or what? Ovi’s 8th goal of the playoffs ties him for the postseason lead with Jake Guentzel, Sidney Crosby, and Mark Scheifele. The last time that someone led the regular season in goals and the postseason in goals during the same year was in 2004, done by Jarome Iginla of the Calgary Flames.
John Carlson‘s goal marked the eighth time in nine games that the Capitals have struck first in the playoffs. This is a trend that I think we all want to see continue. Fast starts and closeout ability make a championship team.
Caps head coach Barry Trotz employed an interesting, but effective strategy during Game Three when it came to Chandler Stephenson and Jakub Vrana. Looking at both of their ice time totals, we see that TJ Oshie was both players most common linemate at five-on-five. It seems that Barry is not afraid to move Vrana up the lineup when the team is searching for a critical tying or winning goal and will deploy Stephenson in a more defensive role when that seems necessary (Just look at the numbers post for Game Two). Whatever it is, I think I like it and if it means Jakub Vrana is on the ice more with talented offensive teammates that’s real cool too.
An unsung hero of the playoffs so far, other than the quiet three point king Nicklas Backstrom, is Michal Kempny. I’m now fully convinced that it’s paramount this guy is signed for term in the summer. He led all Caps defenseman in five-on-five shot attempt percentage (60.9 percent) and scoring chance for percentage (68.8 percent). I also think I would be remiss to not acknowledge that Carlson is also probably a large component of why this pairing looks so good. I think he’s taken his game to another level.
I touched on it briefly in the open, but the Caps played their best third period in quite some time. In the third frame at five-on-five they fired 20 of their 34 shot attempts, 11 of their 20 scoring chances, and four of their nine high danger chances. Overall, through the entire game the Caps dominated the battle for prime scoring opportunities, portrayed here in this graphic by Natural Stat Trick showing that dark blue cloud of goodness right in Matt Murray‘s lap: