New lines bring new life: numbers for the morning after

October 28, 2018 5:31 am

The Capitals debuted some new forward combinations in Calgary Saturday evening and those combos rewarded their bench boss with a pretty solid showing. Fittingly, with the very recent release of Red Dead Redemption 2, the Caps downed the Flames 4-3 in a good ole fashioned western shootout. Adios, western Canada.

The Flames out-shot the Caps 30 to 27, but were out-attempted at five-on-five by the good guys 44 to 38.

Caps rookie goaltender, Pheonix Copley recorded his first career NHL win. The Alaskan native was very impressive once again this season, stopping 27 shots during regulation and three more in the shootout. Well done.

First of many for @PheonixCopley! #ALLCAPS pic.twitter.com/TITBSr4EMD

— Washington Capitals (@Capitals) October 27, 2018

I didn’t see much initially to start this season from Dmitrij Jaskin that I was too impressed with, but I think he is really settling into the Caps system and locker room now and is doing what he’s been advertised to do in the past. That being the smothering of the opposition’s offense when he’s on the ice. When we score and venue adjust the Caps numbers at five-on-five, Jaskin leads the team in both shot attempt percentage (59.0-percent) and scoring chance for percentage (63.7-percent). He is also only second to frequent linemate, Nic Dowd (62.3-percent) in high danger chance for percentage (59.6-percent). This is all more impressive when we see that both Jaskin and Dowd hold sub 42-percent offensive zone start percentages, lowest on the team for regular forwards.
Matt Niskanen had a very, very strong night. On top of his second goal of the season, Niskanen was the Caps top skater at five-on-five (20:31) and the majority of that time was spent against Johnny Gaudreau‘s line and Mark Giordano‘s defensive pairing. Niskanen fought both off to basically a stalemate numbers wise across the board.
I was sorta, kinda worried about the 2nd line after Jakub Vrana was promoted to top line duty, but they were still the Caps best at even strength even after the move. Unsurprisingly, turns out there’s nothing to ever worry about with Nicklas Backstrom and TJ Oshie leading the charge next to a seemingly surging Andre Burakovsky. Don’t think it would be any surprise to you all that Oshie held a forward-high shot attempt differential (plus-12), scoring chance differential (plus-6), and high danger chance differential (plus-3) at five-on-five.
Lets talk more about that sweet baby boy, Dre. Another two shots on goal, three individual shot attempts, three individual scoring chances, and two individual high danger chances. Don’t forget about him.
Finally, lets get some audience interaction. In the comments, give me your 12 forwards and line combos once big Tom Wilson is back from suspension.