The Washington Capitals have snapped their losing streak and they did so by thoroughly running over the Detroit Red Wings. But wait Chris, the Caps only won by a final score of 3-2, how is that “thoroughly running over”. Well imaginary commenter, let’s go into that below.
The Caps out-shot the Wings 34 to 25 and out-attempted them at five-on-five 53 to 42.
- Look, before we go nuts in the comments, let me address a couple things. No, this was not a pretty game. No, the Caps didn’t play their best sixty minutes this season whatsoever. However, I think the process was there all night, it’s just that the finish was not. The Caps out-scoring chanced the Wings 31 to 15 and out-high danger chanced them 18 to 6 at five-on-five. That’s domination. Now, was that domination ruined by poor shooting, ridiculous over passing, bad bounces, and maybe some fine goaltending? Uh, hell yes. I think on a good “offensive” night the Caps win this game by five or more goals. The Wings are bad and their goals in this game came more from a few Caps errors then anything of their own volition.
- One thing is for sure and that thing is that the Caps power play isn’t just in a “slump” right now. Slumping with a person indicates that they’re still sorta upright and this unit is anything but. They’re lying on the ground prone like Spongebob when he was in Sandy’s bubble thing without that helmet full of water. The Caps are now 1 for their last 31 with a man up and they haven’t exactly been playing against a murderer’s row of penalty kills. Something is up for real.
- Tom Wilson‘s twelfth goal of the season tied him with Jakub Vrana for second on the team in goal scoring even though Tom has missed many a game this season due to suspension and injury. Top Line Tom is for real. On that goal, Evgeny Kuznetsov‘s magical assist was his 300th career point.
- Although it may seem like the Caps have been through a rough patch of late, they are still 14-1 in their last 15 games against Eastern Conference opponents.
- Something to note is that the pairing of Brooks Orpik and Jonas Siegenthaler were given the fewest offensive zone starts (two) of any Caps defensemen and were just one behind Dmitry Orlov (seven) for the lead in defensive zone starts. They excelled even with those zone starts, providing heavily positive differentials at five-on-five in scoring chances (plus-seven/plus-six) and high danger chances (plus-four/plus-two). What’s even more interesting is that the forwards on the Red Wings that they most commonly played against on the night were Dylan Larkin, Tyler Bertuzzi, Gustav Nyquist, Anthony Mantha, and Thomas Vanek. Not exactly chopped liver. Adding to this, with those two and Orlov and Matt Niskanen getting the tougher zone start assignments, it freed Todd Reirden up to give John Carlson and Michal Kempny almost exclusively offensive zone starts. Those two were probably the best Caps skaters on the night for me (how they were deployed definitely a factor there) and Kempny provided the winning tally. Will deployments like that work against better opposition? I don’t know, but that’s something that Peter talked about in his recent post regarding the team’s defensemen. Throw young Jonas into the deep end a bit and see if he’ll swim.
- Stay with me for a second through this one. The following are all numbers at five-on-five within the last ten games. Alex Ovechkin has 23 shots on goal, 41 shot attempts, 18 individual scoring chances, and 7 individual high danger chances. Tom Wilson has 20 shots on goal, 40 shot attempts, 26 individual scoring chances, and 13 individual high danger chances. Jakub Vrana has 21 shots on goal, 38 shot attempts, 25 individual scoring chances, and 10 individual high danger chances. Ovi’s recent cold streak is definitely some shooting percentage regression, but I also don’t think he’s getting to high scoring areas enough and that’s backed up by these numbers. There is always the argument that with his shot and him being the greatest goal scorer of all time that he doesn’t need to get to the places Wilson and Vrana do to score goals, but I mean it’d sure be easier and better for the team. So, what’s the solution? To be honest, I have no idea and I was just writing this out at four in the morning as sort of an opportunity to think tank the Caps top six configuration. It’s probably a confusing mess because of that. Yea, it definitely is. Well…what do y’all think?
- One more thing in my mind has absolutely nothing to do with numbers, but it is kinda, sorta related to the above bullet so I’m going to discuss it here with the like 10 loyal commenters on these posts. I’m of the opinion that the Caps need to push their chips all in one final time either this year or next. Nicklas Backstrom, Andre Burakovsky, Brett Connolly, Dmitrij Jaskin, DSP, Jakub Vrana, Travis Boyd, Nic Dowd, Chandler Stephenson, Brooks Orpik, Jonas Siegenthaler, Madison Bowey, Braden Holtby, and Pheonix Copley are all players who need new deals either this offseason or the one after. Holtby and Backstrom after 2019-20 are going to more than likely be exorbitantly expensive. There are a couple very key players like Alex Ovechkin, Matt Niskanen, and TJ Oshie that aren’t getting any younger. If a team like the bottom feeding St. Louis Blues is actually serious about feeling out the market for someone like Vladimir Tarasenko, that’s someone you shove all in for in my opinion, and he’d surely inject some freshness into the Caps forward lines to say the least. Alas, enough fantasy GM-ing. Good morning!
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com, NaturalStatTrick.com, and Corsica.hockey.
Full RMNB Coverage of Caps at Wings
Headline photo: Monumental Sports Network
