Adding Nick Jensen at the trade deadline was a hail mary pass by Brian MacLellan. For a while, it worked.
By The Numbers
| 20 | games played |
| 17.0 | time on ice per game |
| 0 | goals |
| 5 | assists |
| 49.6 | 5-on-5 shot-attempt percentage, adjusted |
| 49.5 | 5-on-5 expected goal percentage, adjusted |
| 51.9 | 5-on-5 goal percentage, adjusted |
Visualization by HockeyViz
About this visualization: This series of charts made by Micah Blake McCurdy of hockeyviz.com shows various metrics for the player over the course of the season. A short description of each chart:
- Most common teammates during 5-on-5
- Ice time per game, split up by game state
- 5-on-5 adjusted shot attempts by the team (black) and opponents (red)
- 5-on-5 adjusted shooting percentage by the team (black) and opponents (red)
- Individual scoring events by the player
- 5-on-5 adjusted offensive (black) and defensive (red) zone starts
Peter’s Take
For the second year in a row, General Manager Brian MacLellan gave his team a major shot in the arm at the trade deadline. Adding Nick Jensen (and Carl Hagelin) on February 22 made the Caps a much, much better team.
At the risk of collapsing cause and correlation, here’s how the Caps fared at five-on-five over the course of the season.
After the Caps added Jensen and Hagelin — and before Michal Kempny’s hamstring injury — the Capitals were probably the best team in the NHL.
Like with Hagelin, Jensen’s contributions to the team filled a desperate need: the Caps had a very tough time transitioning to offense. Jensen’s fine on defense, but his passing is even better. (Another need for Washington was, sadly, to remove Madison Bowey, who proved not to be up for the task of NHL play.) After playing tough minutes for Detroit, Jensen could lower the load on Orlov-Niskanen and give the Caps more counter-strike potency in their top-four defense.
At least, that was the idea. Jensen’s actual role was as body man for Brooks Orpik. Jensen played most of his minutes with Orpik while seeing his ice time drop as Washington’s top pairing barely nudged down at all.
Jensen and Orpik were pretty good — controlling 52.5 percent of shot attempts and outscoring opponents 12 to 8. And Jensen’s (small-sample!) results with other defenders were shockingly bad (barely over 30 percent with Orlov and Carlson in just over 30 minutes of play), so I understand the resistance to try something else. Anyway, the external benefits reaped from adding Jensen (plus Hagelin) were profound.
But I wonder if there’s not more possible. With Orpik unlikely to return for next season, Jensen will need a new partner and a new role. I hope that role is bigger and that partner is faster, because there’s a lot of potential here.
Jensen on RMNB
- In February, the Caps traded Madison Bowey and a draft pick to the Detroit Red Wings for Jensen. The Caps waited exactly 15 minutes, then they extended Jensen for four years. The deal is identical to Michal Kempny’s.
- Reirden liked the trade, saying, “This is an area that we’ve been working through this year and he’s a guy that being a right-hand shot with that experience and skating ability and ability to play in the penalty kill, it seemed like the perfect fit for us.”
- Jensen made his debut a couple days later, replacing Christian Djoos in the lineup.
- Jensen rejoined his former roommate, Nic Dowd, in Washington. They combined to score the goal that secured the Caps’ playoff spot.
- In Game Seven, Jensen faced was opened up by Warren Foegele. I’d put a pic here, but Google AdWords doesn’t like it when I do that. Anyway, there was no penalty on the play.
Your Turn
How should Nick Jensen be used and with whom? Would you trust him with top-four minutes?
Read more: Japers Rink
