Backstrom’s back, alright: Snapshot 2

December 8, 2019 11:55 am

Despite missing their top-line center for eight games, the Washington Capitals currently lead the division, conference and league. They’ve taken nearly 80 percent of available standings points so far, putting them on an absurd 128-point pace. They’re getting a Norris-caliber season from John Carlson, a breakout season from Jakub Vrana, and they might have the best fourth line in the league.

There is certainly adversity coming. The schedule gets no kinder at the end of the calendar year, and there are some worrying gaps in the lineup, but the looming return of Nicklas Backstrom might be a miracle cure.

Let’s do the snapshot.

Previously: Meet the new Caps, same as the old Caps

Forwards

Player	GP	TOI	SA%	SA% Rel	GF%	PDO
Boyd	16	160	58.9	+9.5	71.3	1.07
Panik	21	213	56.4	+5.4	76.6	1.06
Dowd	20	155	55.4	+3.9	61.2	1.03
Eller	31	384	55.3	+5.5	55.8	1.00
Vrana	31	384	54.1	+3.8	59.9	1.02
Hagelin	20	221	53.9	+2.9	54.6	1.01
Leipsic	31	274	53.3	+2.5	55.9	1.02
Hathaway	28	282	53.1	+1.9	50.8	1.00
Oshie	31	428	50.5	-1.1	51.7	1.00
Backstrom	23	330	50.2	-1.6	44.9	0.98
Ovechkin	31	468	48.9	-3.7	43.3	0.98
Stephenson	24	243	48.4	-4.0	60.9	1.04
Wilson	31	412	47.9	-4.9	47.5	1.00
Kuznetsov	28	387	46.0	-6.3	53.0	1.03

Defenders

Player	GP	TOI	SA%	SA% Rel	GF%	PDO
Orlov	31	568	54.0	+4.4	43.7	0.97
Siegenthaler	31	417	51.4	+0.1	53.2	1.01
Gudas	31	443	51.0	-0.4	57.0	1.03
Jensen	31	463	50.6	-1.1	38.6	0.97
Carlson	31	545	50.2	-1.9	62.5	1.04
Kempny	23	383	48.9	-2.8	65.1	1.07

Glossary

GP – Games played.
TOI – Time on ice in minutes
SA% – Shot-attempt percentage. The share of total shots attempted by Washington while the skater is on the ice. 50% means even.
SA% Rel – Relative shot-attempt percentage. The difference in SA% when the player is on the bench versus on the ice. 0% means even.
GF% – Goals-for percentage. The share of total goals scored by Washington when the skater is on the ice. 50% means even.
PDO – The sum of Washington’s shooting percentage and saving percentage when the skater is on the ice. 1 means even. The acronym doesn’t stand for anything, and yes, that it is annoying.

Notes

On a team level, the Washington Capitals are hanging out right around 10th place in a bunch of stats: five-on-five shot share, five-on-five expected goals share, five-on-five actual goal percentage, and the sum of shooting and saving percentages (PDO). Even their penalty kill is around 10th place. That the Capitals are pulling away in the standings owes to a couple factors: an elite power play, clutch timing on goals, and having a busy front-loaded schedule through 31 games.
This will be the final appearance on the snapshot for Chandler Stephenson, who has been traded to the Vegas Golden Knights. Stephenson ranked near the bottom of Caps forwards in shot share (SA%), driven partially by his notorious reluctance to shoot. In his defense, and as we discussed on an earlier snapshot, Stephenson has been shooting more this season. I wish him luck and happiness in Vegas, but I think his departure reveals something very encouraging about the Caps:
Their fourth line might be the best in the NHL. Garnet Hathaway, Nic Dowd, and Brendan Leipsic have played 82 minutes together, during which time they have controlled 60.0 percent of the shot attempts and 69.7 percent of expected goals. The line has outscored opponents 5 to 3, a ratio I expect to grow over time as goaltending improves. The closest historical comparator I could think of for this line was Winnik-Beagle-Wilson in 2016-17 (50.2 percent of shot attempts, 54.3 percent of expected goals), but the Leipsic-Dowd-Hathaway line beats them handily.
Word is that Nicklas Backstrom will return to active play next week after missing eight games. This is great news, as it will mark the end of the Alex Ovechkin – Evgeny Kuznetsov pairing, which Chris and I have been bemoaning for awhile now. There’s always a lot to talk about with Kuznetsov — he’s a fascinating player — but one thing I’ll focus on today is how he seems to be slowing the pace of the game a bit.

Unfortunately, most of the slowed game pace comes out of the Caps’ offense, which has been — if you can believe it — hurting Alex Ovechkin‘s individual production:

Ovechkin with	TOI	Shot Attempts/60	Goals/60	Expected Goals/60
Backstrom	284	20.0	1.1	1.01
Kuznetsov	157	17.5	0.8	0.62

This is an odd situation. Kuznetsov’s offensive quality is generally underrated by most metrics because they can’t capture passes prior to shot attempts. Kuznetsov seems to be an elite passer in high-danger areas, but he’s not been great at getting the puck from neutral into those high-danger areas. He’s a special player, but he needs very specific structure to be so. This is a challenge for Todd Reirden.
Meanwhile, Jakub Vrana now has the highest five-on-five shot-attempt rate on the team, 21.2, third highest in the entire league and above Ovechkin’s 19.5. Vrana is a very special player. He’d be a top-liner on any other team. He and Eller seem to be having a lot of fun playing together. I hope they can continue.
Dmitry Orlov leads all Caps defenders in relative and overall shot shares (SA%), despite getting the fewest offensive deployments on the team. Just 41 percent of his shifts start in the offensive zone, and he gets only 5.7 offensive-zone starts per hour — almost half the rate of his teammates. Yesterday, Samantha Pell wrote a good story in the Washington Post about the tension in the label of “offensive defender”; I think Orlov is an example of the opposite. He’s a defensive defenseman who knows when to take risks to activate offense (in which he does not directly participate). But because those risks don’t always work out, he gets a lot of criticism for a few anecdotes. I think the pattern of play is undeniable. He’s fantastic.
I love Radko Gudas. He’s fit into the team perfectly, but he’s committing way too many penalties. We knew he was box-prone when he joined the team, but he’s getting busted for minor penalties at twice the rate of his past few seasons.
The California teams are not having great seasons, but it’s still a big accomplishment for the Caps to have taken wins in all three of those road games. And they’re going to be glad they’ve got those six points as we get into the holidays. The team’s opponents for the rest of month averaged more than 100 standings points last season. We’ve got Tampa twice (one with no rest), Boston twice, and Carolina and Long Island once each. This may be the toughest stretch of the entire season. Thank goodness Backstrom is (probably) back.