The Washington Capitals dropped a home divisional matchup with the Philadelphia Flyers 2-1 on Saturday night. The good news was that we didn’t have to watch them play three-on-three overtime.
Unfortunately, that’s also the bad news.
- Through two periods of this game the Capitals at five-on-five were out-attempted by the Flyers 45 to 26, out-chanced 21 to 14, and handed a minus-five high danger chance differential. Let’s talk about some of the reasons why that happened and what changed in the third period for the team to attempt a comeback that was ultimately short-circuited by some Martin Jones…brilliance.
- So, this was the most important divisional game of the season so far, and let me tell you why. The Caps had a two-point standings lead over the Flyers which made this into a four-point game. Now that they have lost the game, they are tied with the Flyers in the standings and the Flyers have a game in hand (as do every other team right behind the Caps in the Metro). With that context in mind, through two periods not only had the Nic Dowd line played more than any other Capitals line, but they also got four times the amount of offensive zone starts than the Capitals top line featuring Alex Ovechkin who has about 69,000 points to start this season.
- I’ve complained a lot about this whole ice time thing with that “fourth” line in these posts this season, but this was really the first time where it really showed how it can hurt the team. It’s clear Peter Laviolette was line matching the Flyers’ top line of Konecny, Couturier, and Giroux with the Dowd line, and that matchup was taking precedent over actually trying to score goals. Guess what stopped happening completely in the third period and allowed the Capitals to actually get the better of Philadelphia at even strength?
- By the end of the game the “fourth” line had played 9:46 of ice time at five-on-five together, still the most of any trio due to the line blending that occurred at the start of the third. In those minutes they were out-attempted by Philly 17 to 3, out-scoring chanced 11 to 1, out-high danger chanced 6 to 0, and on the ice for the Sean Couturier goal. I mean…there’s your game right there.
Tonight marked the second time in franchise history four Capitals rookies were on the ice for a goal (Brett Leason, Connor McMichael, Hendrix Lapierre and Martin Fehervary). This was last accomplished on Nov. 19, 2005 (Alex Ovechkin, Brooks Laich, Tomas Fleischmann, Jakub Klepis)
— CapitalsPR (@CapitalsPR) November 7, 2021
- Now, who led the way at five-on-five for the Capitals in this game and probably most contributed to the comeback effort? The following group of players: Connor McMichael, Brett Leason, Conor Sheary, Hendrix Lapierre, Daniel Sprong, Martin Fehervary, and John Carlson. With an average age of 23-years-old, that group of players were the only Caps skaters to remain above water in terms of scoring chance differential. You could see an example of that when McMichael basically single-handedly created the only goal the team scored and Laviolette went back to them more than a few times towards the end of the game.
- There is one player who leads the Capitals at five-on-five in shot attempt for percentage (60-percent), scoring chance for percentage (65.7-percent), high danger chance for percentage (71.9-percent), and expected goals for percentage (67.3-percent). One guy, Connor McMichael. And he’s had a whole bunch of different linemates (in nine games) so it’s not like he’s just riding the coattails of a dominant line. Is he benefitting there from a smaller sample due to the ice time issues we’ve already talked about? Probably. Is he being deployed with very favorable zone starts against probably lesser competition than his teammates? Absolutely. Does him entirely dominating those minutes mean he should probably be tested with more responsibility at all strengths especially with the injury issues plaguing the team right now? Uh, hell yes.
- The power play, oh the ole power play. Since scoring three power play goals against the Rangers on opening night the unit has gone 4-for-34, 11.7-percent effectiveness. Nicklas Backstrom has missed all of those chances and TJ Oshie has missed a handful recently. That sucks and is of course hurting the team there but I think the whole thing has been an issue even when those two are both healthy.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com and NaturalStatTrick.com.
