Home / Analysis / Ice time questions part deux, defensive lapses, and that darn power play again: numbers for the morning after

Ice time questions part deux, defensive lapses, and that darn power play again: numbers for the morning after

By Chris Cerullo

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January 27, 2022 8:18 am

The Washington Capitals are in some kinda rut right now and it’s coinciding with not winning many hockey games. Wednesday night the San Jose Sharks took advantage of it and tuned up the Caps 4-1 in DC.

Puck will not go in.

  • The Caps got doubled up on in high danger chances in this game at five-on-five 16 to 8. They were leaking defensively like that giant tube thing in the Flex Tape commercials before the dude slaps the tape on. Pair that with the inability to finish their dinner chance wise lately and you get the scoreline we got. The early game was bad, the mid game was meh, and the end game was decent but again, no finish. That’s now six games in the month of January with two or fewer goals in a game.
  • Ilya Samsonov was at no fault for the first two goals. In fact, he’s probably the only reason the Caps had a decent chance to maybe get anything from this game…but then he let that very soft third goal in which really sums him up as a goaltender. He made 26 stops overall but saved his best for two absolute highlight reel ten bellers in the late third.
  • The Caps were chasing the game again for almost all of regulation. I’m going to list some five-on-five ice time numbers here and let you infer what I see as a serious problem. Conor Sheary – 14:48, Alex Ovechkin – 14:04, Garnet Hathaway – 13:51, Daniel Sprong – 13:34, Nicklas Backstrom – 13:18, Carl Hagelin – 13:07, Evgeny Kuznetsov – 13:06, Tom Wilson – 12:52.

  • To add on to that last bullet, the fourth line had a terrible game at five-on-five. I guess that’s why they were on the ice with three minutes left down a goal…which turned into down two goals with them out there. Minus-9 shot attempt differential, minus-7 scoring chance differential, and a minus-2 high danger chance differential.
  • The absolutely inept power play contributed to another loss. The 0-for-3 night saw them break the 14-percent threshold…going the opposite direction (13.9-percent). They are .8 percentage points away from tying the Montreal Canadiens for the second-worst power play in the league.
  • The playoff picture still looks perfectly fine in the East for the Caps but I’m going to list their amassed point total and games played and compare it to some of their Metro Division peers. Capitals – 55 points from 44 games, Hurricanes – 58 points from 39 games, Penguins – 59 points from 42 games, Rangers – 60 points from 43 games.

Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com and NaturalStatTrick.com.

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