Capitals lose again as things look like they’ll need to get worse before they get better: numbers for the morning after

November 16, 2022 6:41 am

The Washington Capitals are playing a ton of good teams at the exactly wrong time. That was on display against the Florida Panthers on Tuesday night when the Caps fell 5-2 in Sunrise.

The bleeding is going to need to be stopped quickly because a scary hole is being dug right now in the standings.

The meaning behind the title of this morning’s numbers post is twofold. First off, as Peter has mentioned several times now, this is a float period for the Caps. They’re playing a lot of good teams at precisely the worst time when it comes to the health of the club. So, things will likely continue to get worse until they…hopefully get better. That seems to also be the theme with their performances in recent games. They need to get smacked in the mouth like the first period in Tampa Bay and this game’s first period (18 to 8 advantage in scoring chances for FLA) to wake up and put up a fight. I’m not trying to showcase that as a good thing either. It’s not.
Things will not be cooling down in terms of competition for the Caps in their next five slated games as well. First, they’ll take on a Blues team next that has won three in a row and then return home for a date with the defending Stanley Cup champion Colorado Avalanche. Next, they have what is really a must-win versus the Philadelphia Flyers before two more against a Flames team that has found its groove of late and the New Jersey Devils who are the hottest team on the planet. The Caps are already five points back of Carolina for third in the Metro.
Mike Vogel wrote a very interesting piece pregame before this one. In it, he shares that the team is on pace for their first sub .500 November since the 2014-15 season and the first time they’ve finished below “NHL .500” (re: shootout/overtime wins) in November since 2011-12 when they went 5-8-1. That 2011 spell ended up getting Bruce Boudreau canned and replaced with Dale Hunter.

Strome has scored Washington's opening goal in three games this season, which is tied with Alex Ovechkin and Nic Dowd for the most on the team.

— CapitalsPR (@CapitalsPR) November 16, 2022

I’ll move on to some more stuff specific to this game now. At some stage, a line that I know Ian has wanted to see this season of Alex Ovechkin, Evgeny Kuznetsov, and Aliaksei Protas was united. They immediately started getting things going for the Caps by being on the ice five-on-five for a plus-six shot attempt differential. That’s at least enough for me to want to see it some more.
The power play is 0-for-21 over the past four games. I don’t know. I’m kind of past tired talking about it when it seems like the Caps go through these giant, long stretches of ineptitude with a man advantage every few weeks at this point. The only thing that has been done to try and change that is personnel based in terms of the players on the ice and where they set up. I’m not sure that’s enough.
Let’s end on a fun note. 2020 first-round pick Hendrix Lapierre is leading the Hershey Bears in scoring. Their first pick in the 2021 draft, Vincent Iorio is playing great hockey with his good buddy Hendrix in Hershey and is a plus-7 in his rookie pro campaign. Finally, 2022 first-round pick Ivan Miroshnichenko is scoring at will in the MHL after returning from Hodgkin’s lymphoma treatment.