Washington Capitals head coach Spencer Carbery believes he may have found a hole in the Capitals game from last season that was causing the team’s netminders fits and hurting their stats. On the day that his number one backstop Darcy Kuemper is scheduled for his first preseason action, Carbery cited numbers that show the Caps ranked 28th in the league in terms of preventing odd-man rushes against.
Odd-man rushes are difficult for goaltenders to stop as they have to guess correctly on shot or pass from the oncoming forward with the puck and adjust accordingly in a split second. Hence, why rush chances are such dangerous scoring opportunities for the opposition and why many of them lead to goals against.
Carbery believes the Caps can cut down on those rush chances this season and make their netminders’ lives a little easier.
“I have liked what I’ve seen in camp and I liked a lot of the film that I watched last year from them,” Carbery said. “And I felt like, listen, I’m not going to sit here and talk about last year and break things down, but one area where I felt like our goalies were put in tough spots were odd-man rushes against. We were 28th in the league with odd-man rushes against. And so when you’re constantly seeing those two on ones, breakaways, three on twos, they’re put in some tough spots. So we’re going to do everything we can as a staff and make sure our players understand, we’ve got to help them out.”
There is concrete evidence that what Carbery is pointing out is correct. Among all goaltenders that saw at least 1,000 minutes last season, Kuemper faced the fourth-most rush attempts per 60 minutes (2.91) in the league. Charlie Lindgren was spared a little more than his battery mate but he still finished seeing the 22nd-most rush attempts per 60 minutes (2.28) out of the 55 eligible goaltenders.
Overall, outside of those rush chances, the Caps were a run of the mill, average team defensively. Carbery also pointed that out although he was perhaps a little nicer to last year’s squad than what was the reality of Peter Laviolette’s final season in charge.
“And we were a good defensive team last year, solid in other metrics than that, but that’s one area that stuck out to me,” Carbery said. “If you can alleviate a couple two-on-ones a game and take those off their shoulders, that’s a huge help. When I went through it I was like ‘gosh that’s a great — there are some tough situations that they were put in’ and I have a ton of confidence in both those guys from what I’ve seen thus far in camp and then going back to what I watched last year.”
At five-on-five last season the Caps finished 18th in the league in scoring chances against per 60 minutes (29.2) and 16th in the league in high-danger chances against per 60 minutes (12.2). In terms of just pure goals against, they also finished 18th in the league there as well, giving up 261 markers on the year.
When it comes to individual goaltending stats, Kuemper took big hits in both his goals-against average and save percentage compared to his last season with the Colorado Avalanche. His GAA ticked up 0.31 and his save percentage came down from a very good .921 to a somewhat mediocre .909.
Defenseman Martin Fehervary was asked about what Carbery has talked about to his blueliners to help prevent the rush chances and got glowing reviews from the young Slovak.
“I think he knows what to do,” Fehervary said. “I really like this system, what we play. I had him in Hershey. And I always liked it. And I never had any issues. So I think it should be really good and fit for us.”
Although the more advanced stats from Carbery’s time in Hershey with Fehervary aren’t available, we can still see where the Bears ranked in terms of goals against. During the 2019-20 campaign, they allowed the third fewest goals in the league and kept that up during the 2020-21 campaign as they finished in the exact same spot.
The math checks out.
Headline photo: Alan Dobbins/RMNB
