The Washington Capitals will play in a building they have some great memories in, Saturday night. The Capitals won their first Stanley Cup championship at Vegas’s T-Mobile Arena in 2018. The Caps, back then, were powered by a high-powered first line that included Alex Ovechkin and Evgeny Kuznetsov.
Five years later, that duo has remained together for a large portion of the 2023-24 season but with much less success.
That has mercifully been put to an end by head coach Spencer Carbery before the Capitals’ matchup with the Golden Knights. Ovechkin is now skating with Dylan Strome. Carbery spoke with assembled media about the switch after the team’s morning skate on Saturday.
“We’re looking at a different look up front and it might move around a little bit,” Carbery said. “The line, just overall, we’ve been having some success but it hasn’t fared well analytically at all so we’ve got to look to make some adjustments and change some things up. Even though the old adage from a coach is that you keep it the same or a lot of coaches keep it the same when you win. But I think that’s not forward thinking. In order for us to play better, sustain pressure, especially against a team like the Golden Knights, we’re going to need production from all four lines. Being able to do that, we just feel like we need a bit of a different look.”
Carbery is completely correct about what the analytics say about the Ovechkin and Kuznetsov duo this season. In the 91 minutes of five-on-five play that Kuznetsov and Ovechkin have shared, the Capitals have been outscored six goals to two, controlled just 38.4 percent of the shot attempts, and seen just 27.8 percent of the expected goals.
Strome is a ready-made replacement that has already seen success playing with Ovechkin this season. The Capitals control 56.8 percent of the shot attempts and 58.2 percent of the expected goals with those two on the ice together.
The move will hopefully spark Ovechkin offensively as he is without a goal in his last five games. He also did not have a game with more than five shots on goal in the entire month of November.
Carbery’s full changes will be seen when the Capitals take their line rushes during warmups. Strome centered a line with Sonny Milano and Hendrix Lapierre against the Anaheim Ducks on Thursday and Carbery is unlikely to move Connor McMichael from the center of the ice after a string of games where he has arguably been the team’s best skater.
Kuznetsov has yet to share the ice for a single second at five-on-five with both Milano and Lapierre so the Capitals would be testing a new line against one of the league’s best teams. Matthew Phillips, who has been a play driver so far this season, could re-enter the fray for Lapierre again and stabilize things.
Phillips and Kuznetsov have combined well in a small 9:04 sample of ice time together. The Capitals have scored a goal, not allowed one, not allowed a high-danger chance against, and a have a positive scoring chance differential (+3) with the two on the ice.
Headline photo: Alan Dobbins/RMNB
