Team success has an easy formula: your goals minus the other guy’s goals. If you’re scoring more than half the goals in a game, then you win that game. Fifty percent is the great divide for microstats too, like shots and shot attempts and expected goals. The teams above fifty are generally good, and the more above fifty you are – even better.
The converse is true as well. The deeper someone drops below fifty percent, the more dire the situation. So when the Capitals got outscored 31 to 21 during five-on-five in January, that’s 40.4 percent, and that’s bad. Only four teams fared worse.
I think forty percent is another useful number; it can flag catastrophic play. For example, only one team has finished a full season with a shot-attempt percentage under the tank line of 40: the 2014-15 Buffalo Sabres, who owned 36.3 percent of the attempts, went 23-51-8 with just 58 standings points, and finished last in the league. For players, where the samples are smaller, it’s very rare for someone to stay under 40 percent in any manner of full-ish season. Of every skater since 2007-08 who played at least 41 games (8,812 player-seasons), just 101 finished with an on-ice shot-attempt percentage under 40 percent. That’s just over one percent of players. (Yes, a bunch of those sub-40 players were on the 2014-15 Sabres.)
So when a team or a player is under 40 percent for any length of time, more than two standard deviations below average, that’s a bottom-five percent performance, and that is no longer really competitive pro hockey in my mind.
The Capitals had seven players under 40 percent in January, measured by expected goals. Let’s do the snapshot.
The tables below show the team’s performance when each player is on the ice during five-on-five play. I’ve highlighted stats of note, and we’ll discuss those below.
Forwards
| Player | TOI | SA% | xGF% | GF% | PDO |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Strome | 633 | 50.2 | 52.2 | 41.1 | 0.97 |
| Wilson | 607 | 49.0 | 45.8 | 33.3 | 0.96 |
| Ovechkin | 613 | 48.8 | 45.4 | 33.9 | 0.95 |
| Mantha | 527 | 48.8 | 51.7 | 57.1 | 1.02 |
| Protas | 538 | 48.6 | 50.0 | 44.9 | 0.98 |
| McMichael | 559 | 48.5 | 50.3 | 38.1 | 0.96 |
| Oshie | 368 | 47.9 | 48.3 | 29.6 | 0.95 |
| Milano | 261 | 45.3 | 47.4 | 47.4 | 1.01 |
| Kuznetsov | 563 | 43.2 | 39.5 | 34.2 | 0.98 |
| Aube-Kubel | 435 | 41.6 | 39.6 | 66.7 | 1.08 |
| Dowd | 481 | 41.1 | 41.1 | 62.1 | 1.06 |
| Malenstyn | 506 | 38.9 | 37.2 | 56.3 | 1.05 |
Defenders
| Player | TOI | SA% | xGF% | GF% | PDO |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Carlson | 837 | 46.8 | 48.0 | 43.9 | 0.99 |
| Fehervary | 670 | 46.8 | 47.8 | 42.6 | 0.98 |
| Sandin | 752 | 46.3 | 45.7 | 41.0 | 0.98 |
| Edmundson | 453 | 46.0 | 44.6 | 47.2 | 1.01 |
| van Riemsdyk | 636 | 45.9 | 47.9 | 42.0 | 0.99 |
| Jensen | 746 | 45.7 | 43.6 | 46.6 | 1.01 |
Glossary
- TOI – Time on ice in minutes. Only five-on-five play is included here.
- SA% – Shot-attempt percentage. The share of total shots attempted by Washington while the skater is on the ice during five-on-five play. 50 percent means even.
- xGF% – Expected goals percentage. The share of expected goals generated by Washington while the skate is on the ice during five-on-five play. Expected goals weights how likely to become a goal each attempted shot is. 50 percent means even.
- GF% – Goals-for percentage. The share of total goals scored by Washington when the skater is on the ice during five-on-five play. 50 percent means even.
- PDO – The sum of Washington’s shooting percentage and saving percentage when the skater is on the ice during five-on-five play. One means league average. The acronym doesn’t stand for anything, and yes, I hate it.
Notes
- Those seven players under 40 percent in expected goals in January: Evgeny Kuznetsov, Rasmus Sandin, Ethan Bear, Hendrix Lapierre, Alex Ovechkin, Tom Wilson, and Beck Malenstyn.
- Dylan Strome remains by all measures Washington’s best skater, but he had a miserable month. The Caps controlled 54.2 percent of the attempts during his shifts before the new year, but just 46.7 percent in January. The Caps were outscored 9 to 7 in that time. And still I consider his the best performance. After all, he had 10 points (all situations) in 13 games, tied for best on the team with the subject of our next bullet.
- The great Alex Ovechkin shot eight percent (all situations) in January, giving him two goals in addition to eight points. But both those goals came on special teams, outside the sample of our snapshot. So, yeah, he shot zero during five-on-five play on 15 shots and 1.2 expected goals. Finishing remains deadly for the greatest scorer of all-time and for his team, already struggling with offense (30th in goal rate). I’ve heard a lot of people who would know better than I say Ovechkin is fighting an injury right now. I’ll say that his individual offense rates – both quality and volume – had suggested that his main problem was the yips. But lately he’s got the yips plus a dip.
- Ovechkin will benefit greatly from these nine days of rest.
- TJ Oshie came back on January 11, and he had a great month. In addition to individual goals, which I totally called by the way, Oshie has been a consistent asset to his on-ice partners. Pacioretty and Kuznetsov perform five percentage points better in on-ice shot attempts when they’re with Oshie. Defender Martin Fehervary goes from 45.8 percent without Oshie to 55.3 percent with him. And yet, opponents still outscored the Caps 7 to 3 during Oshie’s shifts (mostly due to abysmal .860 goaltending), which underscores the twin plights of Washington.
- The twin plights of Washington: the good performances are unlucky, and the bad performances are there’s too many of them.
- I’m sick of kicking Evgeny Kuznetsov when he’s down. He’s down; we all know it. The Caps were outscored 8 to 5 while he was on the ice this month, and that came despite a decent PDO (the sum of on-ice shooting percentage – 8.1 – and on-ice goaltending – 91.1). It’s the underlying numbers at fault.
- Taking for granted that Kuznetsov is what he is, the blame then belongs to Spencer Carbery. The head coach gave only two forwards more ice time (Wilson, Ovechkin) in January. A new coach should get a lot of latitude in figuring out his team, but it’s been over half a season and Carbery is still playing one of the worst players in the league like he’s one the best. I’ll choose my words carefully here: there are smarter ways to use this player.
- In defiance of everything, Nic Dowd saw his team out-xG opponents in January: 5.02 to 5.00. More tangibly, the Caps outscored opponents 8 to 5 while Dowd was on the ice. He pulls up his most common linemate, Beck Malenstyn, from a 31.6 on-ice shot-attempt percentage to a 39.6 – a jump from blatantly not NHL-level to probably-still-not NHL-level. Here’s how HockeyViz reckons Malenstyn’s on-ice impact. Blue at top means the Caps shoot less from that location (ten percentage points below league average); red at bottom means opponents shoot more from that location (12 percentage points above league average). Ignore the right side.
- That Nic Dowd can rescue Malenstyn and – inconceivably – keep that line even in on-ice goals (seven for the Caps, seven for opponents this month) is a testament to the player’s quality. He’s in trade rumors right now, and he deserves to compete for the Cup this spring. The Caps will get a respectable return for him.
- I’m going to go light on defenders this week, though I admit I was surprised by Trevor can Riemsdyk‘s scratches. TVR’s worst play is reserved for his time with Joel Edmundson (41.0 percent in shot attempts in 46 minutes), but he’s shown real chemistry with another player whose seen scratches lately: Nick Jensen (51.8 percent in 75 minutes with an even stronger xG figure).
- Doing hypothetical defensive lines with this team is like doing a jigsaw puzzle where you have too many pieces and some of them are soggy. It’s silly, it’s awkward, but it’s fun. Let’s do it. I think these are the best D pairings the Caps can use, conservatively:
- I could not find a single other option I considered good. Let’s be real: these just are not ideal puzzle pieces, and the time when it’s appropriate to grab new pieces has already passed. HockeyViz says the Caps have a 16.7 percent chance of making the playoffs. MoneyPuck says it’s 2.6 percent. I won’t be growing the Vince McMahon mustache, and given recent news about that creep I’m grateful.
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