The Washington Capitals forced the NHL-leading Vancouver Canucks to an extra frame on Sunday afternoon. Capitals captain, Alex Ovechkin, was one of the team’s goal-scorers during regulation, extending his goal-scoring streak to five games and giving him 16 points (7g, 9a) in his last 15 games.
However, Ovechkin’s hot streak did not earn him a single second of overtime ice time from head coach Spencer Carbery. It’s curious as Ovechkin is also the NHL’s all-time leader in overtime goals with 26. He has six more overtime tallies than second-place Sidney Crosby.
Carbery was asked by reporters during his postgame media availability about the decision. The rookie bench boss put all the blame on himself.
“Yeah, that’s on me,” Carbery said. “I’m trying to look for a specific matchup, situation. I gotta do a better job there. There were just a couple of situations as that overtime was rolling. That’s on me.”
From a surface-level glance, keeping arguably the greatest goal-scorer of all time stapled to your bench when one goal wins you both standings points appears like a ridiculous oversight. But, there is statistical evidence this season that Carbery made the right call by trying to pick his spot with Ovi rather than sending him out for a regular shift.
Process-stats-wise, Ovechkin is the team’s worst player when the team has gone to 3-on-3 this season. With him on the ice at even strength in overtime, the team has lost twice and won zero times. They have been out-attempted 14-6, out-scoring chanced 12-4, and have an expected goals percentage of just 24.1 percent.
The Capitals were unable to hem Vancouver in their zone during overtime which would likely have been when Carbery sent The Great Eight over the boards. Reducing the amount of time that Ovechkin has to defend one-on-one is a sound strategy but Carbery perhaps went a little overboard on Sunday by not at least giving the future Hall of Famer one shift.
Instead, Ovechkin took his last shift of the game with 4:04 remaining in the third period which lasted just 20 seconds. The big Russian was not asked to comment on his lack of overtime opportunity by the media postgame.
Vancouver got a goal from JT Miller with just five seconds remaining in the extra frame. Connor McMichael made a poor decision to try and send the puck to John Carlson through the slot in his own zone and sent it right to a waiting Miller.
