The Caps opened their preseason on Monday night against the Devils and lost 4-1. These preseason games are more meaningful than those in recent seasons, as the team has a lot of roster spots up for grabs.
Let’s talk preseason hockey, shall we?
By Patrick Holden 6 years ago
For the first time in a while, the Caps have a number of roster spots up for grabs in training camp this season. In recent years, all but one or two spots were taken before training camp even started.
At forward the Caps have three open slots in the top-12 and likely one more spot for a 13th forward. Here’s a look at where things stand early in camp.
By Patrick Holden 6 years ago
Last month we looked at how the Caps could become an even more dangerous offensive team by changing their approach on zone entries, as well as the fact that Brooks Orpik was really good at defending against zone entries at the Caps defensive blue line last season.
Thanks to the detailed data tracked by Corey Sznajder and the helpful viz put together by Sean Tierney, there’s a seemingly endless amount of things we can look at with zone entry data.
Another thing that stands out is that Orpik is not alone among Caps’ defensemen when it comes defending the blue line well. John Carlson also did a great job denying opponents entry into the Caps zone during the 2016-17 season.
By Patrick Holden 6 years ago
The Caps were a juggernaut during the 2016-17 regular season. The 118 points the team accumulated led the league by seven and, perhaps more impressively, the team’s plus-81 goal differential was 23 better than the next closest team.
While the team’s offense was certainly impressive, good enough for the third most goals in the NHL, the elite goal differential was anchored by defense and goaltending, as the team’s 182 goals-against were 13 better than the next closest team. The fact that the offense, while very good, was outpaced by the defense also shows up in puck possession. The team finished seventh in shot attempts for per 60 and leaped to third in shot attempts against per 60.
Thanks to the tireless work of Corey Sznajder and Ryan Stimson, we’re able to identify a way the Caps can become a major dangerous offensive team.
The Caps can become a more dangerous team by changing up their plan of attack when entering the offensive zone with control of the puck. If the Caps looks to complete more passes before shooting the puck when they enter the offensive zone with control of the puck, it could improve their offense.
By Patrick Holden 6 years ago
The NHL Network has been filling the dead space of summer by releasing positional rankings and, oh boy, did their rankings of wingers have one glaring error.
Lists are hard. It’s impossible to please everyone and disagreement is a guarantee. So, it’s not fair to expect lists to conform 100 percent to our own rankings, but, in an ideal world, lists are accurate enough to where reasonable minds can disagree. The NHL’s ranking of wingers allows for no such thing because no reasonable person can agree that Taylor Hall is only the 20th best winger in the NHL.
Hall is criminally underrated on the list, coming in at 20th.
By Patrick Holden 6 years ago
While you’ll sometimes hear about a team’s need to “get pucks deep”, often by playing dump-and-chase hockey, entering the zone with control of the puck has been shown to create nearly twice the offense as dumping the puck in.
No one has done more over the last few years to advance our understanding of zone entries and exits than Corey Sznajder. Corey’s tireless efforts tracking games has provided the hockey community with a valuable resource. Recently, Sean Tierney used Corey’s data to make visualizations of individual players’ zone entry defense.
What was uncovered may surprise you: Brooks Orpik was the best Caps defender at protecting the blue line on zone entries last season.
By Patrick Holden 6 years ago
Our concerns with the Caps’ moves this offseason are well documented. But that’s not to say it’s all doom and gloom. There are plenty of reasons to be optimistic about this team, and some things that have gone well this offseason. One of these things is the re-signing of defenseman Dmitry Orlov to a six-year deal with a cap hit of $5.1 million per season.
According to Cap Friendly, the deal puts Orlov 41st among all NHL defenders in cap hit. If we approximate that each team carries seven defensemen, this puts Orlov’s cap hit in the 81st percentile among defensemen.
This is a good value for the Caps.
By Patrick Holden 6 years ago
Like Peter wrote on Sunday, we knew this offseason was going to be full of tough choices for the Caps. They weren’t going to be able to bring back the entire 2016-17 team, and some of the decisions were going to hurt. But, the unsettling part of the offseason so far isn’t the decisions that have hurt – but the decisions that make little sense. It seems as if the Caps had limited foresight; they made choices independently, one at a time, without considering the ripple effect each would have on the next.
On Monday, Brian MacLellan spoke to the media. It was the general manager’s chance to explain his thought process for navigating the last month of roster activity. But MacLellan’s explanation only seemed to confirm what we had suspected: the team had tunnel vision, leaving themselves unprepared for the expansion draft, free-agent negotiations, and the domino effect one would have on the other.
By Patrick Holden 6 years ago
With Nate Schmidt heading to Vegas in the expansion draft, the Caps have a hole in their top-four. While the Caps do have a small handful of defensive prospects who will likely see time in DC next season, it’s unlikely any of these guys are ready for a full-time role on a second pairing in the NHL. The Caps could also go the trade route, but if they were unwilling to pay Vegas their asking price to not select Schmidt, it’s unlikely the Caps will be willing to give up the assets required to bring in a top-four defender on the trade market.
That leaves targeting an unrestricted free agent as the most likely option the Caps will take to replace Schmidt. Finding the cap space to do this is going to be tricky, but as things stand now, I think the Caps could have $2-3 million to spend on the UFA market to bring in a defender.
Here’s a look at four pending UFAs who could fall into that price range and be adequate on a second defensive pairing.
By Patrick Holden 6 years ago
Peter and I talked on the latest RMNB podcast about the fact that the TJ Oshie signing leaves the Caps with limited cap space to fill out a roster that has some obvious weaknesses. Given this, the Caps are going to have to squeeze every last dollar of cap space, getting creative where they can to save money.
Here’s a look at three different things the Caps can do to try to find the cap space needed to address the holes on the roster.
By Patrick Holden 6 years ago
