Sometimes it is as much the “how” as the “what.” The Washington Capitals finished the week
with the same record they had in Week 4, but it was a very different road they
took to get there.
Record: 2-1-0
Washington finished the week with its third straight 2-1-0
record that, if not a signal of dominating play, does reflect a certain
consistency. How they got there was very
different than the week previous. In
Week 4 the Caps won the first two games of their five-game road trip, beating
Winnipeg and Edmonton, but fell flat in Calgary, dropping a 5-2 decision to
the Flames.
This week started as if the Caps were going to spend the
rest of the road trip marinating in constant disappointment after they lost a
third period lead in Vancouver and lost to the Canucks, 3-2. Getting out of western Canada was a relief
though, as the Caps pasted the Philadelphia Flyers, 7-0, then came home and
eked out a 3-2 trick shot win over the Florida Panthers, finishing the 2-1 week
on a higher note than that which they finished the 2-1 week last week. And if you are thinking a 2-1-0 record is
unimpressive, if the Caps were to average that per week over the remaining
weeks of the season they would finish with 104 points.
Offense: 3.67/game (season: 2.93 / rank: 13th)
It was an odd week for the offense. No, not odd as in “strange,” odd as in
numbers. The offense was dominated by
the first and third lines, a fact made, well, odd by the fact that Alex
Ovechkin missed the last two games of the week with an upper-body injury. The top line of Nicklas Backstrom, Martin
Erat, and Eric Fehr finished the week with three goals (all by Backstrom) and
six assists. The three goals for
Backstrom more than doubled his season total (from two to five), ditto for Fehr
and his three assists (also jumping him from two to five).
Meanwhile, the third line of Mikhail Grabovski, Joel Ward,
and Jason Chimera finished with six goals and eight assists. Joel Ward had his first career hat trick in the
7-0 romp over the Flyers, and Jason Chimera finished with a six-point week
(2-4-6), more than doubling his points output for the season (from five to 11).
It was a week of firsts, too. Michael Latta recorded his first point in the
NHL, assisting on John Carlson’s goal against Florida. The goal was only the second of the season by
a Capital defenseman and the first from a player currently on the roster
(Connor Carrick owns the other goal, and he is currently in Hershey). The goal was Carlson’s 100th point
in the NHL.
Defense: 1.67/game (season: 2.86 / rank: 19th)
The Caps allowed each of their opponents 30 or more shots
this week, making it nine games in a row that the Caps failed to hold an
opponent under 30 shots (oddly enough, the only two times the Caps accomplished
the feat this season, they lost).
The Caps did make some progress in one respect, though. They lost the even strength shots battle to
Vancouver, 26-14, to open the week. In
the last two games of the week they held opponents to a virtual draw,
outshooting the Flyers and Panthers, 41-40.
Before we make too much of that, however, the Flyers and Panthers are in
the bottom five in the league in scoring offense and are in the bottom seven in
shots on goal.
Goaltending: 1.63 GAA / .952 save percentage / 1 shutout
(season: 2.76 / .918 / 1 shutout)
There was not much fault to find in either Braden Holtby’s
or Michal Neuvirth’s performance this week.
Neuvirth opened and closed the week with solid performances. He opened the week being shelled for 41 shots by the Canucks in
Monday’s game in Vancouver. Neuvirth
might have wanted the second goal back – a rebound goal scored by Ryan Kesler
when Neuvirth could not glove down the original shot from the point – but in
the context of the whole game Neuvirth was the Caps’ best defender.
Neuvirth closed the week with a solid 31-save effort against
the Florida Panthers for his first home win of the season and the game’s first
star.
Speaking of stars, Braden Holtby was that in his lone
appearance of the week, a 30-save shutout of the Flyers in Philadelphia. It was his first blanking of the season and
the eighth of his career. What he did
not get out of it was a game star, that being reserved for his opposite number,
Ray Emery who managed 11 saves on 15 shots in 22 minutes and change of ice
time. Oh, but he did race the length of
the ice and mug Holtby, who had no desire to fight in a 7-0 game he was
winning. In Philadelphia that means something. It also is no surprise that the Flyers are a
Buffalo chicken wing or two from having the worst record in the Eastern
Conference.
Power Play: 2-14 / 14.3 percent (season: 23.6 percent /
rank: 4th)
The Caps are in the midst of quite a dry spell on the power
play. A 2-for-14 week makes them
2-for-20 over their last five games. It
was not an especially efficient week with the man advantage. In 22:49 of total power play time the Caps
were just 2-for-17 shooting (11.8 percent).
It is possible to make too much of this week, though. One would expect that the Caps’ power play,
when fully functioning, would have most of the shots come off the stick of Alex
Ovechkin with a sprinkling of Mike Green and Troy Brouwer or Joel Ward in the
middle of the 1-3-1.
This week, eight different Caps recorded power play shots,
including the rarely-used Michael Latta and Nate Schmidt, who got ice time in the Philly beatdown. Missing Ovechkin for two games meant Eric
Fehr took his spot on the left wing, and Fehr did record a pair of power play
shots. It was Mike Green, though, who
led the team with five shots on goal over the three games. He is still looking for his first goal of any
kind this season, power play or otherwise.
Penalty Killing: 16-17 / 94.1 percent (season: 90.7 percent
/ rank: 2nd)
The streak continued deep into the week. A penalty killing streak that started in the
third period of the Caps’ October 12th game against Colorado reached
35 PK’s in a row before they finally allowed a goal in the late stages regulation
time of the Caps’ 3-2 Gimmick win over Florida to end the week.
The efficiency was nice – great in fact. A 94.1 percent penalty killing rate and a
.971 save percentage while shorthanded is spectacular. It is also not likely to be sustainable. And that brings us to the skunk at the garden
party: frequency. That the Caps had to
face 17 shorthanded situations for the week is a bit disturbing, even with the
hijinks that took place in Philadelphia on Friday night.
Six shorthanded situations against Vancouver, five against
Philadelphia, six against Florida. If
practice makes perfect (or almost so this week), the Caps sure got that. They spent 29:20 killing penalties, allowing
those 34 shots in the process. That they
got out of the week with just one goal allowed should be viewed with equal
parts pride in skill and a deep breath for the good luck enjoyed.
Even Strength Goals For/Against: 9-4 (season: 26-31; 5-on-5
GF/GA ratio: 0.93 / rank: 18th)
This statistic, while welcome, is entirely a product of the
smackdown the Caps applied to the Flyers in Philadelphia. Washington put up five even strength goals
against the Flyers and otherwise broke even for the week, losing the ES battle
to Vancouver, 3-2, and winning it against the Panthers, 2-1.
Still, it is improvement, and the Caps lifted their 5-on-5
goals scored to goals allowed ratio from 0.73 before the Vancouver game to 0.93
when the curtain came down on the week. It
is as close as they have been to 1.00 as they have been all season so far.
Faceoffs: 86-182 / 47.3 percent (season: 49.2 percent /
rank: 19th)
That the Caps lost the week was the product of having their
lunch taken away in the circle in Vancouver on Monday. Winning only 17 of 51 draws (33.3 percent)
made finishing the week a tough chore.
They almost did, winning 34 of 65 draws against Philadelphia (52.3
percent) and 35 of 66 against Florida (53.0 percent).
The Caps were run over in their own end, winning just 21 of
57 draws for the week and doing poorly against both Vancouver (5-for-17/29.4
percent) and Philadelphia (7-for-22/31.8 percent). In the defensive end they were much better,
winning 39 of 71 for the week (54.9 percent), a product of their effort against
Philadelphia (16-for-23/69.6 percent) and Florida (16-for-30/53.3 percent).
The guys on the scoring lines taking most of the offensive
zone draws did not have a very good week.
Nicklas Backstrom, Brooks Laich (against Vancouver), and Marcus
Johansson (against Philadelphia and Florida) were 8-for-25 (32.0 percent) for
the week.
Goals For/Against by Period:
The problem for the week, if there was one, is right there
hiding in plain sight. Twice the Caps
had leads in the third period of games, and twice they lost them. It cost them two points in one game, and it
cost them a regulation win in the other.
Although the Caps outscored opponents by a 3-1 margin in the
first period of games this week, it remains that there are only five teams that
have scored fewer first period goals than the Caps. They do seem to make up for it with their
second period performance, both this week (a 6-1 advantage) and overall
(21-12), but it still would be nice to get out to better starts.
In the end…
The saying goes that it is not “how,” it is “how many”…wins
that is. But how a team arrives at those
wins is something to think about as the team goes forward. Did the formula they used to win those games
suggest a template to duplicate going forward?
We are not sold on that.
Much of this week’s results was a product of the second period against
Philadelphia. A great 20 minutes, to be
sure, but 20 minutes nonetheless.
Otherwise they had those lost leads against the other two teams that
could have made it a much more disappointing week.
The good part is that the Caps did get two wins with their
captain on the bench, and others (most notably Nicklas Backstrom and that third
line) stepped up in his absence. There
is still much work to be done before one could say this is a good team playing
well, but they gave themselves a basis this week for building toward that goal.
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