“The whole secret of a successful life is to find out what
is one’s destiny to do, and then do it.”
-- Henry Ford
In the 42 seasons that NHL hockey has been played in
Washington, only 39 skaters have played in more games for the Capitals than Jay
Beagle (392). This might seem a bit odd
for a player who was not drafted, was only signed by the Caps as a free agent
at the age of 22, who didn’t play his first NHL game until the age of 23, and
didn’t play more than half the games of a Caps regular season until he was 27
years old. His career is a statement of
hard work, attention to detail, and perseverance. In the 2016-2017 season, those traits
combined for what was a career season for Beagle. He finished the season with career bests in
games played (81), goals (13), game-winning goals (4), assists (17), points
(30), plus-minus (plus-20), and shots (100).
It was a season that was put together with an uncommon
consistency. Beagle scored goals in each
of his eight ten-game splits and recorded between three and five points over
those eight ten-game splits. Only once
did he have a “minus” record in any ten-game split (his seventh, over which he
was a minus-1). And, for a fourth liner,
those points he recorded came on a regular basis. His longest streak without a point was six
games; in his last 50 games his longest such streak was four games.
Beagle added to a superb body of work in the game’s most
basic play, the faceoff. Of 150 players
taking at least 250 draws this season, Beagle won 56.4 percent of his draws to
finish ninth in that group. Among 180
active skaters taking at least 1,000 draws over their careers, Beagle is fifth
with a career mark of 55.9 percent. Does
it matter? The Caps were 19-2-0 when
Beagle won at least ten draws in a game this season. Then again, they were 5-1-1 in games in which
he lost ten or more draws. Perhaps it
was a simple matter of volume. In 36
games in which Beagle took 15 or more draws, the Caps were 32-2-2.
Time seemed to matter, if only coincidentally, with respect
to Beagle and the Caps’ success. In the
32 games in which Beagle skated more than 14 minutes, the Caps were
29-2-1. This might be a product of being
able to roll four lines in games in which the Caps were competitive, but it is
indicative that Beagle had enough value to give him those minutes in those
games.
Fearless’ Take… Beagle has become a surprisingly effective
secondary scoring threat. In 2016-2017
he averaged more goals per 60 5-on-5 minutes (0.88) than did Alex Ovechkin
(0.86). Among 154 forwards skating in at
least 40 games and averaging less than 14 minutes of ice time per game (Beagle
averaged 13:37 per game), he was eighth in points (30). It is not a sudden occurrence, either. Over the last three seasons he has averaged
14.8 goals per 82 games.
Cheerless’ Take… Of
14 forwards to skate at least 100 5-on-5 minutes for the Caps this season,
Beagle had the worst individual Corsi-for (47.02 percent; numbers from
Corsica.hockey). This is not a one-off
instance, either. In seven seasons in
which he appeared in more than 30 games for the Caps, he has never reached the
50 percent mark in 5-on-5 Corsi-for.
Beagle skated at least 50 5-on-5 minutes with five Capital forwards, and
each of those forwards had better Corsi-for numbers apart from Beagle than
playing with him (numbers from stats.hockeyanalysis.com). In fact, all of them had Corsi-for values
under 50 percent with Beagle and had Corsi values over 50 percent apart from
him.
Odd Beagle Fact… Jay Beagle scored goals in 11 games this
season. In those games, the Caps were
11-0-0. In 40 career games in which
Beagle scored a goal, the Caps are 34-1-5.
Game to remember… January 13th vs. Chicago
When the Capitals hosted the Chicago Blackhawks on January
13th, they were looking to sweep the two-game season series. Washington defeated the Blackhawks in
Chicago, 3-2, in overtime on November 11th, a game in which Beagle
recorded both Capitals goals in regulation, one of them a shorthanded tally,
the first such goal of his career. In
this contest, the Caps were riding a seven-game winning streak, their longest
of the season to that point. The Caps
made short work of the competitive portion of the game, the scoring opened on a
goal by Beagle 6:04 into the game, followed 13 seconds later by a Nicklas
Backstrom goal and a score by Brett Connolly late in period to give the Caps a
3-0 lead at the first intermission.
Beagle scored his second goal of the game with 1:32 left in the contest
to cap a 6-0 win. He finished the season
series against Chicago with four of the Caps’ nine goals scored, including the
game-winner in the January 13th contest.
Game to forget… October 13th vs. Pittsburgh
Opening Night is always something special, a game players
point to when preparing for the new season.
When it is against the defending Stanley Cup champions, it is just a bit
bigger. For Jay Beagle, it was a
forgettable game for no other reason than one might have forgotten he was in
the lineup. He skated just 14 shifts and
recorded only 7:37 in ice time, a season low, only 6:08 of that at even
strength in a game that went 65 minutes of regulation and overtime before the
Penguins won, 3-2, in the Gimmick. It was not that he played poorly or committed
any noteworthy errors (although he was on ice for a Penguin power play
goal). He had two shots on goal and two
blocked shots, and he won five of eight faceoffs. But it was a night he spent watching much
more than playing.
Postseason: 13 games, 0-0-0, minus-5, 43.41 5-on-5 CF%
Jay Beagle has never been a big scorer in the postseason,
but not since he played in four games of the 2008-2009 playoffs did he go an
entire postseason without a point. Such
was his fate in the 2017 postseason. It
was part of a broader problem repeated from the 2016 playoffs, a lack of
bottom-six contributions on offense. It
was, in part, a case of his shooting drying up.
He recorded only six shots on goal in more than 150 minutes of ice time. And speaking of ice time, Beagle was
something of the canary in the coal mine.
The Caps were 7-2 in games in which he skated at least ten minutes, both
losses coming in overtime. They were 0-4
in those games in which he skated less than ten minutes, and all of those games
(and losses) were against Pittsburgh.
In the end…
Not that our prognostos are the first, only, or final word
on how players will fare in a season, but Jay Beagle wildly out-performed our
prognosto for the regular season, roughly doubling his goals, assists, and
point projections. His year-over-year improvements
from the 2015-2016 season were substantial.
He centered what might have been the best fourth line in the NHL this
season. That is a phrase that seems a
bit odd, perhaps giving added weight to the influence of a fourth line on game
outcomes. But contributions from that
fourth line were significant (Beagle, Brett Connolly, and Tom Wilson
contributed 33 of the team’s 176 even strength goals this season), more so than
they were in 2015-2016.
The playoffs were another matter. Getting contributions from the bottom six was
lacking in the 2016 postseason, and it seemed to be addressed with off-season
moves and the emergence of Beagle as a more prolific offensive contributor in
the regular season. But the fourth line
contributed one point in the postseason (Tom Wilson’s overtime goal in Game 1
of the first round series against the Toronto Maple Leafs; his other two goals
were scored with the third line). And
Beagle had the worst plus-minus of any forward on the club for the postseason
at minus-5. Like a lot of Capitals, Jay
Beagle undid a lot of good he accomplished in the regular season with a
postseason that was as productive – and as disappointing – as that in 2016.
Grade: B-
Photo: Gregory Shamus/Getty Images North America
