Record: 3-1-0
Week 27 was the ninth four-game week of the season, and with
a 3-1-0 record, Washington posted their fifth winning week with the heavy
schedule. In fact, the week was the
eighth straight four-game week in which they split or won a majority of the
available standings points since they went 1-2-1 in four games of Week 2. The week was also the fourth straight winning
week overall for the Caps, over which they went 11-3-0 to finish with the
third-best record in the Eastern Conference behind Tampa Bay and Boston. The Caps tied in standings points with the
Toronto Maple Leafs but won the tie-breaker (regulation/overtime wins).
The schedule of opponents provided an interesting
contrast. Washington wrapped a pair of Metropolitan Division rivals around two Central Division opponents – Pittsburgh and New Jersey to start and end
the week, respectively, and St. Louis and Nashville in the week’s middle
games. The 3-1 win over the Penguins to
start the week earned the Caps a split of the four games against Pittsburgh
this season, each team splitting both the home and road pairs of games. The 4-2 win over St. Louis on Monday gave the
Caps a sweep of their two games against the Blues, while the 4-3 loss to
Nashville gave the Predators a sweep of the Caps in their pair of games on the
schedule. The Caps' win over New Jersey to end the week gave Washington points in all four games and a 3-0-1 record against the Devils.
The back-to-back set of games against Pittsburgh and St.
Louis to open the week was the 14th set of back-to-backs this season. It was the Caps’ third sweep of back-to-back
games and their second sweep in a row of such games (they swept the New York
Islanders in a home-and-home back-to-back on March 15th and 16th). Their other sweep came back in November
against Tampa Bay and at Toronto.
The 4-3 loss to Nashville on Thursday ended the Caps’ chance
for a third-straight 50-win season, but the 49 wins with which they finished
was the sixth highest win total in franchise history. Of those six seasons, Barry Trotz was head
coach for three of them (56 and 55 wins in the two seasons preceding this one). The others on that list are Bruce Boudreau
(54 wins in 2009-2010 and 50 wins in 2008-2009) and Brian Murray (50 wins in
1985-1986).
Offense: 3.75 /game (season: 3.12 /game, rank: 9th)
The Caps scored three of more goals in all four games of the
week, making it 12 out of their last 14 games with three or more, averaging
3.79 goals per game in that span. They
spread things around fairly well with nine different skaters recording at least
one goal. Perhaps as important, the Caps
got the lion’s share of contributions from players who are expected to, and in
fact will have to show up in the postseason.
Alex Ovechkin, Andre Burakovsky, Evgeny Kuznetsov, and Nicklas Backstrom
were the skaters who finished the week with two or more goals.
The Caps had 16 skaters recording points in Week 27, one of
those points posted by Shane Gersich – an assist on a Michal Kempny goal in the
Caps’ 5-2 win over New Jersey to end the week.
The primary assist was Gersich’s first NHL point. As for the top of the points list, Kuznetsov
and Backstrom led the team with six apiece, both players recording two goals
and four assists. Backstrom was the only
skater to record more than one multi-point game, going 1-2-3 against St. Louis
and then 1-1-2 against the Devils.
Kuznetsov was the only player to record a point in each of the four
games of the week. He finished the regular season with a rush, going 7-12-19 in
his last 11 games and 11-17-28 in his last 19 contests, recording 10
multi-point games.
Another good sign was the Caps getting points from six of
the seven defensemen to dress during the week.
John Carlson led that group with three points (all assists). Only Christian Djoos, who appeared only in
the 4-3 loss to Nashville, did not record a point among the blueliners. Dmitry Orlov got one of the two goals from
the defense, becoming the 11th skater this season to record 10 or
more goals. Michal Kempny was the other
defenseman to score a goal in Week 27.
Defense: 2.50 / game (season: 2.90 /game, rank: 16th)
The strange number for the Caps on defense in Week 27 is “72.” That is the number of blocked shots they
recorded for the week, tied with the San Jose Sharks for second-most in the
league (the Colorado Avalanche had 74).
San Jose’s number is a bit stranger in that their 72 blocked shots came
in only three games. There were 19
different skaters who had at least one blocked shot, John Carlson (14) and
Brooks Orpik (10) the pair reaching double digits. Carlson’s total tied for the league lead for
the week (Chicago’s Brent Seabrook being the other).
Another number of note was “36.”
This was the number of credited takeaways the Caps had for the week,
third-highest in the league (Florida had 47, Winnipeg had 37). John Carlson had six of them to lead the
club, tied for the third-highest individual total for the week (Aleksander
Barkov had eight for Florida, Boston’s Torey Krug had seven).
The Caps also ranked high on the hits list, finishing with
the sixth-highest total for the week (85).
And that brings us to Tom Wilson, who had a unique week. Wilson had 15 hits to lead the team. With his five takeaways, he was the only
player in the league to finish the week with at least ten hits and at least
five takeaways.
Put it together, and it is not surprising that the Caps were
below 50 percent in shot attempts-for at 5-on-5. However, they did not play to their season
rankings in that area, finishing the week at 49.87 percent for the four games,
considerably better than the 47.98 percent with which they finished the season
(24th). However, the
shot-attempts against part of that equation did not paint quite as good a
picture. The 190 shot attempts against
at fives was the sixth-highest in the league and in the upper half of the 15
teams that played four games.
Overall, the Caps did finish the week with consecutive games
holding opponents to fewer than 30 shots, the first time they did that since a
five-game streak in Game 65-69 in early March.
Goaltending: 2.54 / .922 (season: 2.75 / .913 / 3 shutouts)
Are the Capitals entering the postseason with a goaltending
controversy? If they came into the week
with one, the matter was not settled in Week 27. The overall numbers for the week were good,
and there was little difference between the pair of Braden Holtby and Philipp
Grubauer. Holtby finished the week with
two wins, a goals against average of 2.52, and a save percentage of .919. Grubauer split his two decisions, had a goals
against average of 2.56, and a save percentage of .924. If you are looking for daylight between the
goalies and their respective performances, it is in the opponents each
netminder faced. Grubauer beat
Pittsburgh and lost to Nashville, teams that in the minds of some will meet in
the Stanley Cup final for a second straight year. On the other hand, Holtby won his two
decisions against St. Louis and New Jersey, teams that were fighting to clinch
a postseason ticket (the Devils are in, the Blues are out), neither of them
thought of as being among the elite teams in the league. You could argue that Grubauer was facing
better “on-paper” teams with little, if anything to play for except seeding,
both teams having already clinched playoff spots. You could also argue that Holtby allowed five
goals to two unimpressive offenses in the league (New Jersey finished the week
15th in scoring offense, St. Louis finished 24th).
With so few games in the population, period-by-period
results do not reveal a lot, but the two goalies did seem to go in opposite
directions. Grubauer’s weak period was
in the third in which he allowed three goals on 25 shots over two games (.880
save percentage). Holtby’s was the first
periods of the two games, over which he allowed two goals on 16 shots (.875).
It was not a defining week in terms of settling on a goalie
to enter the postseason. If one has to
look further back, to the season series with the Columbus Blue Jackets, the
Caps’ first round opponent, Holtby was 3-1-0, 3.32, .913 in four appearances,
but four of the 11 goals he allowed came in the first period of a 5-1 loss to
Columbus in the last game of the season series, the only one of the four that
the Caps lost. Grubauer stopped all 18
shots he saw in a shade under 39 minutes in relief in that last game of the series.
Power Play: 3-for-14 / 21.4 percent (season: 22.5 percent,
rank: 7th)
The Caps finished Week 27 with their 15th week
with a power play over 20 percent. The
week on the power play capped a 2018 portion of the season in which the Caps
had the fourth best power play (25.6 percent; if Boston has a power play and fails
to convert in their season finale against Florida on Sunday, the Caps would
jump to third).
Alex Ovechkin had two of the three power play goals for the
week, bringing his season total to 17, second in the league to Patrik Laine’s
20 for the Winnipeg Jets. Small wonder
he led the team in goals for the week; Ovechkin had nine power play shots on
goal, more than the combined total of the other five players recording at least
one (seven).
Evgeny Kuznetsov added the other man advantage goal for the
week. In retrospect, his might have been
the goal that kept Ovechkin from finishing with 50 goals for the season. In the seventh minute of the second period of
the Caps’ game against Nashville, after Ovechkin had already scored a goal (his
47th), the Caps had a power play.
From the goal line extended to the left of goalie Juuse Saros, Kuznetsov tried
to snap a pass across the top of the crease to Ovechkin, ready and waiting to
unleash a one-timer from low in the left wing circle. Defenseman Ryan Ellis, trying to block the
pass across, slid feet-first on his stomach and had his skate redirect the pass
through Saros’ pads, Kuznetsov credited with the goal. Ovechkin finished that game without another goal
and then had two against New Jersey to finish with 49.
As a team, the Caps were not especially efficient. They scored their three goals on 16 shots in
20:00 of power play time. What was noteworthy
about that was the lack of anything out of the middle of the power play. T.J. Oshie skated 9:45 on the power play, and
Brett Connolly added 8:31, both skating in the middle of the 1-3-1 power
play. Neither recorded a power play shot
on goal.
Penalty Killing: 10-for-12 / 83.3 percent (season: 80.3
percent, rank: 16th)
If you wanted to describe the Caps’ penalty kill over the
second half of the season, the word you might use would be “consistent.” Not great, not awful, just “consistent.” The 10-for-12 week had two things going for
it. The first, in keeping with the “consistent”
theme, meant that the Caps spent the last 15 weeks of the season oscillating
between a season penalty kill rate of 79 and 81 percent. Never higher, never lower. The other thing to keep in mind is that their
80.2 percent kill rate over those 15 weeks, while a shade lower than their
overall season rate of 80.3 percent, was nevertheless the 11th best
in the league, better than the 16th-ranked penalty kill with which
they finished the season. The week would
have been a lot better, though, without allowing Nashville power play goals on
both of their opportunities, one of which tied the game in the third period
before the Predators went on to win.
The Caps were lit up for 12 shots in 8:40 of shorthanded ice
time against Pittsburgh to open the week, but the Penguins could not solve
Philipp Grubauer. Over the rest of the
week, the Caps allowed just 11 shots in 12:20 to finish allowing 23 shots in 21
minutes of shorthanded ice time, marred only by the two power play goals
Nashville scored three shots in 2:23 of power play ice time.
Faceoffs: 124-for-254 / 48.8 percent (season: 50.4 percent,
rank: 13th)
In an odd coincidence, the Caps had a second consecutive “48.8”
week, their faceoff winning percentages last week and this. Going underneath the top-end numbers revealed
an odd sort of week. The first thing to
notice was the nature of performance by zone.
Washington won 54 of 86 offensive zone draws (62.8 percent) but managed
only 34 wins in 91 defensive zone faceoffs (37.4 percent).
The next thing to notice was that the Caps were under 50
percent in the first three games of the week, under 45 percent in the games against
St. Louis and Nashville, perhaps not that much of a surprise since Nashville
finished the week third in the league in faceoff winning percentage and St.
Louis finishing 11th. The
Caps dominated the Devils in the last game of the week (32-for-54/59.3
percent), which might not have been surprising, either, the Devils ranking 30th
in the league at week’s end.
Individually, four of the five Caps to take at least ten
draws finished at 50 percent or better.
Only Evgeny Kuznetsov, who took the most draws for the week, finished
under 50 percent among that group.
Missing from the 10-and-over group was Jay Beagle, who won two of five
draws in just 3:22 of ice time against the Penguins in the first game of the
week before sustaining an upper-body injury that kept him out for the remainder
of that game and the three contests to end the week.
Goals by Period:
It was the middle period in which the Caps did most of their
offensive damage in Week 27. They scored
second period goals in each of the four games, two in the middle frame against
St. Louis and Nashville. It was the
third period in which the Caps had some leakage, allowing goals in the last
three games of the week (two to the Predators in that lone loss).
The Caps finished the week as a top-ten offense in first
period goals scored (76/ninth) and second period goals (87/tied for tenth). The defense finished the regular season in an
odd sort of way. The 73 second period
goals allowed was tied with Vegas for sixth-fewest in the league. But the rankings in the first and third
periods went in the other direction entirely, the 70 first period goals allowed
ranking 17th and the 89 third period goals allowed ranking 24th.
In the end…
Week 27 was quite a week for a season-ending week with no
standings implications. The Caps took
care of business to win three of four games, they saw Nicklas Backstrom
continue his torrid second-half points pace (45 points in his last 44 games),
Alex Ovechkin come within a whisker – a missed shot on a breakaway in the third
period against New Jersey – of finishing with his eighth 50-goal season, and John
Carlson getting a point to finish the season at the top of the points rankings
among defensemen, but they also failed to settle the matter of who is the clear
number one goaltender heading into the postseason.
As it was, the Caps had 16 winning weeks in the 2017-2018
regular season and another seven weeks where they earned half the available
standings points. They had four losing
weeks out of 27, only two of which came after Week 3. There is a line of thinking that the Caps
have over-performed their season possession numbers, that they allowed a
disproportionate number of scoring chances, that their underlying numbers in
general point to another disappointing early exit in the postseason. But we do wonder about such things when we
look at shot attempts. The Caps finished
the week 24th in the league in shot attempts-for percentage at
5-on-5 (47.98). One spot above them are
the Arizona Coyotes (48.10). The Coyotes
won 20 fewer games than the Caps and finished 35 points behind them.
This is not a comprehensive argument poking holes in the predictive
power of shot attempts as a proxy for possession, and overall possession
numbers can be subjected to finer analytical detail to reveal trends. What it suggests is that the Caps have a
skill advantage over the Coyotes (and perhaps a number of other lower-third
dwellers in the shot-attempt rankings). Over
82 games of a regular season against the population of 30 other NHL teams, the
Caps would use that skills advantage to take advantage of opponents, even with
unfavorable possession numbers. In that
respect, Week 27 provides a clue and a caution to what lies ahead. The Caps were better than Pittsburgh and New
Jersey in shot attempts at five on five.
Pittsburgh was coming off clinching a playoff spot and might not have
been at their sharpest. The Caps will
not encounter the Pens in that situation again this season. The Devils are not nearly as skilled as
Washington, Taylor Hall’s sublime season notwithstanding. On the other hand, the Caps lost that
differential to Nashville, a more balanced and deeper team on paper, and St.
Louis, a team in virtual playoff mode battling for a postseason spot.
The question as the Caps put Week 27 in the rear-view mirror
and head to the postseason becomes whether their skills advantage is going to
be sufficient to offset their season-long battle with their own underlying
numbers against teams much closer to, if not superior to the Caps in skill. That’s why they play the games.
Three Stars:
- First Star: Nicklas Backstrom (2-4-6, plus-5, 9 shots on goal, 14 shot attempts, 20:15 average ice time)
- Second Star: Alex Ovechkin (4-0-4, minus-1, 2 power play goals, 1 game-winning goal, 21 shots on goal, 48 shot attempts, seventh Richard Trophy as top goal scorer)
- Third Star: Evgeny Kuznetsov (2-4-6, even, 1 power play goal, 14 shots on goal, 18 shot attempts)
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