Sunday, November 04, 2018

Washington Capitals: That Was The Week That Was - Week 5

It was a long time coming, but it was bound to happen sooner of later.  The Washington Capitals were winless for Week 5 and find themselves stuck in fifth place in the Metropolitan Division and tenth in the Eastern Conference.  It has not been a disastrous start, but it is not the start Capitals Nation hoped for, either.


Record: 0-1-1

It was a light week of work for the Caps, who have had to deal with a quirky schedule in which they didn’t start their week’s work before Wednesday for the fourth time in five weeks.  And, it was their third week in five in which they took the ice only twice.  The takeaway in terms of record is that the winless week for the Caps was their first since Week 16 of last season in which they went 0-1-1, dropping a 4-3 overtime decision to the Nashville Predators and a 3-2 decision to the Montreal Canadiens.

That the Caps lost to Montreal in Week 5 at Bell Centre was perhaps as clear an indicator that things are not quite right with the team so far.  The Caps took a 13-0-2 record in their previous 15 games at Bell Centre into this week’s game and spit the bit in the third period, turning a 4-3 advantage into a 6-4 loss, including allowing goals two seconds apart in the last minute (the latter an empty netter), a record for shortest time between two goals in NHL history.

The Caps are now 12 games into the season, and they have yet to post wins in consecutive games.  No team can win a Stanley Cup in November, but they can lose one.  Falling behind too much, too early, means there are just so many teams to climb over as the season moves along.  That the Caps are only two points clear of the division’s last place team (New York Rangers) should be cause for concern.


Offense: 3.50/game (season: 3.75/game, rank: T-1st)

In any other week, scoring three and a half goals per game would look good.  Unfortunately, the Caps could not score often enough to overcome deficiencies in other areas (more on that below).  The Caps had decent balance among the scorers, five players splitting the seven goals scored (Lars Eller and Alex Ovechkin each had a pair).  Fourteen skaters recorded points, Eller leading them with three points.

If there was an odd part of the offense on an individual level, it was that the Caps had three defensemen record points in Week 5, none of them being John Carlson.  He averaged more than 25 minutes in the two games, but he had only three shots on goal and finished a minus-5 for the week.  Getting Michal Kempny and Dmitry Orlov in the scoring (each with an assist to double their season points total) was a welcome turn.

Defense: 5.00/game (season: 3.83/game, rank: 28th)

Only five teams allowed fewer shots for the week than the Caps, but hold off on that “stingy defense” notion.  The Caps allowed 81 shots on goal in two games; they allowed 100 shot attempts at 5-on-5 for the two games.  These are not good numbers.  The 63 5-on-5 shot attempts the Caps allowed the Canadiens in the first game of the week were the most allowed to any opponent so far.  They improved in this regard against Dallas, allowing only 37 shot attempts at fives in the second game of the week (third-fewest through 12 games), but that was indicative of the inconsistency that has plagued the team through the first dozen games.

Goaltending: 4.38 / .888 (season: 3.61 / .887 / 1 SO)

It was Braden Holtby’s week, and it was not one for the scrapbooks.  The defense in front of him did not help much, but it was a return to a week without reaching the .900 save percentage mark.  Holtby has been a goaltender that thrived on heavy shot volumes over his career, but 80 shots over two-plus games was an extraordinarily high volume.  It started with the Canadiens raining 19 shots on his net in the first period of the first game of the week, and it ended with Dallas recording seven shots in just over three minutes of overtime before pinning the overtime loss on Holtby.  In between it was a case of an odd pattern of shots faced.  Holtby faced 30 first period shots and 26 third period shots for the week, but he took on only 17 shots in the second periods of the two games in Week 5.  Still, the results were disappointing.  At week’s end, Holtby ranked 35th of 41 goaltenders in goals against average (3.62; minimum: 250 minutes played) and 34th in save percentage (.888).  Curiously, it is a familiar neighborhood in the goalie rankings.  Compare his numbers to those of former netmate Philipp Grubauer (3.56, .893) and Pittsburgh’s Matt Murray (3.68, .890), and there are enough goalie troubles to go around among familiar faces.

Power Play:  1-for-4/25.0 percent (season: 35.9 percent, rank: 1st)

For the fifth consecutive week the Caps finished the week with a power play efficiency rate of 25 percent or better.  That is the good news.  The bad news is the small volume of chances, only four for the two games of the week.  The Caps finished the week having enjoyed the fifth-fewest number of power play chances in the league.  That they have the second-most power play goals (14, one behind St. Louis) is testament to the effectiveness of their power play.

What they did not get in Week 5 was so much as a single power play shot on goal against Montreal in the first game of the week.  And, they had only one chance with the man advantage.  It was the second time this season that the Caps were held to a single power play opportunity and their second loss in such instances.  Washington had one power play chance, without converting, in a 4-1 loss to Edmonton on October 25th.

That the Caps recorded a power play goal and earned at least a standings point against Dallas is not unusual.  It brought the Caps’ record to 5-1-2 in games in which they scored a power play goal.  Still, four shots on goal in 7:18 of power play time is a quiet week on this front.


Penalty Killing: 4-for-4 / 100.0 percent (season:  75.0 percent, rank: 23rd)

Here is perhaps the most bizarre week-to-week fact coming out of Week 5.  The Caps have had two weeks in five in which their penalty killing was 80 percent are better, and those are the two losing weeks that the Caps have had so far.  Washington killed eight of ten shorthanded situations in Week 2 and went 1-2-0.  In Week 5 they killed all four of their shorthanded situations and went 0-1-1.  They did a fine job in suppressing shots while down a man, allowing the Canadiens only two shots on goal on two power plays and Dallas only one shot on goal on two power plays.


Faceoffs: 67-for-117 / 57.3% percent (season: 48.6 percent, rank: 24th)

If the Caps did one thing well in Week 5, it was take faceoffs.  And here might be evidence of how inconsequential such results are, but with a caveat.  Washington did a fine job in the offensive zone, winning 23 of 33 draws for the week (69.7 percent).  But two things about defensive zone draws were noteworthy.  First, they took 43 defensive zone draws for the week, ten more than they took in the offensive zone.  Second, they won only 21 of them (48.8 percent).

Three of the four skaters taking at least ten draws for the week finished over 50 percent – Nicklas Backstrom (63.9 percent), Lars Eller (61.5 percent) and Evgeny Kuznetsov (51.7 percent).  Only Nic Dowd among that group was under 50 percent(43.8).  All four were worse in the defensive end than they were in the offensive end, the Caps enjoying first possession on a regular basis in the offensive end, but having to go seeking the puck too often in the defensive end.


Goals by Period:


Well, the Caps were consistent, just not in a way they would like to carry forward.  Three goals allowed in each of the first, second, and third periods of games for the week was a recipe for poor results.  It is part of a consistency that has plagued the Caps all season.  Through five weeks the Caps have allowed 15 first period goals, 14 second period goals, and 15 third period goals.

On the other side, the Caps had a fine week in the period with the long change, posting five goals in the second periods of two games.  However, one goal in each of the first and third periods of games was indicative of slow starts and weak finishes, although that lone third period goal (a power play goal by Evgeny Kuznetsov) did allow the Caps to record a standings point against Dallas.

Year over Year:


Yes, the Caps do have a better record, year-over-year, through 12 games.  Yes, they score more (almost 30 percent more goals scored).  They are closer to 50 percent in shot attempts-for percentage than they were through 12 games last season.  More takeaways, fewer penalties.  The power play is much better than it was at a similar juncture last season, and while the penalty kill hasn’t improved, it is having to endure those situations at a lower frequency. 

By most measure, the Caps are in a better place after 12 games this season than they were after 12 games last season, but it feels strangely inadequate.  That is one price to pay for winning a championship.

In the end…

The Caps are 12 games in, and they haven’t won consecutive games.  That is the bottom line of what has been an inconsistent level of production among a number of statistical categories, even if on balance those numbers are better than last season through as many games.  The defense and goaltending have been especially troublesome, largely negating a good offense overall and a powerful power play.  The good news here is that defense is largely a product of effort applied to scheme, and that is something that can be corrected.  That, however, will require a level of sustained focus that has eluded the team so far.  Perhaps with a more regular diet of games in November, without the long stretches of time between games they worked through in October, that focus will be easier to sustain.  It had better be.

Three Stars:
  • First Star: Lars Eller (2-1-3, 61.5 faceoff wins, 52.63% shot attempts-for on ice at 5-on-5)
  • Second Star: Alex Ovechkin (2-0-2, 8 shots on goal, 20 shot attempts)
  • Third Star: Nicklas Backstrom (1-1-2, even, 63.9 percent faceoff wins, six shots on goal)

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