Record: 2-1-0
After a pair of weeks in which the Caps won half the
standings points available in each, they put their second straight winning week
in the books in Week 17 with a pair of wins against Canadian teams -- Montreal and Ottawa – sandwiched around a
loss to Nashville. It was a study in
dominance, for and against. The 4-2 win
over the Canadiens in Montreal on Monday gave Washington a 14-1-1 record at
Bell Centre over their last 16 games there.
The 5-3 win in Ottawa over the Senators on Friday gave the Caps a 15-1-1
record over the Senators over their last 17 games and the Caps’ eighth win in a
row over Ottawa. The flip side of that
was the middle game of the week, a 5-4 loss to the Nashville Predators that
extended the Caps’ losing streak to the Predators to eight games (0-7-1).
Offense: 4.33/game (season: 3.60/4th)
The Caps spread
things around fairly well on offense in Week 17. Nine different players shared in the 13 goals
scored, led by the three off the stick of Alex Ovechkin, despite his having to
sit out the first game of the week against Montreal due to his suspension for
abstaining from the All-Star Game. Those
three goals, giving him 695 in his career, enabled Ovechkin to pass Mark
Messier for eighth-place all-time on the NHL career goal scoring list. Richard Panik had a pair of goals against
Nashville for his week’s contribution, that being his first multi-goal game as
a Capital. Tom Wilson had a pair of
power play goals, one each against Montreal and Nashville. He had a three-game goal streak stopped when
he was blanked by the Senators to end the week.
The points were spread around liberally as well. Thirteen players posted points for the week,
a trio of Caps at the top of the board with four apiece: Ovechkin, Wilson, and
Jakub Vrana. Another trio of Caps posted
three points apiece for the week: Carl Hagelin, Lars Eller, and T.J.
Oshie. John Carlson had a pair of
assists against Ottawa to lift him past Calle Johansson into first place in
franchise history in career assists by a defenseman (362). It was Carlson’s third two-assist game in his
last five contests.
The all-around balanced offensive effort allowed the Caps to
finish the week tied with Toronto and Florida for the best scoring offense
since the start of the new year in the Eastern Conference (4.00 goals per
game). Only Edmonton in the Western
Conference has a higher average (4.11 goals per game).
Defense: 3.33/game (season: 2.92/T-10th)
On balance, it was a bit of a disappointing week on the
defensive side of the puck. The Caps
allowed ten goals to three teams ranking 15th (Nashville), 20th
(Ottawa), and 24th (Montreal) in scoring offense at the end of the
week. The problem did not appear to be a
matter of shot volumes, the Caps allowing the three opponents a total of 85
shots for the week (28.3 per game).
What did have an odd air about it were the shot attempts at
5-on-5. The Caps opened the week
allowing Montreal 95 shot attempts at fives, the sixth-highest volume of 5-on-5
shot attempts allowed by the Caps this season and the second most they allowed
in a road game (they allowed Chicago 108 shot attempts in a 5-3 win on October
20th). The special teams
problems the Caps had against Nashville masked the fact that the 42 shot
attempts allowed a 5-on-5 on Wednesday tied for the third-fewest 5-on-5 shot
attempts allowed by the Caps in a game this season. Then, to close the week, the Caps allowed
Ottawa 76 shot attempts at 5-on-5, a healthy volume for the opponent, but not
much more than half of the attempts the Caps allowed against the Senators
earlier this month – 126 in a game on January 7th, the most the Caps
have allowed to any opponent in a game this season.
Goaltending: 3.37 / .882 (season: 2.75 / .906 / 1 shutout)
What began as a curiosity, then became a pleasant surprise,
has become a head-scratching issue for the Caps. Rookie Ilya Samsonov has been a consistent
force in goal since he won his first NHL start against the New York Islanders
last October. He now has 16 wins in 20
appearances (most wins by a rookie goaltender), and his goals against average
(2.12) and save percentage (.925) are near the top of the rookie goaltending
rankings. Meanwhile, Braden Holtby is
struggling, coming into the week with a 1-5-0, 4.53, .830 over his most recent
six appearances.
Holtby got the nod in the first two games of the week, and
the work settled nothing on his end.
Holtby has been a dominating presence against Montreal over his career,
especially in Bell Centre, so when he stopped 31 of 33 shots in a 4-2 win, bringing
his career record at Bell Centre to 10-1-1, 1.69, .940 with two shutouts, it
was not a surprise. On the other hand,
Holtby has had little career success against the Nashville Predators, and when
presented with a chance to improve on his career numbers, he did not. He stopped just 19 of 24 shots in a 5-4 loss,
bringing his career record against the Preds to 3-5-1, 4.29, .860, and leaving
his situation in the uncertain state it was to open the week.
Meanwhile Samsonov kept plugging along, wining his 11th
consecutive decision in the 5-3 win over Ottawa to wrap up the week. Since last losing a decision, back on
November 15th to Montreal, Samsonov has appeared in 12 games an
posted an 11-0-0, 1.73, .936 record with one shutout. What started for him as the final stage of
his apprenticeship, serving as backup to veteran Braden Holtby, has become a
subplot for the Caps as they head into their last 30 games – who will be the
number one netminder?
Power Play: 3-for-13/23.1 percent (season: 20.5 percent/12th)
If it was just the power play, the Caps had a pretty good
week. The had a power play goal in each
of the three games and now have power play goals in six of their last seven
contests. They recorded 29 shots on goal
in 24:34 of power play ice time, a respectable shots-per-minute mark of
1.18. They got the shots from a variety
of players, nine in all, led by Alex Ovechkin with six, followed by Evgeny
Kuznetsov with five, and Nicklas Backstrom and Tom Wilson with four apiece.
But the power play is more than just the offense, and this
is where the Caps have a lingering problem.
They allowed shorthanded goals to both Nashville and Ottawa, bringing
the total of shorthanded goals allowed in their last eight games to five. When the week was over, the Caps had allowed
nine shorthanded goals for the season, tied with the Detroit Red Wings for most
in the league. What is means that the
Caps “net” power play, accounting for shorthanded goals scored against, ranks
just 22nd in the league (15.2 percent), an odd place to be with a
team with as much fire power as the Caps.
Penalty Killing: 8-for-10/80.0 percent (season: 84.0
percent/3rd)
The Caps have been in the upper levels of the league penalty
killing rankings for a while now, but some chips were evident in the façade in
Week 17. Nashville and Ottawa nicked the
Caps for a power play goal apiece, bringing the total to power play goals in
three of the Caps’ last four games over which they are 11-for-14 (78.6
percent). Week 17 was rather bizarre in
that the Caps held the three opponents to a total of seven shots on goal in
18:18 of power play ice time. That
included holding Ottawa to a single power play shot on goal in 4:28 of power
play ice time. They scored on it.
The Caps managed to offset the goals against with a
shorthanded goal of their own, Carl Hagelin scoring for the Caps. It was their first shorthanded goal since Nic
Dowd scored one on December 21st in a 3-1 win over Tampa Bay. It broke a 14-game streak without a
shorthanded goal.
Faceoffs: 87-for-182/47.8 percent (season: 49.3 percent/22nd)
The Caps had another less than inspiring week in the
circle. They were under 50 percent in
the games against Montreal and Ottawa, and they were under 50 percent in each
of the three zones for the week. It was
not entirely unexpected, since the three teams the Caps faced finished the week
ranked fifth (Nashville), 11th (Montreal), and 12th
(Ottawa) in faceoff winning percentage.
Individually, the Caps had five players take at least ten
draws for the week, and only Nicklas Backstrom (56.0) and T.J. Oshie (56.3)
finished over 50 percent. Backstrom had
a good week, finishing at 50 percent or better in all three zones.
Goals by Period:
The Caps had a good week in terms of spreading out the goals
among the periods. And having a positive
goal differential in two of the periods was a good result. But there was that third period. Specifically against Nashville. The Caps took a one-goal lead into the third
period of that game and gave it up with a pair of goals in the last 17
minutes. It bore an eerie resemblance to
the first time the teams met in October, when the Caps took a lead into the
third period and had a 5-4 lead with less than five minutes left and allowed
two goals in 28 seconds to lose the lead and the game.
It was a bit of an odd result in that the Caps finished the
week with a plus-19 goal differential in the third periods of games and led the
league in third period goals scored (72).
Year-over-Year:
The Caps continue to outpace last year’s club in most
respects, and rather significantly in places, on a year-over-year basis. This year’s club has a seven-win gap over
last year’s club and has an outside shot of matching the franchise record for
wins in a season (they would need 21 wins in their last 30 games to match the
56 wins the 2015-2016 team posted). The
net goal differential of plus-28 (plus-15 in goals scored, minus-13 in goals
allowed) is a remarkable statistic in that it represents an improvement of
about half a goal per game.
The other noteworthy difference, last year to this, is in
penalty killing, where both last year’s team and this year’s squad have faced
181 shorthanded situations through 52 games, but this year’s team has allowed
11 fewer power play goals for an improvement of more than six percentage points
in penalty killing.
In the end…
It would be easy to make more of the loss to Nashville than
it merits. Yes, giving up the lead they
had going into the third period, and on home ice, is a matter deserving of
attention. But the Predators are not a
team the Caps are likely to see until next season at this point. The games against Montreal and Ottawa were a
bit disconcerting for other reasons, the Caps letting inferior teams,
especially Ottawa, hang around too long.
Part of that was the difficulty the Caps are having with their power
play, giving up too many goals when they have a man advantage. Those are the things that can make a big
difference in games against teams of equal skill and ability when those games
take on greater importance. It is
something that the Caps need to address as much as they need to bring some more
clarity to their goaltending situation.
Three Stars:
- First Star: Alex Ovechkin (3-1-4, even, 16 shots on goal, 32 shot attempts, passed Mark Messier for eighth place on the all-time career goal scoring list)
- Second Star: Carl Hagelin (1-2-3, plus-3, shorthanded goal, nine shots on goal, 11 shot attempts, led all skaters in shorthanded ice time (10:35))
- Third Star: Tom Wilson (2-2-4, plus-1, two power play goals, 11 shots on goal, 19 shot attempts, only Capital to average more than three minutes per game on power plays (3:49) and more than two minutes on penalty kills (2:22))
Captain rates the week…
Two puppers
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