Record: 2-1-0
There are some teams this season that just seem to give the
Caps fits. Ottawa was one of those
teams, even though the Caps did win two of three from the Senators in their
season series. One team that gave the
Caps a devil of a time this season and against which they did not fare as well
was the New York Islanders. Washington
lost the first game of the week to the Isles, 3-2, their third loss to New York
in the five-game season series, now ended.
They are the only team against which the Caps have played more than one
game this season and have a below .500 standings points record (they lost to
San Jose in the only meeting of the clubs so far). Washington earned just four of a possible ten
points against the Islanders.
On the other end of the spectrum were Boston and
Montreal. The Caps made it two-for-two
this season against the Bruins and eight wins in a row since they lost to the
Bruins in March 2014. The domination of
the Bruins has been outright spooky. The
three goals the Caps allowed to the B’s on Wednesday was the most they scored
against the Caps in any of the eight losses, tying their goal total in the first
meeting this season, but Boston still has scored a total of just ten goals in
the eight games and has been shut out three times.
Then there is the matter of “Verizon Center North.” If the Caps’ dominance of Boston has a spooky
quality to it, their success in Montreal is outright bizarre. Beating the Canadiens, 3-2, to end the week,
the Caps extended their run of success at Bell Centre to 12-0-2 in their last
14 meetings there dating back to November 2009.
And what is more, the scores there have not been particularly
close. The 3-2 win on Saturday was the
exception, seven of the 12 wins on Bell Centre ice having been of the
multi-goal variety, including a 4-1 win on January 9th.
Offense: 3.33/game
(season: 3.25 /game; rank: 5th)
Week 17 was a week for the stars to shine when it came to
scoring goals. Alex Ovechkin (2),
Nicklas Backstrom (2), Evgeny Kuznetsov (2), and T.J. Oshie led the way,
but the Caps also got goals from the supporting cast. Brett Connolly, Andre Burakovsky, and Jay
Beagle chipped in, too. Beagle’s goal to
open the scoring against Montreal was paired with a Caps win, hardly an unusual
occurrence. The Caps record when Beagle
records a goal over his career is now 32-1-5.
Backstrom had a hand in half of the goals for the week,
adding three assists to his two goals to lead the team in overall scoring. He had points in all three games for the week
after going consecutive games without a point as the week started. In his last 15 games he is 6-16-22, plus-8.
The Caps scored the first goal in all three games for the
week, which made the loss to the Islanders on Tuesday unusual. The Caps finished the week with the most wins
(29) and best winning percentage (.784) when scoring first.
What was not unusual was the Caps scoring five goals at home
in the middle game of the week, the 5-3 win over Boston. It was the seventh straight game on home ice
the Caps scored five or more goals, over which they averaged 5.43 goals per
game.
Defense: 2.67/game (season: 2.12 /game; rank: 1st)
It was not an awful week on defense, and in some ways it was
not bad at all. Washington did face two
top-ten teams in scoring offense in Week 17 – Montreal (ranked seventh at
week’s end) and the Islanders (eighth), both on the road, where Montreal ranked
even higher (fourth at week’s end). The
Caps held them to a total of five goals.
Even against Boston, the third goal allowed was a bit of window dressing
for the B’s, coming as it did with just 1:31 left in a 5-2 game.
The Caps did have a good week in terms of their 5-on-5
play. In 145 minutes at 5-on-5 they
finished with a 52.67 percent Corsi-for and held the three opponents to just
over 51 shots per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 (numbers from Corsica.hockey).
They held both road opponents – the Islanders and Canadiens – under 30
shots on goal, making it three straight road games doing so. The odd thing
about that is how well they have been able to clamp down on Montreal. The Caps held the Habs to 22 shots on goal
after holding them to 23 shots on goal in their previous meeting on Bell Centre
ice on January 9th. In the
12-0-2 streak the Caps have in Montreal, they held the Canadiens to fewer than
30 shots nine times and fewer than 25 five times.
Goaltending: 2.00 / .933
(season: 2.01 / .928 / 8 SO)
With a back-to-back set of games to start the week, the Caps
split the goaltending duties, Philipp Grubauer getting the Islander game in
Brooklyn on Tuesday and Braden Holtby getting the nod the following night
against the Bruins in Washington. Holtby
then got the last game of the week in Montreal.
Grubauer played rather well against the Islanders and might
have deserved better than to suffer the loss.
He stopped 26 of 28 shots, the first time he allowed fewer than three
goals in a game since shutting out the Philadelphia Flyers on January 15th. He had allowed three goals in each of his
three appearances after that before holding the Islanders to a pair.
Holtby wrapped up the week with a pair of appearances that
reflected his season to date in some respects.
He stopped 44 of 47 shots at even strength against Boston and Montreal
(.936 save percentage), but stopped just four of six shots when the Caps were
shorthanded (.667). That was not
unusual. Among goalies appearing in more
than ten games this season, Holtby is second in even strength save percentage
(.940 to Devan Dubnyk’s .942) but 46th in that group in save
percentage when the Caps are shorthanded (.840).
Power Play: 2-for-8 / 25.0 percent (season: 20.9 percent;
rank: 11th)
For the fourth straight week, the Caps finished with a power
play of 35 percent or better. Over that
span they are 13-for-36 (36.1 percent), lifting them into 13th place
in the league’s power play rankings. It
might have been better but for getting only one power play opportunity against
the Islanders to open the week. It was
the sixth time this season that the Caps were awarded one or no power plays in
a game, compared to seven times all of last season.
Overall it was an effective week performance-wise, as the
25.0 percent conversion rate suggests, but the efficiency wasn’t really
there. In 14:15 of power play ice time,
the Caps managed just seven shots on goal.
Part of that is mitigated by the fact that Alex Ovechkin scored on the
only power play shot he took against Boston, and Nicklas Backstrom did the same
against Montreal, but it really was not that great of a week on the power
play. The seven shots might be
categorized as “perimeter” shots since six of them came from Ovechkin (2),
Backstrom (2), Andre Burakovsky, and John Carlson. Only Justin Williams recorded a shot on goal
from the middle of the power play for the week.
Penalty Killing: 5-for-8 / 62.5 percent (season: 84.2
percent; rank: 5th)
After hitting their season high point of 87.1 percent after
Week 13, the Caps’ penalty kill has been sliding. The 62.5 percent in Week 17 was their worst
week since Week 1 of the season when they killed two of four shorthanded
situations (50.0 percent). Since that
Week 13, Washington is just 32-for-43 (74.4 percent).
Unlike the power play, which was effective but not
efficient, the penalty kill was neither.
The Caps gave up three goals on 11 shots on goal in 13:41, the shots per
minute saved by shutting out Montreal on two shots in six minutes of
shorthanded ice time. For the
optimistic, it is that last bit that is the takeaway. The Caps ended the week holding the Canadiens
off the board on their power play, which finished the week as the tenth-best
power play on home ice in the league.
Faceoffs: 82-for-157 / percent (season: 50.6% / rank: 11th)
It was a very good week in the faceoff circle in that the Caps
were over 50 percent in all three games and over 50 percent in two of the three
zones for the week. Only a 49.0 percent
finish – one under 50 percent (24-for-49) -- in the offensive zone blemished the week. At the game level, they won in the offensive
zone once in three games (against Boston), in all three games in the defensive
zone, and in two of three games in the neutral zone (against the Islanders and
Canadiens). Perhaps most impressive was
the Caps holding their own (53.6 percent, their best mark of the three games)
against the third-best team in the league in taking draws (Boston).
At the individual level, Nicklas Backstrom stood out,
winning 31 of 53 draws (58.5 percent), including 15 of 19 against
Montreal. Jay Beagle also finished above
50 percent for the week among the four Caps taking at least ten draws
(14-for-26). The other two Caps in that
category finished under 50 percent for the week (Lars Eller: 13-for-28; Evgeny
Kuznetsov: 13-for-30).
Goals by Period:
Giving up first period goals has started to creep into the
Caps’ game. Although the Caps still do
lead the league in fewest first period goals allowed (23), they allowed one to
both Boston and Montreal to end the week.
Worse, though, was the four goals allowed in the third periods of
games. One of them was an empty netter
against the Islanders, and one was a window dressing goal scored late by the
Bruins, but one still would like to see better (read: stingier) finishes in
games.
The goals allowed covered up, to an extent, the strong
starts and finishes in games for the week.
The Caps scored goals in the first and third periods in all three
games. In fact, the only period of the
nine in which they did not score a goal was the second period against the
Islanders in the first game of the week.
In the end…
The Caps finished the week with 52 games on their record and
the top spot in the league’s standings, a spot they have occupied since January
15th. Going 2-1-0 might not
sound especially impressive for a single week, but if the Caps do that over
their last 30 games, they will finish with 116 points, the third highest
standings points total in team history, and as likely as not their second
straight Presidents Trophy (116 points has been exceeded for the prize six
times in 10 full seasons since the 2004-2005 lockout, twice by the Caps).
Washington will be hard-pressed to sustain their success
going into Week 18. It is a four-game week
with teams in a variety of circumstances – the Los Angeles Kings trying to hold
onto, at a minimum, the wild card spot their currently occupy in the Western
Conference; the Carolina Hurricanes, just a few points on the outside looking
in on the playoffs; the Detroit Red Wings, desperately trying to extend their
streak of postseason appearances to a 26th season; and the Anaheim
Ducks, trying to overtake the San Jose Sharks for the top spot in the Pacific
Division.
This is a team that has risen to a variety of challenges
through 52 games this season in their climb to the top of the league
standings. They appear to have shaken
off most of the rust that accumulated over the All-Star break in winning Week
17. Week 18 will be another challenge to
be met and overcome.
Three Stars:
- First Star: Nicklas Backstrom (2-3-5, plus-2, 1 GWG, 3-for-53 (58.5 percent) on faceoffs)
- Second Star: Evgeny Kuznetsov (2-2-4, plus-1)
- Third Star: Matt Niskanen (0-3-3, plus-1, 5 blocked shots, almost 23 minutes of ice time per game)
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