The Washington Capitals opened their 2017-2018 season this
week, and it was something of an historic opening. From a pair of wins, to a goal explosion, to
a debut from down under, it was a Week 1 to remember.
Record: 2-0-0
The Caps opened their season with a pair of wins, the first
time they accomplished that feat since the 2011-2012 season. That’s the good news. The bad news…the Caps won their first seven
games that season and yet had a new coach by the end of November, when Bruce
Boudreau was relieved in favor of Dale Hunter.
Worse, the same thing happened in the 2007-2008 season, when the Caps
won their first two games and, again, had a new coach by the end of November,
when Boudreau relieved Glen Hanlon behind the Caps’ bench. Moral of the story… don’t get too high with
the highs or too low with the lows.
Offense: 5.00/game
(season: 5.00/game, 3rd)
Alex Ovechkin is not going to score 287 goals this
season. You can write that one down in
pen. But with seven goals in two games,
he became the first player in 100 years to record hat tricks in consecutive
games to open an NHL season, the first since Cy Denneny, Reg Noble, and Joe
Malone all did so to open the 1917-1918 season.
However, as a technical matter, Ovechkin might be the first ever to
record “hat tricks” in consecutive games to open a season, if you believe that
the custom of tossing hats on the ice for a three-goal game originated in Guelph, Ontario.
Almost forgotten in the Ovechkin avalanche of goals is the
fact that Evgeny Kuznetsov recorded seven assists (Kuznetsov and Ovechkin ended
the week tied for the league lead in total scoring with seven points apiece and
tied for second in plus-minus with several other players plus-6 apiece), while
rookie Jakub Vrana added three more, giving the top line quite a week. To that add that Nathan Walker, appearing in
his first game, recorded his first NHL goal, and he hit history’s Daily Double –
the first player from Australia to appear in an NHL game and becoming the first
Australian to record a goal in an NHL game.
Brett Connolly and T.J. Oshie added the other goals of the week, and 14
different skaters recorded a point for the team.
Defense: 2.50/game (season: 2.50/game, T-9th)
The Caps held, if that is the right word, Ottawa and
Montreal to 90 shot attempts for the week, which puts them in the middle of the
pack, tied for 12-th most in the league with Winnipeg and the New York
Islanders (numbers from NHL.com). Worse,
that volume of shot attempts left he Caps with the tenth-worst shot attempt
plus minus in the league (minus-11). If
there was a bright spot, it was that the Caps were plus-9 when the score was
tied, and the minus-21 when ahead is largely a score effect of having jumped
out to such a big lead against the Montreal Canadiens early (4-0 after one
period on Saturday night).
It was hard to be Brett Connolly this week in the defensive
end. Connolly was on ice for four of the
five goals scored against the Caps.
Brooks Orpik and John Carlson were on ice together for three goals
against of their own.
Goaltending: 2.40 / .930 (season: 2.40 / .930)
Braden Holtby got both starts for the Caps in Week 1, and
his week was somewhat typical of a Holtby season start. He has never been particularly effective in
his first game of the season (see our prognosto on the Montreal game for more on
that). And against the Ottawa Senators, he
was consistent with that profile, allowing four goals on 32 shots. He did not have as much help in front of him
as he might be accustomed to, but it was not a classic Holtby performance,
either. He did finish that game strong,
and that effort spilled over into the performance against the Canadiens to end
the week. He stopped 38 of 39 shots and
resisted the temptation to lose focus as the Caps went out to a big lead early.
Power Play: 1-for-5 / 20.0 percent (season: 20.0 percent / T-11th)
There is not much to glean from the power play in Week
1. Yes, it did record a goal. Yes, it was an Alex Ovechkin goal. Some things are slow to change. The power play was also victimized by a
shorthanded goal when the Caps forgot how to defend on a power play against the
Canadiens, giving up the puck and letting Brendan Gallagher score from the top
of the paint while a man down. Ovechkin had half of the shots on the man
advantage for the week (four of eight), and the Caps recorded eight power play
shots in 8:16 of power play ice time.
All in all, it was for the most part a rather typical week, the shortie
notwithstanding.
Penalty Killing: 9-for-9 / 100.0 percent (season: 100.0
percent / T-1st)
There was good and bad on the penalty kill this week for the
Caps. Well, mostly good. The bad part was the volume. The nine shorthanded situations faced is in
the middle of the pack in the league rankings (tied for 11th-most),
but it was almost twice as many special teams opportunities for Ottawa and
Montreal as the Caps had for the week (five).
That led to those two opponents enjoying a better than 2-to-1 edge in
power play ice time(17:27 to 8:16). The
Caps might have been on the short side of opportunities and minutes on special
teams, but they did not allow an inordinate number of shots relative to minutes
(16 in 17:27). It is, and it was to be
expected, to be a work in progress at the start of the season with new penalty
killers in the rotation, but it was a good week, all things considered.
Faceoffs: 72-for-125 / 57.6 percent (season: 57.6 percent /
2nd)
If you are going to keep teams from scoring, it is best to
have the puck. And what better way to do
that than to take possession of it from the puck drop, especially in the
defensive end? The Caps had a fine week
overall in the circle, but they shined in the defensive end, winning 33 of 47
defensive zone draws (70.2 percent). Jay
Beagle gave a master class in the subject, winning 15 of 17 defensive zone
faceoffs (88.2 percent) as part of a 73.1 percent week overall. Evgeny Kuznetsov, who won just 44.0 percent
of his draws last season, was a surprise, winning 14 of 24 draws overall (58.3
percent). Nicklas Backstrom was the only
Capital to take ten or more draws and finish under 50 percent for the week
(16-for-34/47.1 percent).
Goals by Period:
That four-spot in the first period against Montreal in the
second game of the week tilted the goal scoring toward the beginning of games,
but don’t forget that three-goal third period against Ottawa in the
opener. It reminded Caps fans that the
team can still be explosive, scoring seven goals in a span of 33:55 across two
games. Of course, Alex Ovechkin had six
of them in what was a remarkable week for him, even in the context of his career
body of work (T.J. Oshie had the other one).
At the other end, the Caps spread the gloom of opponents’ goals across
the periods and did not allow either Ottawa or Montreal to score consecutive
goals in any single period for the week, a way to stall momentum.
In the end…
Two games, two wins in the bank. If you are of the picky sort, you would say
the Caps escaped with a win on Thursday and leaned too heavily on Alex Ovechkin
on Saturday. If you are of a forgiving
sort, you might respond, “so what?”
Sometimes the captain takes over a game, and sometimes you rally from
behind. In the context of a long season,
neither game of the sort the Caps played this week is particularly
informative. But you can’t take two wins
off the ledger, and that is the takeaway from this week.
Three Stars:
- First Star: Alex Ovechkin (7-0-7, plus-6, 14 SOG, 21 shot attempts, two history-making hat tricks)
- Second Star: Evgeny Kuznetsov (0-7-7, plus-6, 58.3 percent FO (7-for-8 in the defensive zone))
- Third Star: Nathan Walker (1-0-1, plus-1, first Australian to play in an NHL game, first Australian to score an NHL goal, first to do it in his debut game)
Caps now have the leading goal scorers in Russian and Australian history.
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