Record: 0-3-0
Not since Week 22 of the 2016-2017 have the Capitals gone an
entire week without earning at least one standings point (they were 0-3-0 in
that week almost two years ago). In 46
weeks since then, going into last week, the Caps had 30 winning weeks, seven
weeks of a .500 record in standings points earned, six losing weeks, and none
in which they were shutout in standings points.
It is – was – a remarkable record of consistency.
It was not just the losses, though, it was the “to whom.” The Caps had chances to avenge lopsided
losses to two opponents barely two weeks before the rematches and lost in
lopsided fashion once more. They lost at
home to the St. Louis Blues, 4-1, after dropping a 5-2 decision in St. Louis on
January 3rd, and they lost to the Nashville Predators, 7-2, in
Nashville after being clocked, 6-3, on December 31st at Capital One Arena.
The Caps closed the week with a loss to the surging New York
Islanders, 2-0, in what might have been the most purely uninteresting game of
the season. Not that former head coach
Barry Trotz minded. He got to visit the
scene of some of his greatest triumphs, watch a well-done appreciation video of
his seasons in Washington, and lead his team to a win that propelled them into
the top spot of the Metropolitan Division ahead of the Caps.
The two losses at home to St. Louis and the Islanders gave
the Caps eight regulation losses on home ice this season, surpassing the seven
they had in 2016-2017, tying the eight they had in 2015-2016, and putting them
on a path to surpass the 11 that they had last season.
Offense: 1.00/game (season: 3.28 / rank: 8th)
Three games, three goals, one-two-none. There isn’t enough paint at Home Depot to
cover up that mess. No team in Week 16
scored fewer goals Shoot, even the utterly
pathetic Los Angeles Kings, who finished the week last in scoring offense in
the league (2.22 per game) had five goals in three games. The Caps had one even strength goal for the
week. I will repeat that…
The Washington Capitals had one even strength goal for the
week.
For the record, that was T.J. Oshie, who scored an entirely
cosmetic goal to make a 7-1 game a 7-2 game with 3:49 left in the Caps 7-2 loss
to Nashville on Tuesday.
Lack of goals sometimes stems from lack of shots. Such was the case for the Caps, who managed
only 76 shots on goal for the week (25.3 per game), far below the 29.3 shots on
goal per game at which they finished the week.
Even for a team that prides itself on “quality over quantity,” that was
a low volume. How low? Nicklas Backstrom tied Alex Ovechkin for the
team lead with 10 shots apiece. Only two
other Caps had more than five – Evgeny Kuznetsov (eight) and Oshie (seven).
Defense: 4.33/game (season: 2.98 / rank: 15th)
Thirteen goals in three games is a lot of goals. It resembles the difficulties the Caps were
having at the start of the season, when they could not keep pucks out of their
own net. Over their first dozen games of
the season they had a rolling three-game total of 13 or more goals five times
in 10 instances. In their last ten
instances, they have 13 or more goals allowed over three games four times. Put another way, this is a club that has
allowed four or more goals four times in their last ten games.
Shots allowed is not necessarily the culprit here, at least
at the level of volume alone. The Caps
allowed 91 shots on goal for the week.
Of the 14 teams playing three games in Week 16, that is tied (with San Jose)
for the eighth-highest amount.
Shot attempts are a different matter. The Caps were minus-27 for the week in shots
attempted-for and shots-attempted against at 5-on-5 for the week. Being 11th among 14 teams playing
three games in shot attempt differential at fives was bad enough. Being minus-27 when tied (13th of
14 teams) and minus-30 in close situations (13th of 14 teams) was
worse. The Caps could not get teams off
their collective back.
Goaltending: 4.44 / .857 (season: 2.85 / .910 / 3 SO)
It was not a good week overall, but in a way it was a long
time coming. Pheonix Copley allowed six
goals on 36 shots in his first appearance this season, a 6-0 loss to the New
Jersey Devils on October 11th.
In 15 appearances after that he stopped 385 of 417 shots, a .923 save
percentage. Only two of 46 goalies
logging at least 750 minutes over those two months had a better save percentage
(Tuukka Rask and Frederik Andersen, both at .928).
However, an injury to Braden Holtby against Columbus in the
last game of Week 15 kept him out of the lineup to start the week, and it gave
Copley a chance for consecutive starts for the first time since he had three
consecutive starts in Games 17- 19 this season.
He won two of the decisions, all of them on the road, sandwiching wins
over Minnesota and Colorado around a loss in Winnipeg and stopping 71 of 77
shots overall (.922 save percentage).
Things did not go as well for Copley in Week 16. The week started well for him, stopping all
14 shots he faced in the first period against St. Louis to open the week. However, he allowed four goals on 23 shots to
end the game and then allowed all seven goals to Nashville on 29 shots in the
middle game of the week, a true “take one for the team” moment for Copley,
given Holtby’s injury status. It made
for a .788 save percentage over his last five periods of hockey for the week.
Holtby returned against the Islanders on Friday, and he
looked superb for 45 minutes. He stopped
the first 22 shots he faced over that span, but he allowed goals on consecutive
shots 2:26 apart, to Josh Bailey and Cal Clutterbuck, in dropping a 2-0
decision. Still, it was the 16th
time in 32 appearances that Holtby stopped at least 92 percent of his
shots. If you want a basis of comparison
for that fact nugget, he was at a .920save percentage or better 35 times in 66
appearances in his Vezina Trophy season in 2015-2016.
Power Play: 2-for-7 / 28.6 percent (season: 21.3 percent /
rank: 11th)
If there is a silver lining, it is in special teams in Week
16. The Caps had two power play goals
for the week, the first time they recorded more than one man advantage goal for
a week since they went 3-for-8 in Week 11.
In fact, the two power play goals they recorded matched the total they
had over the last four weeks (2-for-35/5.7 percent).
On the other hand, you could say two things about the power
play to stick a pin in the balloon of hope.
First, the Caps scored on their first power play of the week, and then
they went 1-for-6 (16.7 percent). The
other thing is that they had only seven opportunities in three games. While it is true that the two opponents faced
at home– St. Louis and the Islanders – generally play well within the rules
(St. Louis and the Islanders rank in the bottom ten in the league in road
shorthanded situations faced), the Predators had the fourth-highest number of
shorthanded situations faced at home to end the week, and the Caps managed only
two power plays against them.
For the record, the power play goals were scored by Alex Ovechkin
and Nicklas Backstrom. For Backstrom it
was his first power play goal since recording one in a 6-3 win over New Jersey
on November 30th and his second power play goal on the road this
season (and first in regulation), his first coming in overtime in a 3-2 win in
Colorado against the Avalanche on November 16th.
It was a bit of an odd week, the infrequency of
opportunities masking a level of efficiency the Caps have not had on their
power play in a while. They managed 11
shots on goal in 11:48 of power play time, and they spread the shots around,
five different players with at least one, Ovechkin and Evgeny Kuznetsov leading
with three apiece.
Penalty Killing: 8-for-9 / 88.9 percent (season: 78.4 percent
/ rank: 23rd)
The other side of special teams had a good week, continuing
a nice run of late. In killing off eight
of nine shorthanded situations, the Caps are 22-for-25 (88.0 percent) over the
last two weeks, seventh-best in the league over that span. Take the result with a grain of salt, since the
Islanders and Predators, who went a combined 0-for-7 against the Caps, rank in
the bottom ten in power play efficiency this season (24th and 29th,
respectively), but one takes their opportunities for improvement where
presented.
For the week, the Caps allowed only 12 shots in 15:06 of shorthanded
ice time. That makes only 21 shots
allowed in 35:50 in shorthanded ice time over the past two weeks. If there is something on which to build as
the Caps try to navigate their way out of their recent slump, penalty killing
seems to be it.
Faceoffs: 74-for-160 / 46.3 percent (season: 46.4 percent /
rank: 31st)
By now, we know that the Caps just are not very good at this
aspect of the game. Week 16 was no
exception. It was, in fact, typical – a 46.3
winning percentage week in a season in which they are winning 46.4 percent of
their draws. For the week, they won one
zone in one game (they were 11-for-18 in the defensive zone against
Nashville). Otherwise the Caps lost all
three zones for the week and won more than 50 percent only against Nashville
(30-for-58).
One might look at the offensive zone performance as a factor
in the low offensive production for the week.
The Caps won only 22 of 53 offensive zone draws (41.5 percent), and no
Capital taking more than three draws finished the week over 50 percent in the
offensive end.
The odd part of the week from an individual standpoint was
the performance of Evgeny Kuznetsov. He
has had a season-long antagonistic relationship to faceoffs, it seems, but in
Week 16 he was 50 percent in the offensive end and 54.5 percent in the
defensive end. That is progress. But he did finish the week under water (42.4
percent overall) one of four skaters taking at least ten draws to do so. Only Nic Dowd (9-for-15/60.0 percent) among
that group finished at 50 percent or better.
Goals by Period:
When a club scores only three goals and allows 13, the goals
by period will not look good, and for the Caps they do not in Week 16. The most troubling aspect of the week is that
they were weakest in what was their strongest period this season. They were outscored, 7-1, in the second
periods of games, all of the goals allowed coming against St. Louis (three) and
Nashville (four), blowing open what were (at least on the surface) competitive
games.
That the Caps allowed 11 of their 13 goals allowed for the
week in the second and third periods continues one of the more disturbing
trends in this area. They have been
unable to finish well. They have allowed
only 38 first period goals this season (tied for sixth-fewest) and have a plus-10
goal differential. But they have allowed
49 goals in each of the second and third periods of games (ranking tied for 12th
and tied for 14th, respectively, in those categories), and only
their impressive second periods to date (63 goals, third-most in the league) is
keeping them from looking even worse as finishers.
Year-over-Year
The winless week slipped the Caps behind their 47-game
points pace of last year, albeit be a single point (one fewer win, one more
loss in extra time). Otherwise, as has
been the case for some weeks now, the Caps are tracking this year’s performance
with last year’s in many categories.
They remain virtually unchanged on a year to year basis in wins (27 this
year, 28 last season), points (59/60), power play goals (30/28), shot attempts
at 5-on-5 (2064/2060), shot-attempts against at 5-on-5 (2225/2222). However, while the Caps opened the 2018
portion of last season with a 4-2-1 record, they are just 3-4-2 so far in the
2019 portion of this season. That is not
the kind of divergence the Caps want to continue.
In the end…
There are really few good things to say about Week 16, fewer
that have much meaning to explain the current state of the club. The Caps are not playing well, either in
their performance numbers (wins, losses, goals scored and allowed) or their
production numbers (shots, shot attempts taken and allowed). Individually and collectively they look slow,
sluggish, and distracted, almost what you or I might look like at work two
weeks before we embark on an eagerly anticipated vacation. The Caps cannot afford to coast into the
All-Star Game, though. At week’s end
they find themselves looking up at the Islanders for the top spot in the Metro,
but lurking under the surface is the fact that they are only five points ahead
of (and with a game in hand on) the Buffalo Sabres who occupy the first
non-playoff qualifying position. It is
not the best place to be for the defending champs.
Three Stars:
- First Star: Brooks Orpik (0-0-0, even, the only player to dress for all three games to finish the week “even;” appeared in his 1,000th career game)
- Second Star: Alex Ovechkin (1-1-2, minus-4, the only Capital with more than one point for the week)
- Third Star: Braden Holtby (23 saves on 25 shots returning in goal from injury)