Monday Caps Clips: Caps Look to Start November Reign

Will he be healthy for 20 games this year?

All were good questions (anything from Peerless is), but this one is the most important, isn’t it?

Thanks for the early morning smile, R.B.

Yeah, but if he comes here, he scores them against Nuevirth/Varlamov. Trade him to Tampa

Sarich wouldn’t be a bad option for a #6 Defenseman if the Caps are looking to add some defensive depth. He is usually more reliable and that was a bit of a fluke. I don’t see it happening though, as Calgary’s D is also lacking in depth…

Awwwww Mini-Pockets.

No kidding.

There are probably those who could have had teh name “Bill Moisienko” drip of their lips like syrup if asked the question, “who scored a hat trick in the shortest elasped time in NHL history?” just as there are those who know that Bobby Lowe was the first major league baseball player to hit four home runs in a game.

But, as in the case Lowe, I’ll bet there aren’t many such people. Was it really a record worth that much the effort?

Are you using I Illusion or II?

You ain’t the first to note my bad obsession with such things. So back off bitch and don’t damn me.

Lies.

This is why GDTs are fun viewing.

If you use your time to email Ted during a first period drunken stupor, than it’s a pretty solid bet your opinion isn’t worth discussing. However, it’d be funny if Ted posted them.

I wonder how many people are reading the CI stats stuff. I’m not a stats geek, so I’m not. I get the information I need and can process here, and/or from something linked here.

I just wish that the author would take the next step of offering up analysis as opposed to just presenting statistics sans context.

Another piece of context for this piece that could use some analysis is a look at how teams are defending Ovi. He may not have that prime scoring ice available to him. We all marvel at how he was left all alone in his first game vs CBJ in which he scored two goals. That doesn’t happen much anymore.

I don’t know if I’d call it a lack of context, so much as “merely” an incomplete picture (although we had the same thought reading the piece). After all, the immediate counter to your (and my first thoughts) would be, "is it better to have 50 seconds from a “good” scoring position or 1:25 from a less likely area?

In the end I usually chalk it up to writing under a deadline. A lot of good (or at least more complete) stories go over the side because a writer has to produce “finished” copy by 5 pm.

I don’t know that the Post is interested in really deep statistical analysis (I suspect most folks like a little lighter reading with their morning coffee than modeliing the graphical solutions for n-dimensional data, but one thing the analysis does not do is offer as a basis for the conclusions a plot of the places from where shots were taken. One intuitive notion is that the one-timer from the circles is being taken away from him, either to deny him the shot (putting a shadow on him) or by getting a forward or defenseman in position to block the shot. It’s not as if teams haven’t seen this before — a lot. And young Mr. Stamkos is going to have his book written for him before too long to keep him from getting that one timer from the inside of the circles.

A piece of conext I’d love to have seen there is how the shots AO has taken so far this year compare to what he’s done in the past. For example, a quick look at BtN shows that his average 5v5 shot distance last year was 35.3 feet. This year so far he’s at 38.3. In 2008-09, that was only 33.8. So over the past two seasons, his average 5v5 shot distance has gone up more than 13%. Obviously that doesn’t tell the whole story, but to me it sounds somewhat significant.

But I do know that those posts are edited down quite a bit.

For the time being, I’d like to see the Caps return to a more traditional PP with Ovie located down on the half-boards/faceoff circle

When Green is healthy, the Caps have been employing a 1-3-1 powerplay formation, have they not? This puts Green at the point, Ovi and Semin on the half-walls, Backstrom roaming in the middle, and Laich/Knuble on net. They may have deviated from this with the simultaneous losses of Green and Poti, but I think this is the formation they try to roll.

You’re right, but Ovechkin doesn’t play the typical point position on the power play.

I definitely want AO off the point. He could still take ~1:20 if he was set up lower on the LW and I don’t want him taking 2 minute shifts at the point anyway. The extra few seconds he can take at the point aren’t worth it to me. He’s a shark, and he’s great at finding soft spots and pouncing loose pucks. He’ll be more deadly if he’s down near the net pouncing pucks. Imagine if that loose puck against MIN squirted to AO instead of Nick. I also think he needs to begin adjusting his style of play now. Right now. His days of being penciled in as a 50 goal scorer just because he can beat goalies with 50 foot wrist shots are coming to a close. He needs to start channeling his inner Brendan Shannahan so he can extend the amount of time that he’s an elite goal scorer. Having him lower on the PP would be a start (as would having him cycle more at ES). I don’t want him right in front of the net at all times, but I think he should swing through that area; he’s still a bull, and if he tries to establish position in the middle of the ice down low he will single handedly collapse the PK box and create a ton of room on the outside for the rest of the team. He’s also easier to isolate and exploit at the point. A quality PK forward can push out toward him and force him to stay high in the corner of the zone if he wants to maintain his open space. Then, late in the PK, he’s just a SH breakaway waiting to happen. I can’t count how many times Ryan Callahan has gotten a SH breakaway from playing AO aggressively.

And in terms of wanting him to have a longer shift on the PP, there’s another consideration. If he’s on the point he has to chase the puck down the ice on the clear and then skate all the way back. If he plays F he can hang out at the offensive blueline, skate less, and stretch the hell out of the PK D, possibly allowing Green and Carlson more open ice to skate the puck up.

Celeb comment!

It could be Ovi is being defended different based on MTL playoff game.

I haven’t gone back to look at Canada’s freight training of Team Russia in the Olympics (too painful) – but I bet other teams have. They did a pretty good number on AO.

Thanks for coming on here to chat about it. I agree that his shot quality 5v5 isn’t spectacular, but analytically, I think that’s a different (and much more worrisome) issue than his power play shot selection (which is driven by his position on the point).

I said this during last year’s playoffs, but it bears repeating now: defensemen and goalies are learning to take away Ovie’s “outside-inside, fire a snapshot using the defenseman as a screen” move. When that move was a change of pace from sweeping wide and trying to get around the defenseman and establish body position before driving to the net, it worked. Somewhere along the way, Ovie stopped driving wide and the outside-inside move became his go-to move. Teams have adjusted, and it’s an inherently low-probability shot if the goalie is prepared for it.

This leaves pretty much two answers – either Ovie isn’t aware of this tendency and just needs to start driving wide again, or (and this is the really scary alternative), he’s lost a step and simply can’t get around the edge on most defensemen anymore. Personally, I think it’s bit of both, with another factor thrown in – the first couple years out of the lockout (when Ovie used to score more of his one-on-one goals), the league still had a bunch of plodding dinosaur defensemen. As those players have retired/moved on to other leagues/seen their ice time diminish, they’ve been replaced by kids like Drew Doughty and Duncan Keith, kids whose lateral speed makes those one-on-one moves a hell of a lot more difficult.

Regardless of the cause, I think Ovie needs to sweep wide a little more often to keep defensemen honest. Even if it means circling around the net and picking Nicky or Knuble up as a trailer, it would force the defenseman and the keeper to respect the outside move, thereby opening up the center of the ice again.

Another alternative (which Ovie has used on occasion) would be to cut inside, but rather than take a snapshot, he could continue across the zone to the far boards. This would force the defenseman to make a choice – either switch off to maintain positioning or cross over to maintain coverage. Either way, Ovie would force them to do something awkward and he’d open up more ice for his linemates. The one problem with this move is that it would likely not work that well with Knuble on the ice, since he doesn’t have the lateral speed to fill the far lane on the rush.

I don’t know how often you wade into the comments here, but the context thing is something I harp on, primarily because I remember the “stats vs. scouts” debates in baseball, and I remember just how much time and energy was wasted because of it.

Ultimately, I put a lot of the blame for that on the SABR/stats community. They had a bunch of great data that upturned the analytical apple cart, but they often failed to present it in a way that the traditional scouting community found palatable. They were so certain in their data though (and often with good reason), that they failed to understand how others might react to it.

Hockey is even further behind baseball in its attitudes toward statistics, and unlike baseball, hockey can’t be broken down as effectively into discrete events. Therefore, context become as important, or even more important than the data itself.

Oh… an Eddie Johnston shout-out. I don’t know if I can read any further as i am getting flashbacks to the marathon Caps-Pens playoff game.

I enjoy that his conclusion is to bring in a guy who is retired and once coached the best PP in the league in 1981.

Their PP is terrible? But they have Paul Martin! And Ray Shero is a genius who never makes mistakes!

Bring back the Ric and Dick show!

Has he been suspended before? If he isn’t a repeat offender I’ll say under.

3 games, will be 1 game. Wheel of Justice continues to put players at risk due to the impotence of the NHL disciplinarians.

However many games to ensure he’ll be in the lineup against the Caps. So after checking the schedule, two games.

When they schedule ‘em fast, it’s because they want to hang them. Or something. Anyway, I’ll take the over.

Briere must have watched a DVD of Slapshot before that game. That stick move was right out of the movie.

I’ll take a push there with a slight advantage to the under.

….Briere gets 3 games and he’s on the repeat offender list.

The NHL needs to start getting suspensions right though. After determining the length of the suspension, the first games the player is suspended should be games against the opponent that he committed the infraction against, meaning Briere should miss the Flyers’ next 3 games against the Islanders. If not enough games remain, then the player starts missing the next games in the schedule…

I saw that one, and it was great. Maybe their slogan for the season needed to be “Stay Grumpy” not “Stay Angry”

If you haven’t already, watch the video of him saying that – the sh*t-eating grin he gets while talking about Ovie’s grumpiness is priceless.

Speaking of Ovie and Green, the best part of the Calgary game for me was seeing Ovie be fairly low-key on the other goals and then absolutely tackle Green, haul him to the ground and pin him there for a minute after 52 scored. Hilarious, nice to see a bit of the joy back in the game for these guys.

I think they go with the same lineup, sans Fahey.

I don’t think BB has much to offer us as a player right now. He’s still a good interview though ;)

From Twitter two days ago:

@sweetesthockey We hear that Semyon Varlamov is with the Bears right now. He has been practicing with the team while the #Caps have been on the road #HBH

It can’t be any worse than Flash as #2C.

Basic W/L totals here.

It seemed that Laich and Flash were actually switching positions as the game flowed. Laich is taking the face offs, but once the puck was dropped and the faceoff settled, as the play went on, Laich was playing more like a wing and Flash more like a center. Laich was mixing it up in the corners, going to the bakery net, etc. much like a wing does, and Flash was more up high in the zone, playing like a center.

Me, I like this concept. I did this when I was in high school in New York. The guy who had the talent on our line played center but he weighed about 105 pounds without his equipment, so taking face offs wasn’t a good idea. I played at 185 in high school (I was heavy then and 6 foot, the guy playing center was 5 foot 4) so I took the face-offs and we’d switch as the play flowed after the draw.

Love the logo. The overall design, not so much.

I’m just impressed Mongolia has a National Hockey team.

I miss the Jets.

Good colors, simple design, but I would have loved it if they’d gone with something like the old Colorado Rockies jersey.

Put the blue field on the chest, and make the stripes go from gold to red to blue to red to gold. That’s a sharp lookin’ jersey.

Yup, just as EmilyB and Capsfan75 called it. Right in time to play the Caps.

1 out of 2 sports ain’t bad.

You’re making your fall to earth when those guys cool off all the sweeter :)

My how fall one of our nemeses had fallen.

Once they realized he couldn’t even score on the Caps anymore there was no point to keeping him around.

That’s Lambert’s weekly article.

I can’t see Sutter lasting much longer there. Especially considering how much animus there seems to be between him and Iginla.

Capsfan75, you might want to learn how to bring the specific link to your comment like this, rather than just mentioning it.

If Carlson’s playing on the 3rd line, maybe it’s preparing for the chance that he’s actually rested on Wed to recover from whatever injury has been plaguing him?

Hmmm, an update:

Capitals Coach Bruce Boudreau said defenseman Tom Poti is “questionable” for Wednesday’s game against Toronto, and said the assignment of Brian Fahey to Hershey is not necessarily an indication that Poti or Tyler Sloan will be ready to play.

Alzner hasn’t looked great, so I would agree with you, putting him with Schultz is an attempt to give him some extra support. Complete speculation on my part, of course.

I wonder how much of that is saliva?

Not clicking through, is that the water from the Igloo? I saw something about that last week.

the unholiest water in the world.

They should sell that with a warning label.

BTW, this week’s 30 Thoughts link.

Oh, good – so he’s here and just not skating yet, that’s promising.

I’m really trying to be hopelessly optimistic about Varly’s health these days. He takes a lot of crap and I do think Neuvy’s ultimately the better goalie, but Varly’s still a good goalie in his own right and deserves to be here (and go 2 games without getting hurt).

Both. And now Malkin and Letang are banged up, but Staal and Michalek may be ready to return.

I think it will be on the pre-game show on nhl.com, from what they said on NHL Live. I think that hits around 4:00?

…….okay, seriously, who IS this guy?? Unreal :P

Juice had not had good health since the Olympics (or was it just before).

Ironically enough, two years ago, he was actually the only healthy guy among the Caps regular defensemen. We had Poti, Green, Schultz, Oisk, Morrisonn injured during the Nov/Dec time frame, many at the same time. And we’re not even counting Pothier’s concussion.

Heh.

Think they get a little excited when Ovi comes to Canada?