Ask any head coach what he would want out of his top-six forwards, and if he thought about it a bit, his answer might well be “options.” And options – good ones – are exactly what Barry Trotz has in his top-six, with a couple of dynamic play-making pivots, speed on the wings, strong board play and, of course, the most prolific shooter (and, more importantly, scorer) of his generation. Take a look at what the Caps’ top six has been able to accomplish at five-on-five so far this year, individually (sorted by ice time, stats via war-on-ice.com):
Those are pretty high PDOs across-the-board (driven by save percentage – thanks, Braden Holtby!), but the possession numbers are strong and where it’s not (Evgeny Kuznetsov), perhaps that’s okay, too (for reasons we’ll get into some other time).
But how have these players performed as trios? For the most part, the first portion of the season saw a top-six of Kuznetsov centering Alex Ovechkin and T.J. Oshie, with Nicklas Backstrom between Marcus Johansson and Justin Williams. Here’s how those trios fared:
Recall that we advocated this configuration early last month because it featured a “shutdown” second line. Sure enough, that second trio has the fourth-lowest Corsi-Against/60 in the League among lines with as much ice time, and not one of the three ahead of them has as good a Corsi-For percentage (or, for that matter, a higher Corsi-For/60; surprisingly, that line’s Goals-For/60 is also fourth in the League, but it’s based on just six goals-for, so take it with a grain of salt). Meanwhile, the top line in that scenario has more than held its own… but in reality, it was only a matter of time before Ovechkin and Backstrom would be reunited, so let’s take a look at what the other top-six configuration has been able to do:
As you might expect, this top-six is the much more top-heavy of the two. The top line has been generating shots at a high rate… but also allowing about ten percent more than the previous incarnation did (and, to be sure, that’s not just on that line, as the team has had a big slide in terms of shots-against that can’t be traced to any three skaters). It’s been a while since Ovechkin scored a five-on-five goal, hasn’t it? (Nine games, for those of you keeping score at home.) The second line here is underwater in terms of possession, but had been bailed out by great goaltending. How long can that last?
Putting it all together…
As you can see, the “current” top-six has better goal differentials, but that’s about it (and those numbers are the least dependable that we’ve looked at in this exercise). The previous top-six created as much offense and yielded much less. Given the team’s struggles lately – which have been masked, to a large extent, by the goaltending – it may be worth revisiting what was working early on.
Hey, at least Barry Trotz has options…