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The Washington Capitals — Then and Now, Part II

We are on the back half of the bye week in the schedule for the Washington Capitals, but we still have some time to take stock of this year’s club and how it compares to last year’s edition, what then was arguably the best team in franchise history. In this part, we compare team statistics (all numbers that follow from nhl.com).

In days gone by, when one mentioned the Washington Capitals, the vision that came to mind was a plucky bunch of hard workers who won as much with defense as with anything else. The clubs of the 1980’s and 1990’s featured defensemen remembered well today – Rod Langway, Scott Stevens, Kevin Hatcher, Larry Murphy, Calle Johansson, and Sergei Gonchar among them. In the “Rock the Red” era, the Caps are known more as an offensive team.

This year’s Capitals certainly fit that bill. Averaging 3.41 goals per game, this club is on a pace to become the second-most prolific offense in the post-2004-2005 lockout era so far, topped only by the 2009-10 edition of the Caps (3.82 goals per game). In comparing this year’s club to last year’s through 56 games, the 2016-17 club averaged “only” 3.29 goals per game through 56 games. And, last year’s club does offer a caution to those who think the current pace is one that can be kept up. Over the last 26 games of the season, the 2015-16 Caps averaged only 2.46 goals per game, bringing their season mark to 3.02 goals per game, fifth best since the 2004-05 lockout.

Here is why that might be considered a caution. Both this year’s club and last year’s club shot lights out over their first 56 games. The 2015-2016 club shot 10.8 percent over its first 56 games, just 8.0 percent over its last 26 games. While last year’s club still shot 9.9 percent for the season, the effect was a regression toward the league-wide average (apart from the Caps) of 8.9 percent. This year’s club is shooting 11.5 percent, tops in the league (but only one-tenth of one percent better than the New York Rangers at 11.4 percent).

This year’s Capitals are fond of the slogan, “will over skill.” If offensive production showcases “skill,” defense requires “will.” And here, the Caps compare favorably, not just with last year’s team or teams of the Rock the Red era, but with any team in the history of the franchise. The 2.33 goals per game allowed by last year’s club tied for the best in franchise history, a mark originally set by the 2010-11 team. Through 56 games, last year’s team allowed 2.27 goals per game. This year’s club is set to obliterate that mark if it can keep the pace it set over its first 56 games – 2.09 goals per game.

It is not just the goals against, but the shots. This year’s Caps team has allowed 27.95 shots against per game. This is more than a full shot-per-game less than last year’s club (29.04) and within striking distance of the best performance by a Caps team in the current Rock the Red era (27.5 shots per game in 2007-08). You would have to go back to the “dead puck” era of the 1990’s to find teams that were consistently better than this level of shot denial.

Where this team is not clearly better, or clearly worse for that matter, than its immediate predecessor is on special teams efficiency. This year’s club converted power plays at a 22.2 percent rate through 56 games, compared to 23.6 percent for last year’s club through 56 games. On the penalty kill, this year’s team is at 84.5 percent to 84.1 percent for last year’s club.  The “special teams index” – power play plus penalty killing percentages – of 106.7 this year compared to 107.7 last season is off by an almost indistinguishable amount.

However, there is a special teams difference worth noting. That is in the number of opportunities. Last season’s club had 178 power play opportunities through 56 games and faced 176 shorthanded situations, an almost break-even of plus-2 in opportunity differential. This year’s club is a different story. They have had 167 power play chances this season (11 off from last year) and have faced 194 shorthanded situations (up 8 from last season), resulting in a minus-27 differential.

It is that difference that explains why the Caps, with little change in efficiency, are a plus-7 in power play goals scored/power play goals allowed (37 scored, 30 allowed) this season, while they were plus-14 (42 power play goals scored, 28 power play goals allowed) at the same point last season.

Which gets us to an interesting outcome in terms of penalties. The penalty minutes are virtually unchanged from last year to this through 56 games (496 minutes last season, 495 minutes this season). It is the mix that is different. At this point last season the Caps had 193 minor penalties charged and 14 majors. This year’s club is more disciplined about taking majors, having been hit with just nine all season, but they have taken 214 minor penalties, a 21 penalty increase (10.9 percent).

Then there is the collection of what some might feel are arbitrary stats – hits, blocked shots, giveaways, and takeaways. What comes out of that comparison from year-to-year first is how the hits and blocked shots behave. High numbers might suggest that the team has possession issues, hits and blocked shots being the product of events when the other team has the puck.

To an extent, this is borne out by the numbers. Hits dropped from last year to this through 56 games (from 1,310 to 1,194), as did blocked shots (from 861 to 755), while the 5-on-5 shot attempts share (Corsi-for) went up, from 50.30 percent through 56 games last season to 51.32 percent through 56 games so far this season.

What appears a bit stranger is the curious relationship of giveaways to takeaways. Those are about as arbitrary as statistics get in the game, but what is curious about the Caps comparing this year to last is how they move in such lockstep fashion. Last year, the Caps had 386 takeaways and 489 giveaways through 56 games, a ratio of 0.79:1. This season, takeaways increased to 456, but giveaways jumped, too, to 601, the result being a ratio of 0.76:1. Was it scoring peculiarities, different scorers, or is this edition of the Caps that much more of a free-wheeling group when it comes to turnovers for and against?  

At the team-wide statistical level, this year’s team is better both offensively and defensively in terms of outcomes, but the offensive numbers need to be tempered with the realization that their shooting efficiency might suffer from a lack of sustainability. Special teams are about as efficient as a whole, as indicated by the special team index, as they were last year, but that has to be tempered with the concern that this club takes too many penalties compared to last year’s team.

The statistics associated with the grittier side of play – hits and blocked shots — appear to behave as one might expect with a team that improved its possession numbers.

Taken together it suggests that at this level of examination, there is little difference between this year’s club and last years. Given how successful the Caps were through 56 games last season, that’s not a bad thing. Then again, an NHL regular season is not 56 games, either.

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