It's pretty well understood in the hockey community that much of what goes on during a game never finds its way onto the stat sheets. Even with the development of advanced statistics aimed at unearthing these "hidden" contributions (and their counterparts), some of the most impactful plays will go largely untracked and undocumented. Every once in a while, though, if you're paying close enough attention, you might catch some of these under-appreciated moments of productivity in action.

Sunday afternoon against the New York Rangers, Mathieu Perreault finished with a nondescript stat line: 15:05 of ice time, a plus-one rating and one shot on goal. However, a closer look at a couple of plays shows that Perreault was a key factor in both of the Caps goals. Follow along after the jump to see how Perreault was instrumental in facilitating what little offense the Caps were able to produce.

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Dmitry Orlov has now played in 26 games for the Washington Capitals and the early returns have been positive. Ever since he was taken in the second round of the 2009 draft Caps fans have heard about a defenseman that is dynamic with the puck but an adventure in his own end. Despite this defensive reputation, Orlov has held his own for the most part and doesn't look like he'll be again wearing a Hershey Bears jersey any time soon. However, he still shows signs of how raw he is defensively (as recently as last night against the Islanders), and how much work still needs to be done. Last week against the Pittsburgh Penguins Orlov showed how slim the margin for error is in the NHL and it cost the Caps an extended shift pinned in their own end by the Penguins' fourth line. After the jump, let's take a look at what went wrong.

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The element of surprise - it's a strategic component that's been around forever, from Sun Tzu to Chemistry Cat. And over the course of the first half of this 2011-12 season, Marcus Johansson has given us the opportunity to see its effectiveness in action.

Early on, Johansson was tipping (think "telegraphing," not "deflecting") his shots quite a bit. Predictably, this has resulted in a lot of relatively easy saves for opposing netminders. But he's been making strides in that area, and the difference is clear. After the jump, we'll take a look at how Johansson was tipping his shots, and how he's adjusted over the course of the season.

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Back on December 20, the Capitals faced the Nashville Predators at Verizon Center. Around the midway point of the first period, the Caps were presented with a power-play opportunity when Blake Geoffrion got a little too frisky with Matt Hendricks in response to a hit in the neutral zone. The box score shows that the Caps failed to cash in on that chance, just another in a string of power-play failures, the tenth in a row at that point.

But despite the Caps' inability to get a puck past Anders Lindback, those two minutes were actually among the team's best with the extra man in recent memory (certainly one of the best since Mike Green was kidnapped got injured). Let's take a look at what the Caps did right (and wrong), after the jump.

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"There’s a lot about that team that’s scary. Today, especially in the second, the came at us hard, forechecked hard and were tough to handle that way. Very aggressive on the forecheck. That’s maybe something we hadn’t seen [before Dale Hunter]." - Pittsburgh Head Coach Dan Bylsma after last week's Caps/Pens game

Under Bruce Boudreau, the once high-flying Washington Capitals had all but abandoned an aggressive forecheck, instead often attempting to carry the puck into the opposing zone and sagging back to the neutral zone at the first sign of opposition possession.

Dale Hunter wants to be much more aggressive, it seems, and much more interested in dumping and chasing. And why not? He's got a slew of big wings who love to hit, including Alex Ovechkin and Troy Brouwer on the top line and throughout the depth chart, and getting physical with opposing defenders can wear them out during the course of a game and especially within a playoff series (cue Jim Mora).

But a successful forecheck often starts at the other end of the ice. As Hunter himself put it after last week's Penguins game, "[W]e have to move the puck quicker out of our end. We spend too much time, and it wears out our offense."

It's similar to a point we made in our recap of that game:

The Caps had a better forecheck against the Penguins than they did against the Blues. Why? Because they were able to break out of their own zone better than on Tuesday night (though they certainly still need work in that aspect of the game). The result is that instead of going for line changes as soon as the puck comes to neutral, forwards could dump the puck in, chase it down and hammer Pittsburgh blueliners.

After the jump, two examples that hammer home the point.

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The Washington Capitals' power play has been the topic of much concern and discussion among Caps fans dating back to at least the 1-for-33 debacle that was a (the?) primary culprit for 2010's first-round upset loss to Montreal. That unit had led the entire league in 2009-10, capitalizing on 25.2% of their chances, before stumbling in the post-season, and followed up that performance by converting at just a 17.5% clip last season, good for 15th in the league (tied with the Ottawa Senators). There are plenty of contributing factors in the decline of the Capitals power play (lack of movement, poor zone entries, lack of effort to win back loose pucks to name three). However, among all critiques of the Caps' power play, one always seems to come to the forefront: the utilization of Alex Ovechkin. 

The engine of the Caps power play, indeed the engine for the team, has for years been Ovechkin. However, his power play potency has been steadily declining, from 22 goals in 2007-08, to 19 in 2008-09, to 13 in 2009-10, to just seven power play goals last season. And as any Caps fan can tell you (usually while shaking his or her head), Ovechkin has been a mainstay on the point during a Caps power play. But while it was once a (very) productive set up, teams have adjusted and it is no longer an optimal deployment.

There are five main concerns with Ovechkin manning the point. The first is that it requires him to chase down and retrieve pucks that are cleared by the penalty killing unit. This is among the most energy-consuming of all power play activities, and given his traditional shift length it doesn't make sense to have Ovechkin carrying the mail. The second is that leaving Ovechkin on the point (as a forward assuming a defensive positioning) leaves him, and the team, more susceptible to shorthanded rushes against. The third concern is that leaving Ovechkin on the point makes him easier for the opposition's penalty-killing unit to isolate. The fourth critique is related to the second and third critiques - leaving Ovechkin on the point limits his ability to be opportunistic and hunt down loose pucks in the offensive zone; his defensive responsibilities and isolation by the penalty killing unit make it much harder for him to find rebounds, strange bounces, and other fortuitous opportunities. Some people call it being in the right place at the right time, I call it being a shark in the offensive zone. Great scorers have that instinct, but Ovechkin's instinct is largely wasted at the point. The final critique is that it leaves the Capitals' best goal scorer shooting from the blue line, rather than taking higher-percentage shots closer to the net.

After the jump, we'll take a look at how Ovechkin has been scoring his power play goals, how penalty killing units have adjusted to his deployment on the point, and what a simple adjustment has done to change the entire look of the Caps power play in this young 2011-12 season.

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Last December I was reading Elliotte Friedman's "30 Thoughts," a weekly ritual, when something caught my eye. It wasn't specifically Capitals-related (though there are some Caps nuggets in there), but I haven't been able to get it out of my mind since. On December 13 Friedman wrote:

27) Brian Rafalski got hit twice going back for pucks against Nashville last Wednesday.  If Jonathan Ericsson doesn't get it no matter what side it goes to, Mike Babcock is displeased.  Same goes for Brad Stuart and [Nicklas] Lidstrom.

I went back and looked at that game, as well as some other Detroit games, and saw the strategy in action.  Let's take a look at how Babcock wants the system to be executed, and then we'll see the breakdown that led to the comment in 30 Thoughts.

In this first example, we'll see that the puck gets dumped into Lidstrom's corner, but Kronwall skates cross-ice to retrieve the puck, while Lidstrom provides support:

Rather than adhering to traditional "left/right" distinctions to determine defensive assignments, Babcock has instructed his defensemen to perform specific roles, irrespective of position on the ice. Here is another example, which makes the point even more clearly:

When the puck is dumped in Lidstrom is actually in better position to retrieve the puck. The puck is clearly going to wrap around the boards behind the net, and Lidstrom is already in the slot with no man to cover. On the contrary, Stuart has pressure on him, and he needs to pivot and chase a further distance to retrieve the puck. But because of Babcock's demands, Stuart chases down the puck and eats a bodycheck. Now let's take a look at the breakdown that inspired Friedman's note in 30 Thoughts.

This looks a lot like the first example posted. Rafalski ends up chasing to retrieve the puck in the far side corner, and takes a hit for his troubles. I'm sympathetic to Ericsson in this example, but clearly Babcock was not. Nashville had pressure coming down the near boards, and Ericsson had to step up to prevent an easy entry into the zone. But based on Friedman's comment, that's not an excuse; Babcock expected Ericsson to turn tail and retrieve that puck to save Rafalski from taking that hit.

That's great, but what does it have to do with the Capitals? Click through to find out after the jump.

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Tom Poti is one of the Caps' most important penalty killers. He leads the team in shorthanded ice time per game (and is 11th in the League in that metric) and plays against the toughest competition. He also has the worst Goals Against/60 at four-on-five of any of the blueliners now in the team's penalty-killing rotation, and that's for a team that's near the bottom of the League in penalty killing ranking overall.

In the past three games, Poti has twice been sent out (along with a couple of forwards) for the toughest task a penalty-killer is asked to do - kill a two-man disadvantage. Twice he and his teammates have failed. And while not all the blame can be put on Poti, two plays he made (or, perhaps more accurately, didn't make) stand out, especially in light of the similarity between them.

First up, Chicago. Down two men, Poti ended up between the puck carrier (Patrick Kane), his own goalie (Jose Theodore) and 'Hawks forward Patrick Sharp, who's camped out at the far-side post. Have a look:

Poti's in pretty good position, except for one thing: his stick. Rather than having his twig to the inside - where it would be directly in Kane's passing lane - it's to the outside where it defends... well, I'm not sure. A moment later, Kane zips a pass to Sharp, who rattles a one-timer off the far post before Jonathan Toews bangs home the rebound (watch it here if you care to). To be fair to Poti, he had been jostling with Toews and just got to his feet and regained his balance a moment before Kane's pass. One-time mistake by a guy with more than 800 NHL games under his belt, right? Wrong.

Two games later, after Shaone Morrisonn's double-minor for high-sticking put the Caps down two men in Carolina, Bruce Boudreau sent Poti over the boards to try to kill the disadvantage. A failed Matt Bradley clearing attempt later and Poti found himself in a similar position to where he was in Chicago four days earlier:

Again, the puck-carrier has the biscuit above the dot with Poti (unlike his teammates) in good position... except for his stick. Jussi Jokinen takes advantage and throws the puck down to Eric Staal for a tap-in (video here).

On both of these plays, Poti presumably is presumably trying to take away the shot when he should have his stick in the passing lane, leaving the puck carrier to his goalie (who has a far better chance of stopping a shot from the faceoff circle than he does a tap-in from the edge of the crease anyway).

These relatively little things may not be killers right now... but a month from now, they very well might be.