It’s mid-December and two of the biggest storylines of the Washington Capitals’ season so far are the relative lack of goals tallied by the game’s all-time greatest scorer and the unexpected departure from the game of his longtime running mate. It’s hard not to feel as if the latter has had a causal impact on the former because so many of our collective memories over the past nearly two decades have involved that connection.
But the fact remains that we’re 25 games into the 2023-24 season and Alex Ovechkin has five goals, only three of which have come with an opposing goalie in net, and only one of which has come via the Caps’ wretched and unlucky power play. These numbers are concerning for all of the obvious reasons. But with Nicklas Backstrom semi-retired, Evgeny Kuznetsov unplayable beside his fellow countryman and Ovechkin’s most frequent pivot Dylan Strome in the early running for a Cy Young award, it’s worth wondering whether Alex Ovechkin has the right linemates to get his scoring back on track.
First and foremost, the current combos are working and the Caps are winning some games. That matters, despite how this team’s objectives have been portrayed in some circles. So the question, then, focuses on Dylan Strome’s playmaking. Perhaps surprisingly, Strome actually led the Caps in 5v5 Scoring Chance Assists per 60 last season:
Ditto Primary Shot Assists (i.e. passes that lead directly to shots):
Strome graded out well last year in pretty much every “playmaking” microstat that Corey Sznajder tracked:
So the notion that Strome, who was one helper off the team lead a season ago, is an inadequate playmaker seems… misguided. To wit, Ovechkin has seen markedly different impacts on his individual chances based on his primary pivots:
Ovechkin, in the 14 games in which Strome was his primary center at five-on-five has been getting chances at a far greater rate, including high-danger chances four times as often and nearly twice as many shot attempts per game, resulting in more than an individual expected goal rate that’s more than twice as high. Sidenote: that’s in part, of course, due to the fact that when Ovechkin and Kuznetsov have been on the ice together, they never have the puck:
Ovechkin’s rates with Strome as his center compare favorably with his career numbers – only five times in his career, for example, has Ovechkin had a 5v5 ixG/60 above one. So it seems clear that Strome is a good option with Ovechkin right now – the team’s winning, the line is dominating and Ovechkin is getting his chances. It’s only a matter of time before things turn around for him in the goal column and this…
… starts looking more like this:
