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Japers’ Rink Mailbag: Reality Check, Tactics and a Dancing Zebra

You’ve got questions…we’re answering ’em!

Nov 2, 2024; Washington, District of Columbia, USA; Washington Capitals center Dylan Strome (17) scores a goal on Columbus Blue Jackets goaltender Daniil Tarasov (40) in the third period at Capital One Arena. Mandatory Credit: Geoff Burke-Imagn Images

It’s been a minute since we opened up the ol’ Bag, so we put out the call on Bluesky for any questions y’all might have. Without further ado…

What's the takeaway at this point of the season with the changes in roster from last season vs coaching staff clicking/adjusting/leveraging players? Is it realistic to expect this early season success to continue to game 82 and beyond for the Caps?

— mrbehrens.bsky.social (@mrbehrens.bsky.social) November 13, 2024 at 8:35 PM

Great, start, right? But it’s still a small sample and so it’s fair to be asking whether the Caps are actually good. Like, good good.

They’ve already played and beaten four of NHL.com’s top-8 non-Caps teams, have played the fourth-fewest minutes per game while trailing, and only one of their five losses came by more than a goal, excluding empty netters. They’re 10-4-1 and half of those wins have been by three or more goals.

But those are all results and not processes, which are more predictive, so we need to look a little deeper and, friends, I’ve got good news for you:

NHL league ranks after ~ 20% of the season.

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— Travis Yost (@travisyost.bsky.social) November 13, 2024 at 11:16 AM

Basically, their even-strength offense and penalty kill have been terrific and have the underlying metrics to support those results. The power play (sorry for mentioning it without a trigger warning) has been terrible but the underlying data says it’s just a matter of time before it gets on track and is very good as well. Their even-strength defense hasn’t been great, but a) they just got Matt Roy back, and b) that’s why they traded for Stanley Cup Champion Lars Eller.

So while the Caps’ five-on-five shooting percentage is an unsustainably high 14%, their shooting percentage on the power play isn’t going to stay below 10% for too long. (As a point of reference, in the three pretty bleak years before this one, they shot 13.6% with the extra man). While they’re not going to score 4.13 goals per game over the course of the season, both goalies are below their career save percentages so far, and should bounce back up.

The Caps are in the midst of a pretty tough stretch of the schedule and play in the League’s best (or at least most top-heavy) division. There are plenty of challenges ahead. They’ve started well and hot, but there’s still room for improvement. At worst, this is a team that is on the right trajectory, with the right people behind the bench (for the most part) and in the front office. At best, this is a team that could make some noise because as they’ve shown through 15 games, they can be very good and not just very lucky.


Along the lines of the Caps being actually good is that high expected goals-for (xGF) rate at five-on-five. Currently, the Caps sit second in high-danger chance-for rate (HDCF/60) and third in scoring chance-for rate (SCF/60). Both are marked improvements over last year (when they ranked 17th and 25th, respectively), and both are up better than three per game over that span:

That’s nearly a 30% increase in high-danger chances for per sixty, but you asked what changes have facilitated that improvement, so I asked my buddy and yours, Alan May. His response?

Winning puck and board battles below goal line with an urgency to find players in the open slot areas who are shooting the puck quicker, via one-timers or catch-&-release wrist/snap shots. There’s been less low to high (back to the dmen) who then pass to partner and continually keep puck on perimeter with d-to-d passes or pucks passed back down low again, where puck never gets to net. D are also getting pucks to net quicker with a net player presence and another player prowling for rebounds…

Our own Rob Parker had a similar answer:

They aren’t necessarily a team that’s throwing pucks at the net all the time like maybe Carolina but they definitely have a “straight line to the net” mindset once they get possession on offense. Everything seems very direct under carbs and it’s like they are all on the same page with the attack angles. Some coaches were known for high to low… others for not creating offense at all… but I think Carbs has a good balance of getting pucks and people to the net and taking low % shots.

So, in sum, there’s less of an emphasis on point shots (to wit, those low-danger chance rates year-over-year are eerily similar – all of that additional possession is going into higher-danger chances), and more emphasis on feeding the slot for quick shots. And now, in Year 2 under Carbery, you can see the vision because they’ve got some of the dudes who can make that happen.

Assuming the goal record falls this season or beginning of next, is there any world where you see Ovi signing a 1 year deal to keep playing or do you believe next season is it either way.

— Eric Leong (@ericjleong.bsky.social) November 13, 2024 at 8:37 PM

Sure, there’s a world in which Ovechkin wants to make a run at 1,000 or whatever, and why not if he’s still playing like this (and not the first half of last year)? But many suspect that he’ll want to end his career back in Russia, so the end of his current deal certainly seems like a likely separation point. You can be sure that it will be up to him and him alone, though – he’ll play in D.C. as long as he wants to.

Who is the one player you wish could have won the Cup with the Caps that didn’t.

— rfreese.bsky.social (@rfreese.bsky.social) November 13, 2024 at 8:33 PM

Easy. Mike Green.

Beer leaguers choosing jersey number 69: yea or nay? #JapersMailbag

— Satan’s ‘lil Helper (@satanslilhelper.bsky.social) November 13, 2024 at 8:28 PM

I’m a big “nay” on that and probably wouldn’t have even taken the question if it didn’t give me an excuse to post the greatest intermission interview of all-time, with the Caps’ number 69, Mel Angelstad:

(Fun fact: at the time of the interview, the Caps were tied with the Rangers, whose goal was the only career tally for the other Mike Green.)

IYKYK!

Talking Points