Fifteen games into the season, here are a handful of numbers to ponder…
1 – Number of goals the Caps have from defensemen through 15 games, a John Carlson tally in the third game of the season. That’s one goal on 105 shots on goal and 262 shot attempts. As points of reference, Caps blueliners potted 42 goals on 752 shots (1611 attempts) a season ago, 4/137/304 through the first 15 games. Presumably, regression will be forthcoming.
34.0 – Percentage of shot attempts the Caps have had from defensemen. Somewhat related to the previous number, it’s always interesting to see the split of shots between forwards and defensemen, and Spencer Carbery’s Caps are right inline with his predecessor’s clubs, almost eerily:
The Carbitals haven’t gotten quite as many shots through from up top, but one in every three attempts is still coming from the blueline. So is that inherently “bad”? Is that proportion of low-percentage shots driving the team’s poor shooting percentage? Probably not really – last year’s top five teams in 5v5 shooting percentage were generally getting a slightly lower share of attempts from their rearguards, though two of the five were above where the Caps have been (Seattle (33.0% D iCF), Boston (31.2%), Vancouver (35.1%), Buffalo (26.2%) and St. Louis (35.4)), and the League-wide 5v5 shot attempt share from defensemen last year was 34.2%, or right where the Caps are now.
45.2 – Caps’ all-situation expected goals-for, per HockeyViz… they’ve scored 32:
That’s just brutal (but kudos to those right half-wall snipers). MoneyPuck has them bottom-three in the League in that metric:
On an individual level, it looks like this for the forwards, with T.J. Oshie unsurprisingly “leading” the way, a cool 4.38 goals below expected at zero (and if you take away Ovechkin’s and Kuznetsov’s two empty netters apiece, they’re not far behind, err, ahead… whatever):
But here’s the thing on Oshie – he’s actually getting chances at some of the highest rates of his career, including a personal best (and 2019-20 Ovechkin-matching) ixG/60 of 0.96 at fives:
The question on Oshie (and many of his teammates, for that matter), then, is “Is this guy snake-bitten or is he so old and dusty that he can no longer finish his chances?” The answer, of course, is probably a little of both, but as long as the chances keep coming, we should expect some positive regression.
1.79 – Charlie Lindgren’s goals saved above expectation per 60, tops in the League:
If you’re wondering how the Caps are 9-4-2 while massively underperforming their expected goals-for, flip the pillow and dig how they’ve performed relative to their expected goals-against, a charge led by Mr. Movember himself:
This is the profile of a dude who’s absolutely killing it in net:
For Lindgren, his current 4-0-0/.955 run is reminiscent of last year’s December heater, during which he went 9-1-0 with a .934 save percentage with Darcy Kuemper on the shelf before inexplicably getting only two starts over the next three weeks upon Kuemper’s return. Hopefully the workload shakes out a little more evenly in the near future, but as much as we expect the Caps’ offense to regress, we should also expect a come-back-to-earth in net – for perspective, Linus Ullmark’s Vezina-winning GSAE/60 was 0.88, so either Charlie Lindgren is twice as good as Ullmark was last year, or…