We first identified what has subsequently been referred to as the Caps’ “Oops! All shooters” problem almost two years ago. The problem, so the theory went, was that the Caps forward group was overloaded with shooters and lacked playmakers – too many finishers and not enough table-setters – and that by virtue of this imbalance, offense would be difficult to come by.
Fast forward two seasons – one exciting and encouraging, one somewhat boring and disappointing – and what, if anything, has changed? Let’s take a look.
First and foremost, the issue was clearly front of mind for the front office at that year’s trade deadline, despite their inability to adequately address it at the time. A few months later, however, the Caps got their “young centerman” in the person of Pierre Luc-Dubois. Dubois had an exceptional first season in D.C. as arguably the team’s most important skater, and his absence for a huge part of the current campaign is a massive reason why the team is facing long odds to make the postseason.
But Dubois isn’t a pass-first creator as much as he is more of a well-rounded contributor. Over at Hockey-Viz, Micah has a metric for measuring a player’s tendency to shoot (he calls it “shootiness”), where positive values indicate a player who shoots more than a typical player does at the same position. Dubois is at -1%, slightly more pass-inclined than a typical player, but essentially average… and very much in line with fellow Caps’ top-six center Dylan Strome (also -1%). Other Caps top-six(ish) forwards clock in as “shootier,” including Alex Ovechkin (+9%), Ryan Leonard (+7%), Aliaksei Protas (+4%), Anthony Beauvillier (+4%), Justin Sourdif (+2%), Connor McMichael (+1%), and Tom Wilson (+0%). In fact, the only real “pass-first” guy in the current lineup is Hendrix Lapierre (-4%). As a point of reference, Caps’ theoretical trade deadline target Robert Thomas pinged at -5% here.
Now, to be clear, a propensity to shoot isn’t in and of itself a bad thing. Nor is composing a lineup full of that type of player. Because, of course, a player’s likelihood of passing and their ability to pass are two different things.
Let’s look at Strome as an example. As noted above, he’s just about on League-average in terms of “will he pass or will he shoot?” He’s also right at League-average (+0.1) in what Hockey-Viz calls “Setting” (“the specific sort of passing that immediately precedes shooting”). So Strome is a very slightly above-average playmaker who is very slightly more inclined to pass than shoot (of note, his “Finishing” (“the shooting ability of the player after taking into account where they shoot from, what types of shots they use, and which goaltenders they face”) is very good, at +3.6). Dubois is -0.9 in Setting, and Protas is the only other nominal top-sixer above zero at +0.4. Again, using our reference point, Robert Thomas clocks in at +3.8 – a pass-first center who is quite good at it.
Put that last piece together and you get a chart that looks like this:
Oops! All shooters!
Of course, it hasn’t always been like this… but it more or less has ever since the Caps’ last two real playmakers left town. Here’s a look at the Cup season, just for funzies:
So what’s the takeaway? Whether by design, circumstance, or otherwise, the Caps’ group of forwards is still shooter-heavy, and that may be part of the reason the power play has struggled so mightily this year (among other offensive shortcomings they’ve faced). The Caps have wanted to add a young top-six talent for a while now and presumably will continue their search (both in-house and externally) until they get their guy. But if you’re wondering what type of guy that might be, it probably wouldn’t hurt if he was more of a feeder – that way, everyone will eat.