Over the course of the regular season, the Caps had the League’s fifth-rated penalty kill, successfully squashing a robust 82 percent of the man disadvantages they faced, with the underlying metrics to back up that ranking.
In the playoffs so far? Not so much. Granted, these are very small samples we’re talking about, but so far the Caps have only escaped eight of 13 shorthanded opportunities unscathed, leaving them with an unsightly 61.5 percent success rate. In three regular-season meetings with Montreal, the Habs only managed a single power-play in eleven opportunities.
So what’s up?
To begin with, they’re missing two incredibly key dudes on the kill in Martin Fehervary and Aliaksei Protas. Fehervary led the team in shorthanded ice time by a wide margin, skating north of 63% of the Caps’ man-down minutes. League-wide, only three players skated more than Fehervary’s 245 shorthanded minutes. As for Protas, he was fourth among Caps forwards in shorthanded ice time and formed an effective – and dangerous – pair with Tom Wilson up front.
The Caps essentially played two sets of forwards and defensemen, eight skaters, of which Fehervary and Protas were two. So someone has to take absorb those minutes when they’re out, and that’s not only the guys who are pressed into that eight-man cycle, but also, in the case of blueliners, it’s everyone (theoretically) bumping up a slot in their workload. As a result, Matt Roy has gone from playing 37.8% of PK minutes to a team-high 72.2%, nearly doubling his shorthanded share. John Carlson is up 21 percent (not percentage points, but percent). Rasmus Sandin is up 75 percent, and is more or less the new guy in the mix. Trevor van Riemsdyk – comfortably the teams most underrated defensive defenseman – is actually down ten percent, despite not being on the ice for a goal-against at 4-on-5 yet. Hmm.
Up front, the big bumps have been Connor McMichael and Lars Eller, with Tom Wilson also seeing more work (and it doesn’t help matters that the Caps’ top three penalty-killing forwards by ice time – Brandon Duhaime, Nic Dowd and Tom Wilson – have also accounted for seven minor penalties so far, with Duhaime taking three and the other two a pair each, even though some of those have been coincidental minors).
And how has everyone performed in these minutes relative to their regular-season PKing numbers? It’s a bit of a mixed bag:
Again, small samples (which lead to some anomalies, like Sandin’s numbers being up across the board… except in expected goals-against rate). But the underlying numbers… aren’t terrible? Sandin, Eller, Roy and Dowd have seen spikes in shot rate, with the former two also spiking in scoring- and high danger-chance rates. Roy and Eller are way up in expected goals against (again, not sure how Sandin isn’t), but otherwise numbers are in line or even a little better in a bunch of places…
… except goals, which, of course, is a function of shots and save percentage. Every single player on that list other than van Riemsdyk and McMichael has been on the ice for far more actual goals than expected goals. Tom Wilson has been on the ice for six Montreal power play shots, three of which have gone in. John Carlson has been on for all five goals-against on just 14 shots against. Eller, Sandin and McMichael have each gotten two saves on three shots.
During the regular season, the Caps’ 4v5 penalty kill had an expected goals-against rate of 7.59 xGA/60 and Caps goalies stopped 87.4% of the shots they faced. During the post-season, they have a shockingly similar 7.50 xGA/60, but have saved only 70.6% of Montreal’s shots. In the playoffs, the Caps have an expected goals against total of 2.5 at four-on-five; they’ve allowed twice that.
Is that all on the goalie? Only a Sith deals in absolutes. But it’s not not on the keepers. We’ll give Charlie Lindgren a pass on the Alex Newhook goal he allowed in relief of Logan Thompson in Game 3, and Logan Thompson on the Nick Suzuki marker earlier in that one, as well as the fluky bounce on Cole Caufield’s Game 1 score. But Caufield’s Game 4 goal is one Thompson has to have (he had the read right and was in position, the puck just leaked through), and Juraj Slafkovsky’s tally earlier in Game 4 was somewhat similar.
Going goal-by-goal is more favorable than the aggregate, and, to be sure, Thompson has made some big saves on the kill. The Caps just need… more. More from him, and more from the guys in front of him when there are just four of ’em. Getting Protas back for Game 5 (presumably) should help. But so will simple regression… if it arrives before the series ends.