1. Puck Management
It’s impossible to overstate how important the Caps’ puck management – specifically in their own end – is likely to be to their chances at success in this series. We’ve seen what happens when they’re sloppy, and it isn’t pretty. And now they’re facing a team that absolutely feasts on that slop:
As unreliable as giveaways and takeaways are as stats… that chart tells a very believable story. (As a sidenote, if you’re a little confused as to the difference between the two, I like to think of it as a giveaway is me dropping my wallet and you picking it up and a takeaway is you reaching into my pocket and taking it.)
That dovetails nicely with something we talked about the other day regarding shot quality and Carolina’s willingness to shoot from anywhere to create rebounds and sustained pressure, rather than opting to try to create higher-quality chances from the jump:
Dump pucks in, forecheck like honeybadgers on cocaine, shoot from anywhere. As Spencer Carbery said, “They are constantly getting people around your net and pucks are going there and then they get the second [shot], and then the third, and then the fourth, and then the fifth, and eventually you break down.”
As if that wasn’t warning enough for the importance of defensive-zone puck management, how about Logan Thompson’s regular-season handling of low-danger shots?
On top of that, of the 40 goalies who played 1500 five-on-five minutes this season, only five yielded rebound attempts against at a higher rate than Thompson (interestingly enough, Charlie Lindgren had the League’s best mark in that metric, so you can’t just chalk it up to Caps defensemen not clearing rebounds).
Granted, Thompson’s season was really “a tale of two seasons,” and his first-round performance resembled the better of those two, but it’s still something to keep an eye on: where Carolina preys on its opponents plays into Thompson’s weaknesses in net (in aggregate) this season. Unless this series becomes a special teams duel (no thank you), it’s likely going to come down to the Caps’ puck management in their own end and Thompson’s performance. And the ‘Canes may be happy to take their chances with that.
2. Exit Stage Left
We’ve established that getting out of the defensive zone cleanly is of the utmost importance to the Caps. But who does that fall on? The indispensable Corey Sznajder (podcast guest extraordinaire) tracked the Caps’ first-round series and his five-on-five zone-exit data is below, but first a quick explainer on it from Sznajder:
The tracking happens in a few stages, the first one being the puck retrieval, which is when the defending player skates back to retrieve a dump-in or a loose puck to start an exit. I track whether they cleanly retrieve the puck or turn it over (botched retrieval). From then, they can move the puck to a teammate within the zone or make an exit attempt themselves. These are categorized by exits with possession (passes or carries), exits without possession (clears, missed passes) and failed exits (turnovers, clears that the other team intercepts, icings). The player who retrieved the puck as well as the player who made the zone exit are given credit for these plays.
After that, we can develop some stats looking at how often each defenseman is at facilitating zone exits, one of which is “retrievals leading to exits” which are how often a defenseman’s successful retrieval leads to a successful exit (an exit with possession or a clear that the forechecking team doesn’t retrieve). Basically a way to show how good each defenseman is at evading pressure to solve problems with the puck, even if they aren’t the players exiting the zone. The start of the zone exit, if you will.
via AllThreeZones (but we’re really only talking about one here)
That’s enough talk, let’s dig into the numbers:
Leaping off your screen right now is how, well, bad the Caps’ defensemen were in terms of exits with possession percentage (the column by which the data is sorted). Not one over 48% (Matt Roy, of all people), four below 40% and two sub-30%. As points of reference, Lane Hutson was at 67%, Mike Matheson was at 65%, Jayden Struble was at 60% in a tiny sample and the other Habs blueliners fell between 20 and 38 percent.
So that’s worrying. As is the fact that John Carlson hit double digits in both botched retrievals (turnovers) and failed exits (“turnovers, clears that the other team intercepts, icings”). Carlson was credited with 40 retrievals, 10 botched retrievals and 10 failed exits; Roy and Jakob Chychrun combined for 96 retrievals and fewer botched retrievals and failed exits. Carlson had 40 puck retrievals; the Caps exited the zone with possession ten times. Big yikes.
If we look at successful retrieval percentage (DZ Retrievals minus Botched Retrievals above, divided by DZ Retrievals) and Exit with Possession percentage…
No major retrieval issues… except for Carlson, but then those ugly “Exit with Possession” numbers.
There’s so much data to slice and dice, but there are a few takeaways here, first being that John Carlson needs to be better with the puck and, where possible, Jakob Chychrun should probably be retrieving pucks as often as possible in that pair, because he’s pretty good at it:
But this isn’t about one player or even one position. Zone exits are a team effort – forwards being in the right place to be exit options instead of flying the zone early, defensemen making quick, smart decisions with the puck, and the goalie directing traffic and helping his blueliners when he plays the puck. When everyone’s on the same page, it makes a world of difference; when they’re not, it’s likely to land them in a world of trouble.
3. Pro-jection
Ahead of Aliaksei Protas making his playoff debut in Game 5 of the Caps’ first-round series against Montreal, there was some speculation as to who he’d replace in the lineup and how much of a reshuffling that might cause. Would he reassume his role on the top line to provide a little defensive top cover on that trio (and then what to do with a very effective Anthony Beauvilier, a “Swiss Army knife” in his own right), play alongside Pierre-Luc Dubois and Tom Wilson or Connor McMichael on a wildly successful-in-the-regular-season second line (and then what to do with McMichael or Wilson), maybe slot in on the third line to give snake-bitten rookie Ryan Leonard a break, or perhaps grab a fourth-line spot swapping in for Taylor Raddysh. That’s how versatile – and important – Protas is to this team at five-on-five. He is a fixer – put him on any line and that line gets better. Here’s how Big Pro fared in the top-six during the regular season (holding Ovechkin-Strome as a constant):
Spencer Carbery opted for that last option (in for Raddysh on the fourth line), opting to ease Protas back into the lineup without disrupting any of the other three lines. To no one’s surprise, the trio was successful:
“Overall performance wise, I thought [Protas] was good,” says Carbery. “His pace looked good, his puck touches – for the most part – were good; I thought he gave us some good shifts on the penalty kill. There was a little bit of rust, but I would say more related to him just missing a bunch of time and getting plugged right into a competitive playoff series. So I was happy with the way that he played.”
“The reason we put him [on the Dowd line] – well, a couple of reasons – is [Anthony Beauvillier] has had a lot of success playing with [Dylan Strome and Alex Ovechkin], so we feel really comfortable with that line right now,” says Carbery. “So putting him with Dowd, Dowd is a really easy centerman to play with and to come back into the lineup with. And Pro is so versatile – from being able to play top six, bottom six, penalty kill – so when he looks at the lineup and sees where he is, he knows, ‘Okay, here’s what I’ve got to do tonight at a high level playing with Nic Dowd.’
“And I thought their chemistry [led to] some good [offensive] zone shifts and a couple of good scoring chances that they created I think it was the most productive Dowd’s line has been in the series, analytics wise. Good start for Pro to get him back in, and hopefully he only gets better from there and continues to feel more and more comfortable.”
via Dump n’ Chase
Good rationale, good result.
That effort notwithstanding, it was perhaps a little surprising to see Protas sticking with that line as the Caps practiced ahead of their second-round series:
No changes to Capitals lines and D pairs at practice today: Ovechkin-Strome-Beauvillier McMichael-Dubois-Wilson Mangiapane-Eller-Leonard Duhaime-Dowd-Protas Raddysh, Frank Chychrun-Carlson Sandin-Roy Alexeyev-TvR McIlrath-Bear Thompson Lindgren Gibson
— Tom Gulitti (@tomgulittinhl.bsky.social) May 3, 2025 at 10:59 AM
As Carbery noted, that top line has been successful, outscoring Montreal 4-to-1 in Round 1 (despite an expected goals-for percentage just under 50%, but mostly the result of a horrid Game 3), and Beauvillier has been a key contributor to that, with a goal and four assists (on the four goals noted, plus the primary assist on a Strome goal with Leonard on the ice before he could hop over the boards for Ovechkin). It’s a perfectly defensible decision… for now. And Carbery seems to know it won’t be for too long:
“[Protas] getting that game under his belt, coming back into a series-clinching game, us having success and winning the game,” says Carbery, “I think that’ll give him some confidence and as we move along here into the Carolina series, I think his game and his role will become more impactful and more significant as we move along.”
via Dump n’ Chase
See, here’s the deal – playing Protas on one of your two preferred shutdown lines at home against a one-line team works. But Carolina isn’t Montreal. They’re not a one-line team, so your lineup needs a bit more balance (read: defensive awareness throughout) in order to not get cooked, especially when a defensively deficient line can be targeted on the road.
So will Protas start Game 1 against the ‘Canes on the fourth line? Maybe. And it could work out just fine, with the second and fourth lines matching Carolina’s top two trios. But at some point before the puck drops on Game 3 in Raleigh, you’d think Protas would find his way back to the Strome-Ovechkin line, with Beauvillier dropping down to the Dowd line, if no other moves are necessary. Otherwise it might be open season on that Ovechkin line, and they may not be up to the task, defensively. Aliaksei Protas doesn’t necessarily fix that by himself, but he helps.