The Washington Capitals are in first place and a bit of trouble trucc

First in the division, first in the east, first in the league, a pace of 118 points, winners of three straight games with points in all of the last nine – you’ve heard it all before. The Washington Capitals are riding high, no doubt about it. But anyone who’s watched the Caps in the past few weeks has seen a concerning downward trend. It just hasn’t shown up on the scoreboard or the standings. Yet.

Just before Christmas, Washington managed only 11 shots on goal against the Boston Bruins, a blowout loss. That is still the team’s lowest SOG total, but in three consecutive games earlier this month they put up 18, 17, and 16. Those games were against the 31st, 25th, and 18th best shot-suppression teams in the league, respectively. For comparison, league average for shots on goal in an hour-long game is 28, a number the Caps have not beaten since Alex Ovechkin’s return on December 28.

As the team’s play was degrading, on January 2, The Washington Post’s Bailey Johnson asked head coach Spencer Carbery which parts of the game the team is struggling with the most. Carbery considered his answer for a moment before giving the kind of thoughtful, non-evasive, and articulate answer I’ve come to appreciate from him. Here it is in full, starting at 1:05 in the video below:

Honestly, because we dove into all the different areas of our structure, inside the areas of the ice, and I think it’s showing up in a lot of different areas. I don’t think there’s one specific [thing]: our forecheck, our breakout structure. I feel like there’s little tweaks in little areas, but I just think it’s an overriding we don’t have the puck enough. When you don’t have the puck enough and when teams are out-possessing you, I find that we are defending way more than we were at the beginning of the year. The amount of defensive-zone shifts where we have to just get the puck out and then we just change. It’s a simple way of saying we need to possess the puck more.

What goes into that? A lot of different stuff. Us being able to manage it better. Us being able to find D-zone exits when we have possession, when it’s on our stick. Not to oversimplify, but if there was one thing, like, Carbs, what’s the one reason why our game has started to struggle and teams are controlling more play and they’re out-playing us for large portions of games? It’s because we are checking way too often and do not have the puck enough.

One way to measure possession is by the share of shot attempts a team controls in their games. If the number is above fifty percent, then the team (basically) has the puck more than their opponent and is more likely to outscore them.

For Washington, using expected-goals percentage, that share has dropped from 55 percent – or sixth place – in their first ten games to 49 percent – or 21st place – in the last ten games.

We can use Washington defensive corps to understand this more precisely. Below are the on-ice expected-goals percentages for the Caps when each defender is on the ice during each month of the season so far. I have highlighted exceptionally poor numbers – under 45 (yellow) and under 40 (red).

I generally think that when a possession stat is under 40 percent for any length of time, that’s not competitive hockey. But in the case of Chychrun this month, the Caps are still outscoring opponents five to two during his five-on-five shifts. The diagram below explains how he has managed this:

Goalie Logan Thompson saved .967 while Chychrun is on the ice this month.

Performing the same exercise for forwards, clumsily using four players as proxies for their often-changing lines, we see the same effect.

There are three observations that are most important to me. First is that Pierre-Luc Dubois (along with the criminally overlooked John Carlson) has been Washington’s most reliable player. Then there’s Nic Dowd‘s fourth line, asked to take the team’s most difficult shifts and up until now doing wonderfully with them. And last there’s Dylan Strome‘s line, nominally the first and most often Ovechkin’s. He’s below the yikes line of 40 percent in January. He’s still getting elite goaltending (.940 save percentage) but has been outscored five goals to four.

The difference between Strome and Chychrun is instructive. A team could hypothetically score better than their possession suggests for a long time – that was basically the whole appeal of Evgeny Kuznetsov – but it’s uncommon. You can’t depend on the results that Chychrun has seen if you’re getting outshot two to one. In time your goals will catch up to your shot differential, and you’ll end up underwater like Strome.

We generally think of possession stats as “process stats” or “underlying numbers.” And sure, they’re under the goal numbers in a sense, but they’re still above the real process: getting the puck back in the defensive zone, getting it into the neutral zone under control, getting it into the offensive zone, turning that zone time into real offense, and regaining the puck after shooting it. Tuning the system  and getting every player contributing – and keeping them healthy – is how the Caps have to solve this problem.

That is, unless they go the other route: personnel. Maybe Ethen Frank can take on a bigger role, maybe they’ll trade for Yanni Gourde, and maybe Sonny Milano will return and play like the game-changer he was last season. The trade deadline is March 7.