The Capitals squandered a 2-0 first period lead, allowing five straight Ottawa goals to fall 5-2 in Canada’s nation’s capital. The Capitals had some carry-over from the third period that sparked the comeback win against Vancouver on Monday night, but the engine sputtered and died in the final two periods of tonight’s contest. The Capitals have yet to really put together a solid 60-minute effort, and tonight was about 18 minutes of great effort.
In this post, we’ll take a look at the statistics behind the Capitals’ dreadful performance against Ottawa. The statistics used in this post are courtesy of Natural Stat Trick. If you’d like to learn more about the statistical terms used in this post, please check out our NHLAnalytics Glossary.
Five-on-five performance
There are no words in my vocabulary that will describe how poorly the Capitals played after the first period better than the cold, hard stats:
The Capitals did not score a goal at even strength, and they didn’t deserve to after the first period ended. The first period numbers, outside of the lack of ability to limit Ottawa’s high-danger chances, are rather good. After that…well…will lose you 99.99% of games you play.
The third period was one of the worst statistical performances I’ve seen out of the Capitals in a long time. The Caps entered the final frame tied 2-2. Obviously, the two empty net goals at the end make the score look even worse, but there’s a reason why the Capitals were still somehow in this game. That starts and ends with Darcy Kuemper.
In a game where the Caps were dominated, Kuemper posted a .929 save percentage and saved 11 high-danger shots against out of 12. Kuemper did exactly what the Caps are paying him the big bucks to do.
To nail that point home, just look at the shot attempt heat map from Natural Stat Trick:
The Senators’ heat map looks like a weather radar map showing a severe thunderstorm. The Capitals’ looks like a passing drizzle. It’s no wonder the Senators won this game. And to continue how dominant the Senators were, over the Caps, here’s the Corsi differential during five-on-five play:
You see that the Capitals really grabbed momentum in shot attempts about halfway through the first period. After that, the Senators started taking control. They never relinquished, and the Capitals were lost.
Five-on-five forward line performance
Well, typically there’s some good to take away from line performances even in losses. Tonight, there’s not much to build upon:
Every line failed to meet expectations, and the “gamble” by Laviolette to break-up that dominant checking line of Marcus Johansson, Lars Eller, and Aliaksei Protas did not pay off. Protas had some positive effects on the fourth line with Nic Dowd and Garnet Hathaway, but that trio was on the ice for the only five-on-five goal scored by either team tonight.
The fact of the matter is, when every line struggles to generate shot attempts, chances, or shots on goal, it’s not going to be a good night. It wasn’t a good night for the Caps’ forward group.
Luckily, with Kuznetsov now returning to the lineup, we can expect some more line changes to optimize performances.
By Justin Trudel