Washington Capitals 2011-2012 Season: A Look Back

By Ben Eisenberg |

Mandatory Credit: Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports

The Washington Capitals are beginning their 41st season as a franchise in 2015. To honor Washington Capitals teams of the past, we will be reviewing each season that the Caps have spent in the nation’s capital. Today, we remember 2011-2012, a season which saw an end to the Bruce Boudreau era and a short-lived coaching stint from franchise legend Dale Hunter.

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The Caps started off on fire, winning their first seven in a row. The seventh win was a 7-1 drubbing of the Detroit Red Wings at home, at which time Boudreau seemed to have things rolling once again. But the Caps would go just 5-9-1 in their next stretch of games, and with Boudreau already having presided over multiple playoff failures in D.C., that was it for him.

On November 28th, 2011, following a 5-1 loss to the Buffalo Sabres, GM George McPhee pulled the plug and replaced Boudreau with Hunter who he plucked from the OHL. Hunter would steady the ship, to an extent, leading the Caps to a 42-32-8 finish. The style of hockey, however, was painful to watch. It can be described as “Score once or twice, pack it in, give up the puck and pray.”

The season culminated in a surprise upset of the Boston Bruins in the first round of the playoffs as Braden Holtby put the team on his back and Joel Ward scored the game-seven winner in OT, one of the most memorable moments in franchise history. It finally ended at the hands of the New York Rangers in game seven of the second round at Madison Square Garden. Whether it was a success of failure of a season is ultimately up for debate.

On the one hand, Hunter’s Caps made it as far as any Boudreau team had. On the other, the Caps rarely had the puck in Hunter’s system and were banking on winning coin-flip (at best) hockey games. That’s no way to win a Stanley Cup.

Washington Capitals 2011-2012 Roster

Courtesy of

There was not a lot of offense, relatively speaking, for the Caps that season. Notice Nicklas Backstrom‘s low totals and recall that he was concussed for several weeks after a cheap shot elbow by Rene Bourque. Dennis Wideman was the team’s fourth-leading point-getter. Yeah, I don’t miss Hunter Hockey either.

Washington Capitals 2011-2012 Analytics

Courtesy of

There’s a lot of red on this chart, and if you recall your War-on-Ice 101 class, red is bad. It means negative possession numbers. That’s reason #1 why Hunter Hockey was a bad idea in the long run. Also, check out the ice time distribution (the higher vertically on the chart a player is, the more ice time they got).

Many of the team’s best players, in hindsight, brought up the rear in ice time under Hunter. Matthieu Perreault, Mike Knuble, and Joel Ward took backseats to guys like Jay Beagle, Brooks Laich and Matt Hendricks. That’s about as old-school as it gets.

This all brings back fuzzy memories, like the time Knuble wondered out loud why he was getting less ice time than fourth line plugs, and John Erskine admitting that he hadn’t spoken with Hunter in “months.” This all happened, on a professional sports team.

2011-2012 Bright Spots

1) The Ward game seven winner in OT against Boston. Unforgettable.

2) Holtby’s performance against Boston in that series.

3) The Boston Bruins series. Watching Tim Thomas and Milan Lucic lose.

What To Learn From The 2011-2012 Season

1) While Hunter’s strategy may not have been the best approach from an analytics standpoint, the Caps did appear to be a tougher team to play against. In the playoffs, there is something to be said for mental fortitude.

2) However, a true champion must have both fortitude AND the puck in order to win it all. The Caps that season only had one of those things. Hopefully the 2015-2016 version blends both of them.

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