T.J. Oshie: Washington Capitals Shootout Specialist

Mandatory Credit: Scott Rovak-USA TODAY Sports

If Washington Capitals General Manager Brian MacLellan has a notebook where he jots down his thoughts and observations about hockey during the course of the NHL season, I imagine we might have found a note last season at the top of a page that had been circled, underlined and repeated that read something like, “Find guys who can finish games”. I can imagine the Washington Capitals GM spending hours in a film room with Assistant GM Ross Mahoney talking about exactly that while tapping his pen on that same note. “Action item #1. Find guys who can finish games”. Guys like T.J. Oshie and Justin Williams.

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At least that’s how I pictured it when the team broke the news that the Washington Capitals had traded for T.J. Oshie and signed Justin Williams during 2015’s free agency, two players known by their respective reputations as “America’s Shootout Specialist” and “Mister Game Seven”. It struck me that these signings might be about more than the Capitals filling in top two right wing positions (which they’ll do), but maybe had some other ulterior motive that GMBM was trying to remedy by selecting these two guys in particular.

If we’re thinking that way, Justin Williams is pretty easy to figure out. He’s been monstrously instrumental in clutch moments for three teams that won the Stanley Cup. Since games seven are familiar territory for the Capitals, it seems like a no-brainer. Williams also helps replace Joel Ward, who acted as the Capitals “Mister Game Seven” before Williams.

T.J. Oshie though, might have been the right guy at the right price and term for the Capitals when they were in the market for a first line right wing this summer, or perhaps like with Williams, MacLellan had a motive he was trying to underline. The Capitals sure have had to resort to the shootout a lot in the last few years to decide games. So why not trade for a guy like T.J. Oshie who has become a shootout superstar?

T.J. Oshie is pretty darn good at scoring goals in the shootout. We all know this now because we watched USA Head Coach Dan Bylsma send him to the shootout line six times during the Sochi Olympics and beat Sergei Bobrovsky four times. It was an instant classic and cemented T.J. Oshie’s title as a “shootout specialist” for the NHL loving populace.

For longtime St. Louis Blues fans, T.J. Oshie has been a known commodity. In 59 attempts with the Blues, he’s scored on 31 of them, or 52.5%. 16 of those have been Game Winners. That’s an impressive percentage considering the footage on T.J. Oshie has been around for awhile now and he’s still managed to convert on over half of his attempts.

Let’s take a look at how he’s done it up to this point. T.J. Oshie usually takes a few deliberate strides towards the right circle and then cruises back left in a sort of lazy S-shaped motion. It’s almost like he’s a snake slithering after its prey. Around the end of the S, there’s usually some kind of head fake or stick pump or stutter-step to get the goalie to bite, followed by a quick shot. If the goalie looks like he’s trying to wait T.J. Oshie out, T.J. Oshie tends to shoot before they’re ready.

If the goalie looks set in their positioning, he has the patience to wait until they’ve committed one way or the other before releasing. His quick hands and smooth skating let him hold out in picking his shot until that last possible moment. His approach usually looks doggedly slow, probably to lure goalies into a sense of false security. By the time it’s over, it looks rather effortless. It’s not overly complicated by design – it’s really just excellent execution, near perfect timing and quick decision making. No “paralyzer” moves or fancy stick dangling needed.

Last year however, T.J. Oshie only scored on 4 of 11 attempts to end the season at a pretty pedestrian 36.4%. Not only was that a giant step back from his career high 2013-2014 season where he converted nine of twelve (75%), but it didn’t even land him in the top twenty rankings of shooters in the league. Ahead of him (by Shooting Percentage and with at least 7 attempts in the season) were current Metropolitan Division rivals David Perron, Wayne Simmonds, Jakub Voracek and Kyle Okposo.

While Oshie’s numbers are still historically strong, it may mark the beginning of the end of his effectiveness. There are a lot of variables to consider in the shootout, but the possibility that opposing goalies having figured out the solution to Oshie is entirely real. However, getting traded to the Washington Capitals could help Oshie be effective again. Western conference goalies have probably seen Oshie enough times that they have figured him out. The same can’t be said for Eastern Conference goalies who have likely only seen Oshie’s shootout moves on highlight reels.

Before Washington Capitals fans start panicking, do you know who had better shootout success last year than everyone listed above (including Oshie) and cashed in on 5 of 9 (55.6%) tries and was subsequently ranked #12 in the league by the same criteria as above? That would be Washington Capitals forward Evgeny Kuznetsov.

Kuznetsov, while holding a much smaller sample size than T.J. Oshie, has shown an encouraging amount of success in the shootout and has shown a great deal of creativity along the way. In the above video, we see him beat Al Montoya (who was ranked last in shootouts last year with all 3 attempts getting past him) with a move that feels like the hockey equivalent of the game “chicken”.

He swings way wide right and comes in on Montoya at an angle. In his approach, he glides in shuffling and does some non-descriptive puck handling before snapping off a quick shot to the far side. Montoya looks frozen. Like Oshie, Evgeny has done a good job of keeping the goaltender guessing until the puck is past them in an instant. They both have remarkably accurate shots.

Outside of the NHL, we’ve seen Kuznetsov pull out some pretty spectacular moves.

A move like that in a shootout takes serious guts and confidence. Will we ever see it at the NHL level? I’m not sure. What I am sure of is that there is a lot we haven’t seen from Kuzy yet and that unknown variable makes him dangerous and exciting to watch.

Having one player that you can rely on if the game goes to a shootout can make a huge advantage for your team. Having two of them, in a best of three tries format can load the dice in a team’s favor. If the Capitals need to resort to the skills competition again this year, I feel pretty good about our chances with T.J. Oshie and Kuznetsov.

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