Washington Capitals Goal Differential Paints Accurate Picture

The Capitals have the largest goal differential in the NHL by a wide margin. There is reason to believe that this is no fluke, rather that it accurately represents just how strong the Caps are.

The Washington Capitals have cruised through the first half of the 2015-16 NHL campaign, and have showed no signs of slowing down. Currently, they sit five points ahead of the second best team in the league point-wise, the Chicago Blackhawks, who have played three more games than the Capitals. In 45 games, the Caps have an astonishing goal differential of +52 which is 22 goals ahead of the second place team in that category.

More from Stars and Sticks

• Alex Ovechkin will score 50 goals in 2023-24
• It’s time for Capitals fans to chill out with the Anthony Mantha hate
• The Capitals Have Several Potentially Bad Contracts
• Top 3 Capitals prospects to watch at Rookie Camp
• Top 3 undrafted invites to watch at Capitals Rookie Camp

This statistic immediately brings back memories of a 2009-10 Washington Capitals team which racked up a goal differential of +85. We all know what happened that year, so we won’t get into it. Nonetheless, it goes to show that goal differential can be an inaccurate representation of a team’s true ability.

That is not the case for the 2015-16 Washington Capitals. It isn’t as if the Capitals are winning back-and-forth, high scoring games by a score of 6-4 every night. That type of result is something we saw from the 2009-10 team, and those types of results do a good job hiding obvious deficiencies in areas such as team defense/goals allowed.

The fact of the matter is, the Capitals are still a very high scoring team. The difference with this year’s team is that they are winning games 4-1 or 5-2. They find themselves second in the league, just behind the Dallas Stars, with 3.27 goals per game. Washington still possesses the league’s greatest goal scorer in Alex Ovechkin and a couple of the best playmakers in the world in Nicklas Backstrom and Evgeny Kuznetsov. With the wealth of depth behind those stars, scoring has not and probably will not be a common issue.

On the other end of the spectrum, keeping pucks out of your own net will be what wins you games come crunch time, especially in the playoffs. A lot of this relies on having a world-class netminder, which the Capitals have in Braden Holtby, and an above average defensive unit, which the Caps have as well. With these combined aspects and in spite of long-term injuries to both of their top defensemen in John Carlson and Brooks Orpik, Washington ranks number one in the NHL with 2.13 goals allowed per game. This is a promising statistic on its own, and it does help rescue teams if they go through a scoring slump, or if an injury or two hit some of their top players.

More from Capitals News

• Breaking down the Rookie Camp roster
• Hear what Magic Johnson said about Alex Ovechkin
• Capitals announce Rookie Camp schedule
• Breaking down the 2023-24 Capitals national TV schedule
• Capitals Alumni Weekend is coming back

They sit tenth in the league in terms of shots allowed per game, allowing 28.8 per game. This is an overlooked statistic because it points more towards a stingy defense than anything else, and doesn’t take the goaltender into account. One could expect that statistic to lean more towards the Capitals favor once they get their top defensemen back as well.

Because the Washington Capitals are top-two in both GFPG and GAPG, we can have a little faith that their goal differential is pretty accurate and tells the true story. This obviously doesn’t take any kind of advanced statistics into effect, but from a basic standpoint, the Capitals are good at putting the puck into the opponents net and good at keeping it out of theirs, and that alone is telling.

The goal differential does get influenced by special teams success, which we all know is another key to prolonged success through the playoffs. Teams who win the special teams battle consistently, often win the most games. The Caps have the second ranked power play and fourth ranked penalty kill, which clearly helps influence goals for and goals against.

MORE CAPITALS: Williams Hat Trick Leads Caps Over Rangers

The Capitals have three renowned penalty killing forwards in Jay Beagle, Mike Richards and Brooks Laich, and there are several other Capitals who are more than useful in shorthanded situations. The power play, just as almost every year, is one of the best in the league. With the weapons that Washington possesses on either power play unit, it is hard to keep the Caps’ man-advantage grounded for very long.

Simply put, the Washington Capitals goal differential matches up with how they have played this season. Several different factors line up this season that result in that huge differential that haven’t been strong points in years past, such as defense and incredible goaltending. These have lasted over the course of the entire season so far, so we can be pretty confident that they will remain pretty steady the rest of the way.

More capitals: Tom Wilson Finding Consistency

Goal differential is not always a very good way of measuring a team’s success, but the Washington Capitals have a lot of things going into their incredible version of that statistic this year. They are a very well rounded team, and not a one-trick pony like they were several seasons ago. The only way of knowing just how accurate it is, in the end, is if they are skating around the ice with a big trophy come the middle of June.