Washington Capitals: The Chandler Stephenson Dilemma

It is playoff time in Washington D.C. and that means that the Washington Capitals are gearing up for another run at the Stanley Cup. In order to do this, however, they will need to solidify their lineup that will get them there. One important piece to that lineup is Chandler Stephenson.

One of the most impressive feats of Washington’s Stanley-Cup victory last season is that, for the most part, they were able to keep the same group of guys together. They only lost the services of depth players such as Jay Beagle (free agency), Phillipp Grubauer (trade), and Devante Smith-Pelly (AHL) from their cup-winning roster of 2018. This is not easy to do in the salary-cap era. Just look at the 2010 Chicago Blackhawks as an example of that (of course that didn’t seem to slow them down). Where things have changed for the Capitals’ lineup is their bottom-six. Their fourth line has been a revolving door of players which has consisted of using Nic Dowd, Travis Boyd, Dmitrij Jaskin, Smith-Pelly, Andre Burakovsky, Carl Hagelin and Chandler Stephenson. Burakovsky will be sticking around on the fourth line, but I believe that the latter should be a mainstay on the Capitals’ bottom line as well.

Now look, I am not much of an advanced stats guy. I hate math and to me, advanced stats look like math. I am much more of a visual critic of hockey players. What I mean is I like to watch a player to determine how I feel about them as a player. I know there are flaws to this such as not noticing defensive, shut-down plays in comparison to dynamic, offensive plays, for example.

In addition, I am not a professional scout who knows the game better than anyone else, and I do have opinions and biases. This is purely my opinion, and do not speak for anyone except for myself when I make this argument.

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For the sake of this argument, I will dip into numbers, but will also discuss how I view Stephenson as a player. When looking at Stephenson‘s advanced stats, they are nothing to write home about. Corsi is a stat that people love to look at when critiquing hockey players. Corsi essentially helps to determine how much the team possesses the puck when a certain player is on the ice. His CF% (Corsi For %) this season is 45.0 in 64 games played.

In comparison, noted replacements, Dowd and Boyd, both had a 48.6% respectively this season. A corsi average of below 45% is considered below-average so although Stephenson’s corsi isn’t quite below average, but it almost is. This shows that Boyd and Dowd are not dominant over Stephenson in terms of offensive possession when they are on the ice, but rather they are pretty damn similar. I do not feel that this stat alone is enough to keep Stephenson out of the lineup given how close these three players are.

Another stat people love to over-analyze is plus/minus. I don’t want to give this stat as much time, but I will list off some of the facts. Boyd was a +6, Dowd was a +10, and Stephenson was a -13. However, Stephenson was a +13 last season (Boyd only played 8 games last season and Dowd was on Vancouver last season). This is a flawed stat for obvious reasons such as a player can step onto the ice to start his shift and get scored on which results in a minus for them, or if their entire team allows lots of goals all season. It does not always indicate how poor a player really is.

Drew Doughty was a -34 this season. Evgeni Malkin was a -25. Enough said.

A critique some have of Stephenson is his lack of offensive production. Although offense is not expected from a fourth-line player, Stephenson has, for some reason, been on the receiving end of this criticism with most complaining about the lack of shots he generates. In two 60+ game seasons, Stephenson only has 72 SOG (36 in each season respectively). I feel that this could be fixed by simply talking to Stephenson. Coaching needs to sit down with him and tell him he needs to shoot the puck more, especially given his respectable 13.9 S% (Shooting %).

Boyd had a 14.3 S% with only 35 SOG, and Dowd had a 17 S% with 47 SOG. Dowd played in the same amount of games as Stephenson (64) and Boyd played in 53 games this season. These two players shoot more than Stephenson and I feel that this is a confidence issue with Chandler that coaching could help address if they just talked to him and told him to try and get more pucks to the cage.

Enough with the advanced stats, let’s talk about things that are bit more up my alley. Aside from being a handsome sonuva, Chandler Stephenson is a speed-demon. This guy can fly up and down the ice. When Hagelin was brought in, everybody talked about this adding speed to their bottom six which goes without saying, but it bothered me that nobody mentioned that they had speed in their bottom six already. Stephenson, and even Burakovsky for that matter make their bottom six speedy as is.

Stephenson can win a lot of puck races and has done so in crucial moments. Just look at game 6 against Tampa Bay in the Eastern Conference Finals last season where he beat Brayden Coburn to negate an icing call and set up Devante Smith-Pelly with a gorgeous assist to take a 2-0 lead in the game. Stephenson’s speed is especially crucial on the penalty kill. Himself, Hagelin and Tom Wilson are all penalty-killers who can motor, and that makes a difference. Speed matters in the playoffs, and when you can throw out either penalty-killing unit and know they can chase down pucks and back-check hard, it puts a lot of pressure on the opponent to rush their plays which can lead to mistakes by the opposing team.

When you want to talk about having speed amongst your depth, having Stephenson, Burakovsky and Hagelin sounds like a pretty dangerously-fast bottom six.

Stephenson is able to slide up and down the lineup. We saw it last year in the playoffs when Wilson was suspended for three games for his high-hit on Zach Ashton-Reese and Stephenson stepped up onto the second unit with Nicklas Backstrom and T.J. Oshie. When Backstrom was injured for four games in the playoffs, Stephenson played third-line centre while Lars Eller filled in on 2nd-line duties. He managed to slot in on every single line during the playoffs. This kind of versatility and dependability in a player is rare and is incredibly useful during the playoffs when players are banged-up and depth means everything.

Stephenson played in all 24 games in last-year’s playoffs and attributed seven points and was a +3. He can compete in the playoffs and proved to be a very effective player in the postseason. He knows how to play the playoff-style of hockey and was a big-time player. He had his beautiful assist on Smith-Pelly’s goal, which I already mentioned, but his first career playoff goal came on a shorthanded-breakaway to put the Caps up 5-2 in game 6 against the Columbus Blue Jackets in the first round and erase any possible chance Columbus had at building momentum. That would be the final goal of the series as the Caps closed out their comeback in the first round. He also scored the game-tying goal in Game 3 of the Capitals’ second-round match-up against the Pittsburgh Penguins just moments after Wilson’s big hit on Ashton-Reese had the fans at PPG Paints Arena screaming for blood.

A game which Washington would go on to win 4-3. He also scored a goal in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Finals which was disallowed due to Smith-Pelly’s goaltender interference. A goal which most believe would have gone in regardless of whether or not Smith-Pelly had crashed through the crease. Stephenson picks and chooses his moments in the playoffs, but is a player who knows how to be successful in the postseason.

Overall, Chandler Stephenson is in a bit of a dilemma. He has been in the lineup for the majority of the games the Capitals have played this season, so it seems as though there is nothing to argue and that he is a mainstay on the Caps’ fourth line. However, he did miss games. Something that I don’t think should occur. Some people don’t think Stephenson should slot in at all and that Jaskin should be on the fourth line, a stance I completely disagree with.

Although the advanced stats do not all point to Stephenson being the best available player, when I watch him I see something completely different. He is an incredibly fast player who is defensively-responsible, can kill penalties and can confidently possess the puck in the offensive zone and make Backstrom-esque plays from time-to-time (see the Smith-Pelly assist from earlier). He is a versatile player that can slot in anywhere in a lineup if need be, and is a battle-tested playoff-player who can make big plays in big moments. In my eyes, the real debate as to who should be on the fourth line is between Dowd and Boyd.

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That is another argument entirely where each brings something of value. Dowd is the best face-off man on the team, but Boyd (much like Stephenson) is someone who looks like the better player when I watch the Caps play (a flawed “stat”, I know). Again, that is another argument entirely. Something that I feel shouldn’t be an argument, however, is that Chandler Stephenson is a player that needs to be in the Washington Capitals’ lineup consistently.

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