Washington Capitals: What Will Happen When T.J. Oshie’s Shooting Percentage Drops?

T.J. Oshie is off to a strong start but what will happen when his shooting percentage drops?

Scoring goals is the main objective in the game of hockey. For T.J. Oshie, thank goodness for that. Early in the season Oshie leads the Capitals in goals with seven. On a team with Alex Ovechkin, one of the greatest goal scorers of all time, Oshie leads the Capitals in goals scored. If I were him I’d frame that sentence.

While leading a team in goals is a good thing Oshie hasn’t exactly been the best version of himself so far this season. If it weren’t for the goals he’s scored I’m not sure I could tell you he has played this season. Other than scoring goals he’s been a little invisible.

He isn’t really alone in this category. Seemingly most of the team has been somewhat quiet almost every game except for Ovechkin, Wilson, Carlson and recently, in my opinion, Carl Hagelin. In most games this season you don’t walk away saying, “Man, (insert a players name here) had a good game tonight!” You just haven’t been able to say that a lot this year so far. Oshie falls in that category.

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Is this an issue? He’s scoring goals, who cares? I’m not here to tell you Oshie has been horrible. But being a key player being unnoticeable night after night isn’t a good thing, obviously.

If Oshie continues to be as quiet as he has to start this season the goals might or are probably even likely to stop coming. Right now he has seven goals on 22 shots. That’s a shooting percentage of 31.8%. Oshie’s previous career high is 23.1% back in the 2016-17 season, his second season in Washington where he scored a career-best 33 goals.

That shooting percentage is going to fall. Just to compare, the leader in shooting percentage last season was Ivan Barbashev of the  St. Louis Blues and he shot at 23%. The year before that it was William Karlsson of the Vegas Golden Knights who shot 23% also. Shooting nearly 32% is not really sustainable. I won’t say it’s impossible, but incredibly unlikely.

Another thing to consider here is four of Oshie’s goals have come via the power play. His three 5v5 goals still tie for team lead with Ovechkin and Carlson but more of his goals come while on the man advantage.

When you look at his advanced stats it pretty much tells you what I’ve been saying. He’s been average. His Corsi% is currently 50% exactly. That’s 15th on the team. His scoring chance percentage is 50.81%. That’s also 15th on the team. While on the ice the Capitals have scored eight goals. They’ve also allowed eight. Finally while on the ice Washington has 27 high danger attempts for and 24 against.

Oshie has 15 individual scoring chances which ranks seventh on the team behind Ovechkin, Wilson, Eller, Hathaway, Vrana and Backstrom. Ovechkin, Vrana and Backstrom I’m fine with Oshie being behind. I’d rather him have more individual chances than Wilson, Eller and Hathaway though.

I’m not here to criticize Oshie. There isn’t that much to criticize here. He has seven goals, leads the team and is among the league leaders. What I will say is that he still needs to be better. When the shooting percentage starts to fall then what happens?

At even strength he isn’t shooting that much. Eleven games into the season he only has 12 shots while 5v5. So if Oshie isn’t shooting, and the shooting percentage drops, and he doesn’t become more noticeable, what is he bringing to the team?

Sure, he’s fine on defense. He or his line doesn’t tend to give up boat loads of chances. This Capitals team however isn’t that deep on offense and they need him to continue to score goals.

If Oshie’s overall game doesn’t improve Caps fans will have to hope his shooting percentage doesn’t drop. If Oshie isn’t scoring goals I’m not sure what he brings offensively right now. That’s my concern for T.J. Oshie. Hopefully it will stay a concern and not turn into a problem.