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Is The Capitals Team Defense Good Enough

By CJ Witt

WASHINGTON, DC - NOVEMBER 15: Nick Suzuki #14 of the Montreal Canadiens scores a goal against Ilya Samsonov #30 of the Washington Capitals in the second period at Capital One Arena on November 15, 2019 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Patrick McDermott/NHLI via Getty Images)
WASHINGTON, DC - NOVEMBER 15: Nick Suzuki #14 of the Montreal Canadiens scores a goal against Ilya Samsonov #30 of the Washington Capitals in the second period at Capital One Arena on November 15, 2019 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Patrick McDermott/NHLI via Getty Images) /
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Coming into the season I thought the Washington Capitals would have issues scoring.

In the off-season the team had lost a couple of key depth forwards resulting in about fifty goals lost from last season. More than twenty games into the season the scoring is fine. The thing we may need to be concerned about is if the team defense is good enough.

The Capitals have scored their way to the top of the NHL standings. They have scored a total of 81 goals which is most in the league. Second in the NHL is the Colorado Avalanche who have scored 73 goals. That shows you the gap between first and second.

It’s not all the Capitals vaunted power play either. Sure, it has something to do with it but the Capitals have scored 49 goals 5v5 which is second best in the league. The power play is currently clicking at a 23.3% rate good for ninth place on the circuit.

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Goals scoring to this point is a non issue. If you’re going to look at a potential issue it might be team defense.

In all situation the Capitals have given up 66 goals this season. That’s the 7th most in the NHL. Teams who have let up more are teams that you don’t really want to be associated with early in the season. Team that have allowed more are the Red Wings, Maple Leafs, Sharks, Kings, Panthers and Wild.

The Caps are just below other non threatening teams, teams by the name of the Devils and Senators. Yes, believe it or not the Caps have allowed more goals than both the New Jersey Devils and the Ottawa Senators.

While 5v5 the Capitals have given up the third most shot attempts in the league. The Capitals are one of two teams in the bottom ten in shot attempts against to still have a Corsi% over 50%, the other team being the Maple Leafs. The Capitals percentage being 50.15%. They only have six more attempts for than against having 971 attempts for and 965 against.

They’ve allowed the fifth most shots against while 5v5 allowing 526 shots against while getting 523 shots of their own. Again, the bottom six isn’t really great company being with the likes of the Blackhawks, Jets, Leafs and Ducks.

But shots are just shots aren’t they? If they all come from the outside your playing pretty good defense. If the shots are all outside, it’s not dangerous therefore you’re not allowing many chances
As you’ll soon see however the Capitals apparently do not hold them to non dangerous shots.

At full and even strength the Caps have allowed 438 scoring chances. That’s the eighth most in the NHL. To make this worse they’ve allowed 40 scoring chance goals which is tied for fifth most in the league. As you might guess that means their save percentage isn’t great. Their scoring chance save percentage is eleventh worst at 85.24%.

We’re not quite done yet. The Capitals have allowed 186 high danger attempts against. That makes them the sixth worst team in this stat. They’ve allowed 32 high danger goals against as well and that is the second most behind only the 36 that the Maple Leafs have given up. The Capitals 77.62% high danger save percentage is bottom five in the NHL.

Call me old school but I still think defense wins championships. A lot of the time high scoring teams will run into great defenses or hot goaltenders and just like that they’re out of the playoffs. If Washington can’t seal things up on defense they will have to hope they can keep up the offense.

There might be signs of the offense starting to cool down already. While the Caps have scored the most goals in the NHL, in the last three games the Capitals have scored one goal against the Flyers, two goals against the Canadiens and two goals against the Bruins. They ended up with two wins in these games but both coming in the shootout against the Flyers and Bruins.

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There’s no shootouts in the playoffs and no 3-on-3 for that matter. If the offense dries up do the Capitals play enough defense to make a serious run? It will be something to watch. The way I see it right now though, the defense will need step up.

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