Washington Capitals: Connor McMichael Needs More Ice Time

Developing young players is hard. There is not one way to do it. Every kid has a different path to the NHL and every young guy has a different need to help him reach his full potential. Connor McMichael is no different.

The Capitals have seemingly been very careful about the 20-year-old center. Maybe for good reasons. At the end of the day, they don’t really need him right now. If the Capitals are at full strength there isn’t really a spot for him. That’s a nod to the Caps depth right now. Their center depth is Nicklas Backstrom, Evgeny Kuznetsov, Lars Eller and Nic Dowd. Not a lot of teams can match that lineup.

At the end of the day however, things change. As hard as it is for fans and even the team to come to terms with sometimes. Fan favorites and old reliable players will not stay at the top of their game forever. You always need to be looking out for that younger player who can bump out one of your older players and potentially make your team better in the long run.

We could be at that point right now with McMichael. It could be time for him to nudge a veteran out of the way, leading to more time and chances for himself.

Right now, it looks like McMichael is an injury fill in. The Capitals currently have a coaching staff who seems to favor veterans, like most tend to do. When Backstrom, Oshie, Mantha and Dowd all come back from injury where do you put McMichael? Do you want to put him on the wing in place of maybe Sheary or Sprong?

That’s another argument for another time. Washington still has injuries and some of those injuries will hold those key guys out for sometime still. Where to put McMichael when the team is at full strength is an argument that can be put on the back burner for several weeks still.

The only argument we are here to make is that the younger center has deserved more ice time.

While 5v5 McMichael has been on the ice for 111:24. Sounds like a lot sure, but that ranks 15th out of the 22 Capitals who have skated this season. There is only one lineup regular that McMichael has more ice time than, that is Anthony Mantha. Both of them have played in ten games this season, Mantha has skated 109:04 at 5v5. Nic Dowd has played in nine games and has skated 97:37.

When you watch the games you will already know how good McMichael has been. Is he blowing the doors off good? No, he hasn’t been that good, but the eye test has definitely been very good for a young guy playing his first set of games. If the eye test is telling you he is good, he has probably won more than half of that battle.

But, we live in a world with stats. We can use these stats to tell us if a guy has been playing good or poorly. Sometimes these stats will tell us some nasty fibs one way or another. Other times they can back up what we see on the ice. In McMichael’s terms, they easily back up what we’re seeing on the ice.

While 5v5 McMichael technically has the second best Corsi% on the team at 59.20%. He is only behind Aliaksei Protos who played in one game and had a CF% of 60%. The next highest after McMichael is Alex Ovechkin who is at 53.63%. To put it another way, the rest of the Capitals team is way behind McMichael.

He’s not just playing on the right side of the rink either. When he is on the ice Washington is getting chances. His Scoring Chance For % is 66.67%, His High Danger Attempts % is 72.97% and his expected Goal For % is 68.11%. All of those numbers are second on the team and he is behind only Axel Jonsson-Fjallby, who again, has only played one game in his NHL career.

He isn’t only among the leaders in the fancy stats. When 5v5, believe it or not, he is also among the scoring leaders. Currently he has 2 goals and 3 assists for 5 points, all of those points coming at full and even strength. He’s only behind Ovechkin who has 12 points, Tom Wilson who has 9 and Kuznetsov who has 6. McMichael is tied with Orlov who also has 5 5v5 points early on in the season.

Something I also find impressive is even with all the stars on this Capitals team, of all the guys who can basically create their own chances out of next to nothing Michael is among the leaders in individual scoring chances and individual high danger attempts. Again, while 5v5 he has 24 scoring chances. That is second on the entire team behind only the captain, Ovechkin who has 36. McMichael shares the team lead in high danger attempts with Kuznetsov, they both have 12 HD attempts.

Again, he’s among the team leaders even though the team leaders have played at least sixty more minutes that he has this season.

Even though he is a leader in seemingly every offensive category on this team, McMichael only has 36 seconds of power play time so far this season. To make that even worse, he only has 4 seconds of 5v4 power play time. In terms of total power play minutes he only has more time on ice than Martin Fehervary, Carl Hagelin and Garnet Hathaway. That has to change.

Connor McMichael deserves more ice time. The numbers say it. His on ice performance demands it.