Digging Deeper Into Marcus Johansson’s Good Start To The Season

I was one of the people who was very confused when the Washington Capitals traded for Marcus Johansson last trade deadline. To me it felt like, and still feels like to be honest, a move for making a move sake. What he brought and brings isn’t really what the Capitals needed. But they brought him aboard anyways.

For the most part I think people like me were correct. He didn’t bring anything after the trade deadline. He scored six points in 18 games. That’s fine. Overall however, just watching the games, he just didn’t do anything that made you think that move was necessary.

The season ends, the Capitals go through their tradition of failing in the first round and I, like many I assume, thought Johansson was done with the Capitals. Again.

Count me as shocked when it was reported that the Caps had signed Johansson for another season. I was likely shocked because General Manager Brian MacLellan said that he wanted to add more youth to the team. Signing a 32-year-old isn’t exactly youth. Then you add signing Erik Gustafsson, 30, and Darcy Kuemper, 32, as well, so much for the youth movement.

I was surprised because it seemed as if the Capitals had committed to young prospects they had. Prospects like Connor McMichael, Hendrix Lapierre and even Aliaksei Protas who made a lot of noise in preseason. The Capitals had young legs who looked ready to make the team. Signing a guy like Johansson, to me, seemed like a roster spot lost. Frankly it is, there is no arguing that, now debate is if that is a good or bad thing.

At some point you do have to play McMichael. Sitting him for six of the teams first seven games is not even close to being good for a 21-year-olds development. It just isn’t. He needs to play, somewhere. NHL or not.

As much as the top prospect, if you can call him a prospect anymore, needs to play, you cannot take Johansson out of the lineup. He has been too good. Other writers, writers much better than yours truly have been able to write better about how important Johansson has been to this Capitals team this season. Here and today we are just going to talk about numbers, but make no mistake, Johansson has been terrific for his team to start the season.

When you look at the numbers Johansson is a bit of a mixed bag. His possession percentage is 47.83%. That isn’t very good. Then you dive into what’s happening during that possession and it’s even worse. His scoring chance percentage is 39.73%, being on the ice for 29 chances for and 44 against. He has also been on the ice for 11 high danger attempts for and 19 attempts against, or is 36.67%. Finally his expected goals for percentage is 37.20%

All of that being pretty bad. Then you look at one very important stat. He has been on the ice for 4 goals for and zero goals against while at 5v5.

This probably tells me that so far this season Johansson has been a little lucky to not give up more goals. Take Ovechkin for an example. The captain unfortunately leads the team in scoring chances against and high danger attempts against. He has 47 and 22, respectively. While on the ice he has seen 7 goals go past his own goalie.

You can’t credit Johansson and his line being better at defense that much. Johansson has seen 44 chances against and 19 high danger attempts against. That is not much less than Ovechkin. A chance is a chance, and a high danger attempt is pretty black and white. For whatever reason, those chances are going in against Ovechkin and his line and not against Johansson and his.

At the end of the day, he is contributing on the offense. To start this season he has 2 goals and five points in 7 games. A very good start for almost anyone. Both of his goals have come at 5v5 and one of those was a game winner.

You also have to look at his impact on the power play. With the man advantage the Capitals started the season pretty poorly. Since Johansson has been added to the top unit the results have improved.

Johansson has 3 power play points, all assists, two of the three being primary assists. He has replaced Kuznetsov on the top unit. That has to say something about both guys if we are being honest.

If there is one criticism you can have about him on the power play. He has just over twenty minutes played on the power play, zero shots. I would use this criticism for Kuznetsov and Backstrom as well. Keep the defense honest and let them know you shooting is a threat. A minor complaint right now, but watch out for that later.

When you’re wrong you’re wrong. I did not like the trade for Johansson last deadline, I like the re-signing even less. I thought he was going to be nothing more than a blocker for the young guys who deserved and needed the playing time in his place. I personally still think the young guys need the time, but right now, it cannot come in Johansson’s place.

He has been too good for this team. You could honestly say that he has been the best forward this team has this season. At least in terms of consistency.

We will have to keep an eye on those underlying stats. Is he just getting lucky? Is he getting bailed out by goaltending? What happens if that stops?

That is a different worry for a different day. Right now, Johansson is proving a lot of people, including me wrong. It has been a great start for number 90. If he can keep this up it could be one heck of a bargain move for the Capitals and GM Brian MacLellan.