The Washington Capitals start their playoff series against the New York Islanders on Wednesday. The two teams are led by their respective stars. The Washington Capitals have Alex Ovechkin while the New York Islanders have John Tavares. Yesterday, we discussed how the Washington Capitals could shut down Tavares. Today, we’ll take a look at how the Washington Capitals can take advantage of home-ice and set up Ovechkin for success. They can do that because they get the last line change, which means that Barry Trotz has the power to send out Ovechkin against favorable lines.
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First, let’s take a look at the forwards. Yesterday, I mentioned that Barry Trotz likes to use Ovechkin against the other team’s top forward line. For the Islanders, judging by who Tavares’s most common linemates are, that would be Tavares, Kyle Okposo, and Josh Bailey. Usually, I’d say that’s a bad idea because you want Ovechkin to be facing “weaker” competition, but in this case, it actually works out quite well. These stats are since 2011 so that the sample size is more meaningful than a one year sample size.
General note: blue is good, red is bad.
Ovechkin has thrived against the Islanders likely first forward line since the start of 2011. Stats:
. Chart:
Not only does Ovechkin generate shot attempts against the Islanders best forward line, he also prevents them from scoring. Granted, most of these stats are also thanks to Nicklas Backstrom, so we’ll have to see if Ovi’s success against Tavares and his line can carry over to the new Washington Capitals first forward line of Ovi, Evgeny Kuznetsov and Joel Ward.
Here’s how the Washington Capitals captain does against another forward pairing consisting of Anders Lee, Ryan Strome, and Brock Nelson. This forward line is Lee’s two most common linemates this season.
Ovechkin’s stats against Lee’s forward line since 2011. Stats:
. Chart:
This is still a pretty nice line for the Washington Capitals to send Ovechkin out against, but Nelson scares me. Ovechkin hasn’t had as much success against this line as he has the first line, but this is still a nice line to send Ovi out against. Just not as great as the first line.
So who dominates the Washington Capitals leading goal scorer? That would be former Washington Capitals center Mikhail Grabovski. His most common linemates this season (worth noting that Grabo has appeared in just 51 games thanks to injuries and he probably isn’t 100% because he is recovering from a concussion) are Frans Nielsen and Nikolai Kulemin. I’ll just use Ovechkin’s stats for this season against this group because Ovi used to kick Nielsen’s butt, which I think had more to do with his linemates than Nielsen. I was right. Note: Grabovski actually hasn’t spent any relevant ice time against Ovechkin this year, so I just used his stats from 2011-2015. So Kulemin’s and Nielsen’s stats are from this season, Grabovski’s are since 2011.
This forward line is pretty freaking good against Ovechkin. Stats:
Chart:
So which forward line should the Washington Capitals send out Ovechkin against? As nuts as this sounds, the first forward line. His stats against each of the top nine forwards in chart form:
Washington Capitals Ovechkin Vs. Islanders Defensemen
This is where it gets a little bit dicey. The Washington Capitals captain has struggled against the current Islanders defensemen since 2011. Let’s see how he does against the Islanders’ “best” defensive pairing of Nick Leddy and Johnny Boychuk. Note: Since both are new to the Islanders, I’m using Ovechkin’s stats against them for just this season.
Leddy and Boychuk have avoided Ovechkin for the most part.
I doubt we’ll see much of this pairing because Leddy has just 16:24 of even strength ice time against Ovechkin and Boychuk has just 12:09 of even strength ice time against Ovechkin. The two Islanders defensemen with the most ice time against Ovechkin this season (other than Travis Hamonic because he’s likely out) is Calvin De Haan. Brian Strait will replace Hamonic. The De Haan-Strait pairing will likely see a ton of minutes against Ovechkin. Here’s how Ovechkin has done against that duo since 2011.
Here’s how Ovechkin fares against the final likely Islanders pairing of Lubomir Visnovsky and Thomas Hickey.
So which defensive pairing should the Washington Capitals match up Ovechkin against? I think the De Haan pairing is probably the best way to go. Just keep him away from the Visnovsky and Hickey pairing and he should be fine.
Next: Washington Capitals Vs New York Islanders By The Numbers: Hits