Washington Capitals: Is Patience Wearing Thin For Richard Panik?

The Washington Capitals brought in Richard Panik to fill the void left by some key departures. So far, however, Panik has been off to a slow start.

When the Capitals lost Andre Burakovsky and Brett Connolly last off-season the Washington Capitals had to go find some depth players who could score some goals and put up some points. Signing guys like Garnet Hathaway and Brendan Leipsic didn’t feel like potential replacements. Richard Panik on the other hand did.

Washington signed the 28-year-old hoping to replace some of the offense the team lost in the summer. The team did lose nearly fifty goals and no other signee seemed like they would be able to fill the void that was left behind. It was assumed Panik would be the guy to do that. He did after all score over twenty goals for Chicago in 2016-17 and had scored 14 goals in each of the past two seasons. He seemed like a player who could fill in for Brett Connolly on the Capitals third line.

Seven games into the season he has not looked like a guy who will do that. To be frank, he hasn’t even been close.

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Now we don’t want to overreact here. Just read the first five words of the previous paragraph. It’s just seven games. There is still 75 games to be played.

You also never want to take for granted just how hard it is to get acquainted to a new team and at the same time get comfortable in a new city and lifestyle. I can’t imagine how hard it is to do once let alone do it a couple of times in a few years like Panik has done.

With that said, let’s go ahead and look at what Panik is doing, which is nothing. Panik signed a four-year contract with an annual cap hit of $2.750m to score goals. Right now he’s not scoring goals and he’s hardly getting chances. Most games it’s hard to even find number 14 out on the ice.

Looking at some stats it’s a little concerning. His advanced stats are actually pretty good. His Corsi percentage is 55.05%. That’s good. His Scoring Chance For% is also good at 56.86%. His High Danger Attempts For% is pretty bad at 40.91% but he’s only four attempts away from getting to 50%. He has 9 high danger attempts for and 13 attempts against.

What’s ugly is Panik’s individual numbers. Panik along with Carl Hagelin (who deserves some criticism too) are the only forwards who have zero points on the season. In fact the only other Capitals who don’t have points are Tyler Lewington and Martin Fehervary and they’ve played 4 and 3 games respectively while Panik and Hagelin have both played all seven games.

Another fairly ugly number, Panik has just 11 individual shot attempts for. The only forwards with less are Nic Dowd and Chandler Stephenson. Those are guys who are battling for the fourth line center spot, not really relied upon to score goals.

Panik also only has five individual scoring chances for. Again, among forwards that’s only above Dowd and Stephenson. He also has three high danger attempts for above Hagelin, Vrana and Dowd.

I think a lot of hockey coaches and analyst will say the same thing I’m about to. It’s fine if you’re not scoring. Streaks happen and they will happen to everybody. Even the “Great Eight” Alex Ovechkin has gone through stretches of not scoring. Not scoring isn’t exactly Panik’s problem

The problem is his invisibility and complete lack of chances. It’s fine if you don’t score, it’s a big problem if you’re not getting chances. The chances are few and far between for Mr. Panik. Thanks to that the patience of the Capitals coaches may be wearing thin.

Going into the game against the Colorado Avalanche on Monday afternoon Panik was averaging 13:14 of ice time. Against the Avs he only managed to play 7:28, 59 seconds of that time was shorthanded.

We’re seven games into the season. That’s it. There’s plenty of time to figure it out. The Capitals are clearly hoping Panik figures it out sooner rather than later. If he doesn’t at least start creating some chances something might have to change and change quickly.