It’s time for another Stars of the Week, Washington Capitals fans!
The week started out rough with another loss to a team that you have to consider a threat the New York Islanders. The Capitals rebounded and did so in an impressive way by beating the rival Carolina Hurricanes in Raleigh then beating the San Jose Sharks in a historic way on Sunday afternoon.
It was an easier week to pick stars of the week. Even the loss to the Islanders was a fairly good performance. There were several players I noticed a lot and there were a couple of Caps who put up good stats and numbers at the same time.
I don’t care to waste too much more of your time, so lets just get right to it shall we.
Evgeny Kuznetsov
I tend to think a deep Capitals playoff run depends on Kuznetsov possibly more than any other player on this team, maybe he’s behind the goaltenders in that but he’s not far behind. If Kuznetsov is going there are not many teams that can stop the Capitals. If he’s floating this team becomes a lot easier to beat.
This week, I thought Kuznetsov was very good. He had five points in the three games this week and all five of those points were primary points. He had three goals and two primary assists.
His advanced stats weren’t that good. Most of his numbers this past week we’re below average to be frank, but in my eyes he was still very noticeable.
His Corsi% was 49.44%, that’s below 50% obviously, but he had 44 shot attempts for and 45 against, so with one more shot attempt and he’s at 50%.
Kuznetsov also had 23 scoring chances for and 23 chances against. That equals a 50% rating in that stat as well. While on the ice the Caps had 11 high danger chances for and 9 high danger chances against. His 55% rating was fourth on the team this week.
Kuznetsov also had five individual scoring chances, that was fifth on the team this week. He drew three penalties this week, that was a team best. Finally he was 50% at face-offs this week. Kuznetsov has never really been the best at the dot so being at 50% for a week is pretty good for him.
While his advanced stats don’t scream stars of the week material he was very noticeable, at least to me and he put up the numbers worthy of being one of our stars of the week. Lets hope for many more from number 92.