Capitals: Season Review of Dmitry Orlov Part 2

We continue our look at Dmitry Orlov with part two.

In the first part, I went through Dmitry Orlovs’ on-ice statistics through 58 games and compared his 19-20 season marks to his totals from last year. Moving forward, we’ll look at his individual statistics and similarly compare them to last season.

Orlov now has 59 games played, amassing 1085 minutes of this span. He is averaging 18.38 minutes per game. As I mentioned in the first part, last season he was at 18.52.

Orlov has never been a point producing defenseman. That is not his game. With that said, his totals here are not inspiring. Over the 59 games, he has one goal, 14 assists, for 15 points. This averages out to .25 points per game, down from .29 last year. Down, but unremarkably.

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One stat that is on the rise, is his total shots. Orlov has 76 shots this year, compared to 86 last year. He had three shots alone in his last game. He is getting 1.29 shots per game, up from 1.05 last year. His individual Corsi is up as well. Coming in at 160 total shots, that is 2.71iCF per game. Last years was 2.45iCF per game.

His individual Scoring Chances are on par with last seasons’ average. He has 43 individual Scoring Chances, to 56 over 82 last year. Of his 43 chances, four have been categorized as High Danger Scoring Chances. With only six iHDCF last year, I’d bet he passes this mark.

Now to the stats that are indicative of his elite level play. Orlov is an elite defenseman, despite the lack of respect locally and nationally. Orlov is our most aggressive defenseman in terms of playing puck carriers. He has 34 takeaways this season, first on the entire roster. This is good for fifth in the league among defensemen. Of the 12 players ahead of him in ice time as defensemen, none of them have more takeaways. He led the Capitals last season as well, with 81; good for 6th among is counterparts in the NHL last year. This is what he does about as good as any player in his position in the league.

The most common critique of Orlovs’ game is his decision making leading to bad turnovers. These are generally a result of him doing other things that most players aren’t good enough to even do. I’d rather a player exceptional enough to play outside the box, than one hemmed up inside by the level of play around them.

But even this criticism isn’t supported all that well by the numbers. He has 46 giveaways over the 59 games. There are only 12 defensemen who have more 5 v 5 minutes than Orlov does. Their average for giveaways is just under 48. He’s below average with 46. Carlson himself has 51 and has 24 more giveaways than takeaways. Orlov only has 12 more. He is averaging .78 giveaways per game, down from .80 last season. His bad plays are noticeable but occur less often than average while making plays that aren’t average.

Another hallmark of Orlovs’ play is the physical nature of his game. He has 82 hits this season, only behind Gudas’ 139. As we have just traded for Dillon, he will shortly fall into third on the back end. He came in 2nd last season in hits, with 129.

Watching the games, it is not something I’ve really noticed, but he has seen a noticeable increase in his PIM’s. He is up to 24 PIM’s over 59 games. Compared to his 26 PIM’s last season, he is one penalty away from tying his total from his previous season. His partner, assignments, and personal play probably all are the causality of this.

There is no doubt that Orlov has been struggling recently, but it is more a symptom related to the teams’ overall play, versus his own. For the defensive structure to do its job, all 5 players need to play in relation to the next without interruption. The lack of execution by just one player, will lead to a breakdown of the structure. This is where the Capitals need to improve to seriously contend for the Cup again.

These numbers are all adjusted to 5 v 5 play. These stats came from naturalstattrick.com.